About LegalConsumer.com

Empowering consumers since 2006

Welcome!

Our Mission

Give you the tools to solve your legal problems quickly and cheaply so you can get on with your life.

1. Learn what to do. 2. Get help if you need it. 3. Get on with your life.

Life is hard enough.

And then... shit happens:

A loved one dies, and you need to deal with inheritance issues
You get sick and a mountain of debt makes bankruptcy worth considering
You lose your job and need to file for unemployment
Your boss isn't paying your minimum wage, or is wrongly not paying you overtime

In any of these situations, you have important legal rights that may seem complicated to enforce. But knowing your rights and knowing how to assert them can save you thousands of dollars over your lifetime.

1. Learn What To Do

LegalConsumer.com helps you learn what to do by providing free, quality information about the legal issues affecting your life...

>> And we do all of this without you having to sign up for anything or pay any money to anyone.

The Internet is full of sharks out to take your money. Let us guide you through those shark-infested waters to clear, reliable information that can help you solve your problem and save money..

We're passionate about access to justice and informing consumers of their rights and how to take advantage of them.

Far too many consumers fail to take advantage of their consumer rights that can save thousands of dollars over a lifetime, like the right to file for bankruptcy or the right to use expedited probate procedures.

Maybe that's because too many consumers are unaware of their rights and don't know how to assert them.

We'd like to change that, one web consumer at a time.

We aim to make an army of legally savvy consumers who know their rights, how to enforce them, and how to vote for politicians who protect and expand consumer rights against corporate greed.

2. Get Help If You Need It

Once you've learned about your rights and options, you should "Get help if you need it."

There is no shame in seeking help from a lawyer to ensure you're doing things correctly, even if your situation is complicated.

Only some people are do-it-yourself-er; others need extra help. That's where our advertisers come in...

We've helped thousands of consumers connect with a local lawyer through the Nolo/Martindale free lawyer-matching service or an Obamacare insurance broker via HealthNetwork.

We also offer a variety of articles to help you shop for a lawyer wisely and understand what you should expect that lawyer to do for you once they're hired.

(We are not affiliated in any way with any of our advertisers. But they help keep this site free to the public.)

3. Get On With Your Life!

We hope the information and resources you find here will help you solve the problems that brought you here in the first place.

When "shit happens," we aim to help you get through life's hassles quickly and safely so you can get on with your life.

We hope you find the answers you seek or get closer to finding the best information on the subject.

And good for you for standing up for your rights as a consumer!

Bravo!

How We Are Funded

LegalConsumer.com has always been an independent small business, mostly a one-man show. It has never been part of a giant conglomerate or hedge fund or beholden to bankers, funders, or donors.

From day one, the mission of LegalConsumer.com has been to:

Use technology to empower ordinary consumers to protect their rights under local, state, and federal laws — either for free or as cheaply as possible.
- We're always looking for new ways that technology can make it simpler for ordinary people to handle their routine legal matters.
Be a portal to trustworthy, curated links and legal information in an online sea of schemers and predatory sharks.
- If someone out there is doing cool stuff for consumers, we're happy to link to it.
- We like to support the #A2J (Access to Justice) movement that has arisen recently within the tech world. We've been promoting #A2J for 30 years! Welcome to the party!
Be a free, open resource for consumers seeking to understand and enforce their rights as consumers under local, state, and federal law.
- Offer all this information without requiring anyone to give up personal information about themselves.
- Without tracking users without their consent
- Without charging for information (by charging advertisers instead).
Help consumers get the most out of hiring a lawyer if they decide to use one.
- We'd love to see an army of savvy, educated "Legal Consumers" who:
  - Know what rights they have under existing consumer laws
  - Know how to use a lawyer effectively to enforce those rights
Provide lead buyers with quality potential customers
- Like most free legal sites on the internet, this site generates income by connecting potential clients to professionals who could use their services. No one likes to waste time with a bad fit. Unlike some sites, LegalConsumer is not just about getting visitors to fill out a lead form. We present information first and follow up if people want more help.
- This means lead buyers get fewer "looky-loos" — only in search of basic information, and more users who actually need the extra professional help that lead buyers can provide.
- And if a user does need professional help, we encourage them to
  - Read about how to work effectively and efficiently with a lawyer:
    - what to expect from the lawyer
    - what the lawyer will expect from them
  - Fill in our lead form to connect with local lawyers or health insurance brokers who can help navigate the problem.
Make the world better without going broke.
1. Grow organically.
  - All of our traffic is from organic search
  - 18 million users have found us that way
  - Thousands of new users find us each month
  - We've never bought an ad.
2. Remain independent of wealthy donors or investment bankers to do all this.
  - LegalConsumer has always maintained a cookie-jar philosophy toward finance.
  - We've avoided indebtedness to bankers because life is short and who wants to spend their lives having to please bankers?
3. Focus on Being Useful... the rest will follow
  - good content
  - and keep it up to date,
  - good UX
  - fast loading pages

April 2024: Well, it was fun while it lasted. Google has changed. AI is changing everything.

For many years, LegalConsumer was able to offer localized legal information for free with an advertising-based model based on search engine traffic for local law. Well, Google doesn't like the way we do local law, and so search engine traffic has all but ended. LegalConsumer may pivot to self-help video tutorials and other ways to enhance access to justice rather than localized legal information and tools.

We are looking at ways to please the Google gods and bring search traffic back.

Our History

Legal Consumer began in 2006 when owner and founder Albin Renauer created LegalConsumer's "Bankruptcy By Zip Code" section.

As a coauthor of Nolo's How to File for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy (now in its 22nd edition), Albin spent years trying to make filing for bankruptcy as easy and non-threatening as possible.

In 2005, the U.S. Congress enacted sweeping changes to the bankruptcy law to make filing for bankruptcy more costly and intimidating.

When that law passed, Albin vowed to do something about it. The result was the first Legal Consumer website, Bankruptcy By Zip Code (bankruptcybyzipcode.com)

Albin wanted anyone considering bankruptcy to be able to quickly and easily learn about the full range of resources available to them:

free information
low-cost, high-quality books
online services
form preparation services, and
full-service bankruptcy lawyers.

Bankruptcy By Zip Code endeavors to gather and organize these resources and present them all in one place.

Legal Consumer.com was always intended to be about more than just bankruptcy. Over time, other distinguished authors have added:

These high-quality information hubs now attract as much traffic as our original bankruptcy information hub.

About This Website: LegalConsumer.com