Attorney Credentialing Standards

Regarding the need for stringent attorney credentialing standards, a quote from a Legal Access customer says it all:

“Legal Access has the most rigorous credentialing and selection standards of any legal plan provider, including their criteria such as self-authenticating penalty of perjury background checks, random pre-selection service surveys, evaluation criteria for office staff and attorneys, and scoring of service levels. I am convinced that to Legal Access expertise and experience are of prime importance.”
 
Tom Moore, Vice President, LifeCare, Inc.

   An effective Legal Plan must provide the following components to be considered as a well established plan capable of meeting the legal needs of a company’s valued employees:

• 15 or more Years of Experience as a Legal Plan Administrator
  
• A Provider Network that Does Not Use the Same Attorneys as Others
  
• Stringent Attorney Credentialing Requirements
  
• Policy of Strict Adherence to Attorney-Client Privilege Principles
  
• Optimized Law Firm Model for Network Recruitment
  
• A Proven Service Delivery Method
  
• A Proven Track Record of Satisfied Client Companies

   Each of the above components is very important when trying to determine if a proposed Legal Plan will indeed add value to your company’s employee benefit portfolio, or simply waste employee time and money away due to chronic service issues.

 
   The main problem all HR Evaluation Teams encounter is that many legal plan vendors have learned how to give the impression their plan has all of the above components. Beware – not all Plans have actually implemented the procedures needed to provide the components listed above, even though they talk about them.

 
   This page examines each of these components and shares with you the “industry insider”, proprietary information that will help you gain the project control needed to integrate an effective legal plan with your core benefits.

What to Look For in a Legal Plan

   What should an HR Manager look for in a Legal Plan? The good news is that it is not that difficult. The bad news is that one must know where to look.

   In many cases it is not the legal plan benefits that make the most difference. Instead, the real differences separating a “good” plan from a “bad” one are found in each Plan’s administrative policies and service processes. These are what determine if the plan is running smoothly and providing good service to your employees, or if they are suffering from delays, bad advice, and other service problems.

   These issues should be identifiable and each Legal Plan should be asked to prove to you that they have the processes described in this article in place and being monitored on a regular basis.

Plan Selection Criteria – Common Categories

   The many criteria used when selecting a group legal plan provider can be grouped by common topic category. These categories are:

• Attorney Network Administration
  
• National Presence
  
• Standards and requirements for network attorneys
  
• Service Capability (Ability to perform the services as outlined in the Plan)
  
• Ability to Design a Plan to Meet Specific Needs
  
• Cost
  
• Administrative System/Claims Processing
  
• Management/Technical Staff
  
• Regulatory Compliance
  
• Financial Stability

 
   The individual criteria found in each of the above categories are discussed below in this article. As you will begin to see, there are many. We will start with the most important, from the employee view point, first.

Attorney Network Administration

   This is probably the most important category of Legal Plan selection criteria. Why? Because in many cases it is not the plan’s benefits that deliver actual employee “peace of mind” in a tough legal situation, it is how fast those benefits were provided, and were they of the quality needed to win the case?
 
   The “real world” topics an HR Manager must be aware of in this category are many. In fact, there are so many that an entire group of sub-categories is needed to track them all. These sub-categories are:

• Quality Attorneys
  
• Network Law Firm Model
  
• Network Law Firm Experience
  
• Network Law Firm Practice Record
  
• Network Law Firm Background
  
• Measuring Quality in Network Attorneys
  
• Matching Network Firms and Client Needs
  
• Complaint/Problem Resolution
  

   As you can see, there are many criteria sub-categories, each with many individual criteria that must be addressed to select the plan with the best attorney network administration functions. We will begin discussing these in this article.

Attorney Network Criteria

   Some of the major questions you must ask about a proposed legal plan’s attorney network are:

• Do you have quality attorneys in your network?
  
• How do you measure the quality of your attorneys in the network?
  
• What does your Network Plan Law Firm model look like?
  
• Do you credential every law firm in your network?
  
• If so, what are the criteria you use in credentialing these firms?
  
• Do you re-credential each Network Lawyer?
  
• If so, with what frequency?
  
• How many years of law practice experience is required?
  

   All group legal plan advice and group legal plan evaluation
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