What Gold Membership Is, What it Costs

We talked generally about memberships in Introducing Memberships. That article gave a little of the history of this site and why we currently offer and emphasize memberships.

To repeat, briefly, what we said there, the law firms and companies specializing in debt collection have certain advantages over pro se litigants – or even represented defendants. These advantages include the ability to handle numerous cases at the same time, to build up document banks or resources so they can simply use the same materials over and over, and the ability to talk to other people doing the same thing so they can use what worked in someone else’s case in their own.

There’s really nothing we can do about their ability to handle more than one case at a time – except to try to take that away from them. That’s a key to Your Legal Leg Up’s strategy in general. By pressing the defense of our cases, pushing the discovery, arguing motions, and most of the other things we suggest, you will force the debt collector to attend to your case on an individual basis. This swings the advantages of economics in favor of the defendant. Whereas the debt collector starts by being able to handle perhaps a hundred cases at one time, by pressing your defense you force him to handle only one at a time. And they like to charge $200/hour. If you can work for under $200/hour, you’ll suddenly be doing things more cheaply than the plaintiff.

And they never know whether they’ll collect if they win.

But what of their other advantages?

Gold Membership provides:

• Access to our constantly expanding library of member-only articles and videos;
• Regular communications from our team regarding new opportunities and developments;
• Free attendance at our twice-weekly telephone conferences where you can ask questions and hear others ask theirs – a great source of ideas and inspiration.

Member-only Materials and Teleconferences

Our member-only collection of articles and videos exists to help you overcome the main advantages of the debt collectors. You still must do individual work, but now it much less like drudgery and more useful and effective. They have standardized documents, and now you can get standardized documents at a discount, too. They talk to each other, and now you, through our member-only materials, have access to new strategies as well.

But probably the main benefit of membership is our teleconferences. They give you a chance, twice per week, to ask specific questions of our staff at Your Legal Leg Up. With all appropriate modesty, I feel quite certain that we are among the very most knowledgeable people on this area of the law in the whole country. We’ve certainly put out more videos and articles, haven’t we? And as a lawyer I represented dozens and dozens of debt defendants – and Your Legal Leg Up, in over ten years of existence, has helped far more than that. I doubt anyone has anywhere near as much experience helping people with these cases.

And you get to tap into that twice per week. We’ll get your questions answered, too. You won’t spend a lot of the time on the phone listening to others and then hang up without answers – we go as long as necessary to make sure you get your questions answered. These things give you tools that streamline the debt defense process and take some of the doubt and worry out of it.

Just as important, the teleconferences allow you to give encouragement to others and be encouraged by them. It isn’t possible to join with others in defending your case, but this is as close as it gets. It will feel like you’re on a team, and for many people that feeling can make all the difference in results.

So What Does It Cost?

Gold Membership costs $10 per month, and there’s a $60 sign-up fee. That covers the built-in costs of writing and keeping the Litigation Manual up to date and of creating so many of the other materials.

You will Probably Also Want to Get

You will probably want to get our First Response Kit to help get you started on the right foot. It may be all you need other than the membership. It includes an article outlining what to do, how to answer or decide on a motion to dismiss, and an extensive sample of discovery that you can modify to suit your situation. It will take many hours out of the defense process for you.

10,000 Members

Our goal is to grow to 10,000 members. That would allow us to hire additional people and expand our materials and services quite a bit. And THAT would help even more – many more – people beat the debt collectors. I like to say that the debt collectors run a “factory” type enterprise, where they get their judgments and are content to let a few people slip through the cracks. If we could get a lot more people to defend themselves, and to do it right and energetically, we could make it impossible for the debt collectors to use a factory approach at all.

And given the current state of affairs, that would probably shut them down completely. Think about it – instead of bringing 100 cases at a time and spending (as one debt collector admitted in a case I was involved in) 18 minutes to gather information, file a case, and pursue it ALL the way to judgment, they’d have to handle it like real cases. The lawyers would have to check the facts before they filed, gather evidence, and do the things most lawyers do – it’s hard work! And most debt companies just wouldn’t do it. They couldn’t.

How You Purchase

You buy by clicking on “Register” under “About Memberships” in the main menu and choosing the level of membership you want.