Legal
Shield Home
Business Opportunities
Legal
Shield
is different from most U.S. top MLM companies, as instead of dealing
with nutritional products, it provides legal service products. This is
the data provided by Wikipedia:
LegalShield is a privately held American corporation that offers specialized legal service products in the United States and Canada. The company was originally founded August 8, 1972 as the Sportsman's Motor Club. In 1976 it was incorporated as Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc., and made its initial public offering in 1984. Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. was acquired by MidOcean Partners in 2011 and changed its name to LegalShield.
Is Legal Shield a pyramid scheme?
Legal Shield has had a history of lawsuits and judgements, as were
found in this Wikipedia entry:
On July 11, 1969, former CEO and
founder Harland C. Stonecipher of Ada, Oklahoma was involved in a motor
vehicle accident and was hospitalized. Although the other party was
cited for fault, they filed a suit against him for the accident.[3]
He hired a lawyer to defend himself in court, but in doing so, depleted
his life savings. After researching the industry of European legal
expense plans, Stonecipher created Pre-Paid Legal's predecessor, The
Sportsman’s Motor Club, on August 8, 1972. The club offered legal
expense reimbursement to its members. Pre-Paid Legal began utilizing
"network marketing" (multi-level marketing or MLM) in 1983. Pre-Paid
Legal went public on the NASDAQ National Market System in 1984. Two years
later, the company moved to the American Stock Exchange and then
on May 13, 1999, Pre-Paid Legal was listed on the New York Stock Exchange.[4]
In 2001, the Wyoming Attorney General issued a press release announcing "When we discovered that Pre-Paid was using prohibited income representations to promote their multilevel marketing program, we warned them that the representations were prohibited by Wyoming law". Pre-Paid paid $4,000 in lieu of civil penalties, reimbursed the state for $1,000 in costs, and refunded $2,000 to participants who claimed to have been misled.[5][6] In July the same year, the company was forced by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to stop counting the commissions they paid out to sales associates as assets, instead of expenses,[7] the same way other types of insurance companies do, though they did not release their updated, halved, 2000 earnings figures until February 2002.[8]
Pre-Paid Legal has faced ongoing troubles in Missouri. After the company settled complaints in 2001, a number of similar suits arose. The company won in a jury trial against two plaintiffs,[9] but after losing others, including one in which a former customer was awarded $9.9 million[7][10] settled with more than 400 others. The company, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of which Pre-Paid Legal CEO Harland Stonecipher is a director,[11] have described the lawsuits against the company as "frivolous" and "abusive".[12]
Pre-Paid Legal reported to the SEC that less than 25% of its sales representatives sold more than one insurance plan in 2005, but avoids reporting such information to prospective sales representatives.[13]
In October 2009, Tulsa World reported[14] that Pre-Paid Legal had been subpoenaed by the SEC for various documents including those pertaining to a stock repurchase program that Pre-Paid started in April 1999. (And in 2006, the company said it would repurchase $27.4 million of shares owned by executives.)[13] The SEC reported that thus far that its demand for documents is a "fact finding" mission.
On November 19, 2009, Pre-Paid Legal announced[15] that it received a complaint from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The proposed draft complaint alleged that Pre-Paid's "ADRS program and related materials violate Section 5(a) of the FTC Act regarding asserted misleading representations, express or implied."[16] On July 27, 2010 the FTC ended its three year investigation of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. without any action.[17]
Forbes magazine again in November 2010 ranked Pre-Paid Legal Services as number 78 out of the 100 best companies in America.
In January 2011, Pre-Paid Legal agreed to merge with entities formed by MidOcean Partners, a premier private equity firm headquartered in New York which it says is "focused on the middle market." The transaction would result in the company becoming privately held. The deal closed on June 31, 2011.[18]
On September 10, 2011, the company announced [19] that it would change its name to LegalShield. The new corporate name for the 40 year old company was said by the company to be part of an overall re-branding initiative following the acquisition of Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. by MidOcean Partners.
While it is not illegal, critics of this type of advertising prefer advertisers to be up front about their company associations.
What you should know in order to succeed in Legal Shield
It makes little sense for you to invest so much of your time - of
your life - in a company
which isn't going to give you the best of the home business
opportunities available these days.
The primary problem which Legal Shield and other MLM organizations
have
is
that once a new distributor runs out of "warm prospects" (people he
personally already knows), then he's dependent on those people who he
has already sponsored to get their friends and associates
sponsored.
Generating network marketing leads to become new prospects has
become a major issue for Legal Shield and other MLM home based
businesses.
For
any home business opportunity, we highly recommend learning and
applying the "funded
proposal" system as developed by Mike Dillard in his "Magnetic Sponsoring" training. Additional to this
is Mark Hall's training site MLM Rock
Stars, which gives you free training and
necessary tools to generate your own MLM leads - which means, again, inviting them to come to you
instead of buying cold lists and chasing them
yourself.
What makes Legal Shield a top MLM company?
These top MLM Companies were determined by the folks at Nexera.
The reasoning behind their research is outlined below:
2) The company must be in business for at least 10 years as of December 31, 2012.
3) The company must have a Google Page Rank - GPR. A scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being best.
4) The company must have an Alexa Rank - AR. Here the smaller the number the better.
5) The company must show up in Google Trends - GT. All Regions. Last 12 months.
Why 10 years? Because that amount of time really seems to matter. For example, according to research, since 1956 thousands of different MLM, Multi Level, or Network Marketing companies have opened their doors; and to date only +/- 50 MLM companies have found a way to celebrate their 10th anniversary and still remain in business today. Now, to be completely fair, we should also point out that each and every company on our list was at one time a start-up company too.
For purposes of comparing Internet search term interest using Google Trends (GT), all companies were compared to the term, MLM. A score of 1.00 would indicate the same level of Internet search interest; anything above 1.00 more interest, anything below 1.00 less interest.
Now that you know about Legal Shield as a top MLM company, are you ready to learn and use the system
which makes the top-earners what they are?
Click here to find out what you need to know.
Regardless, we wish you the best of luck and progress as you
continue with your home business marketing training.
