Legal Hotline

Ever hesitated picking up the phone to a lawyer for fear of the fee? How to get trusted advice without the 6 minute billable unit

A lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates. To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter. But, to his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the lawyer was standing. St. Peter greeted him warmly. Then St. Peter and one of his assistants took the lawyer by the hands and guided him up to the front of the line into a comfortable chair by his desk.

The lawyer said, "I don't mind all this attention, but what makes me so special?"

St. Peter replied, "Well, I've added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 150 years old!"

Lawyers can have a bad reputation because they can charge a lot for what appears to be simple advice. You've heard the stories and the jokes. These stories have caused lawyers to be unapproachable to most business owners. The Legal Hotline is designed to change all that and is central to the Approachable Lawyer philosophy.

Our philosophy

At Approachable Lawyer we work on a simply philosophy: proactive advice at an affordable cost, not reactive advice at an extortionate cost. I'll explain what I mean...

Imagine your business is a house, a house which you have built from scratch. If you don't build it with the proper foundations and materials and maintain it every year, then sooner or later it is going to fall down and cost you a fortune to rebuild. Similarly, if you don't construct your business properly and maintain it along the way then problems occur. Very often, those problems occur in the form of litigation. I used to be a litigation lawyer when I worked in London and believe me, it costs a fortune and there are no real winners. However, the one thing I noticed as a litigation lawyer was that about 90% of the problems could have been avoided had the parties got proper legal advice before the problem arose.

That's where the Legal Hotline comes in

There are two reasons business owners don't get proactive legal advice:

They don't know they need it - the old adage, you don't know what you don't know; and
Cost - which, as I have explained above, is actually a little short-sighted.

When you become a Member of the Legal Hotline you will get educated on what you need to know and you won't have to worry about cost. This is because the Legal Hotline provides you with the following:

Access to the Approachable Lawyer Secret Library: you may have seen reference to this elsewhere on the website. In simple terms it is a library of template documents, checklists, e-learning videos, and pdf reports. It is the equivalent of a law firm's in-house precedent library except that it is tailored for the business owner.
Free "sub 30" telephone or email consults: this is for those one off legal questions that you may have when normally you wouldn't call a lawyer for fear of the fee. Or, you can use it to get me to cast my eye over a legal document for you â€“ maybe one that you have tailored yourself from the Secret Library. Perhaps, you have questions over a document or report you have found in the Secret Library. There is only one rule namely I must be able to deal with your query in less than 30 minutes. If it is going to take longer then we move into consultancy.
Reduced consultancy fees: my standard consultancy fee is $300 + GST per hour. That is pretty standard for a lawyer of my experience. If you are a Hotline Member you pay only $200 + GST which is considerably below market rates. I challenge you to find a lower hourly rate for a lawyer with my experience.

What does membership cost?

The information loaded in the Secret Library alone is worth many thousands of dollars in saved legal fees so you would expect membership of the Legal Hotline with the added benefit of free telephone consultations and reduced consultancy fees to put the cost into the $1000s. However, you would be wrong. The actual cost is $640 + GST per year. You can pay either every year or in monthly instalments of $60. If you pay in monthly instalments then there is a minimum commitment of 1 year.

Will you always be available?

I don't work 365 days a year (who does?!). I take a few holidays throughout the year during which I can be out of action for consultancy work. However, the Secret Library is open 24/7 and usually I am available for the sub 30 consults by email even if I am away - you may just have to wait a little while longer for an answer. So what's the catch?

The catch: not anyone can become a Member

If you do the maths, you'll work out that there is a limit to the number of Members who can join because I cannot look after everyone within the time available each day. I keep this under review constantly, but at the moment there are vacancies. As membership gets nearer to capacity I will put the price up for those joining - the economics of supply and demand. That's why it is best to get in now while the cost is low.

The application process

If you want to become a Member then click here to be taken to the application form. I will then contact you to get the application process moving.

If you are still unsure of whether the Legal Hotline is right for your business then I would be happy to answer any questions: just use the contact form on this website to set out your query and I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Regards,

Michael Smyth LLb.
ApproachableLawyer.Com