Why Your Legal Leg Up Created the Products the Way We Did

Sometimes people ask me why we have so many different products on the site instead of a “one-size-fits-all” type policy. Actually, there are some good reasons for the way we do it. Law – even debt law – is complicated, and being sued is stressful. One the main things we try to do on this site and in our products, therefore, is to balance the need for more information against the need for simplicity. Too much information at one time can be overwhelming. On the other hand,chances are good that at some point you will need to speak to a judge or the lawyer for the other side. If we simplify too much, you won’t be learning what you need to learn in order to be ready to understand some of the arguments the other side will make.

Also, people’s situations differ. Even in debt law, where things are often so similar, there will be differences in the facts, and state laws or standards often differ somewhat. If we gave a one-size-fits-all product, we would be short-changing some people. And when the materials are too precise, people have a tendency simply to adopt what is there instead of thinking it through and making it their own. We consider that a form of legal advice that we aren’t authorized to give. We want to educate you, not tell you what to do, because the crucial moments of the case will involve you thinking of things without us on the phone.

Our products do require you do some work.

Our memberships do not include everything. The litigation process is taken in a series of specific steps – all of them might become necessary, but in most cases many are not, and it isn’t necessarily fair to charge people for elaborate products they may never need. Therefore we have two products which are designed for everyone, and the rest of the products are there if you need them.

The Products for Everyone

The main two products for everyone are the Litigation Manual and the memberships.The Litigation Manual was designed to give you

  • a basis for understanding what debt law is and what your opportunities may be under the law;
  • who the debt collectors are and how they work;
  • what the procedural steps of a lawsuit are and how to work with them; and
  • how to find out what you need to know but don’t already know.
The Memberships are designed to address things more on an ad hoc level. Things always come up, and the Manual and our site are not always clear. Teleconferences will help with those, as well as give you encouragement – which is surprisingly important. The other membership benefits, the document bank and member-only materials, are also important in reducing the amount of work you must do and the stress that work puts on you.

“As-Needed” Products

There are some products that are needed by a fairly large group of Your Legal Leg Up customers, and these fall into two main categories: the Motions Packs, and the Reports. These products address a single specific question (reports) or event in litigation (the Motions Packs). They are all significant packages containing a lot of information designed to help you analyze and respond to a specific situation. If you are not in that situation, giving you this information might swamp you and create “paralysis by analysis, ” because the number of things that could happen in a lawsuit are overwhelming, whereas the things that actually do happen in a debt case are often quite manageable. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist, and the lawyer on the other side certainly isn’t one. You need to take things one thing at a time, and our product structure is designed to help you do this.

A Never-Ending Parade of Products?

It could seem that you’re having to buy many products and that there’s no end in sight. And In a way, it’s true that there is no end in sight. When you file a lawsuit or have one filed against you, the number of different things that could happen while the case winds towards its conclusion really is hard to imagine. It won’t help you to try to figure them all out in advance, and it does not help many people, in my opinion, to try to prepare for them all at the beginning. The products available here are designed to apply to specific steps the debt collector might take. The only reason you would end up buying several products is that the debt collector is using a large number of its tricks – and the good news there for you is that it is costing them a lot of money to do this (much more than it is costing you), and this is making them think about dropping your case.

A Possible Short Cut

In a way, the amount of time, effort and money you will spend on this case is dependent on what the debt collectors do. And to some extent this is completely independent of you and only depends on what the debt collection lawyer (or the company) thinks it should do. But sometimes there are things you could do to push things more rapidly to a conclusion.
Seizing the initiative is probably the single most important thing you can do. And by that I mean that you should take control of the case. If they send you a petition, you must answer (or default), but you seize the initiative by filing a counterclaim and serving discovery. That means they went from a good chance to win the default lottery while spending very little money to a lower chance of winning the case (no lottery at all anymore) after spending a lot of money. The more you do that – answering everything they give you to do with a response making them do stuff – the better chance they’ll get tired of the thing and move on to someone else.
I suggest you keep your eyes open always for this opportunity. Make them work every time they look at your case. They’re not used to that.