Dick Bryant: How Working with ARAG Helps My Practice

Good morning. I’m Dick Bryant. I’m a lawyer from Kansas City. I practice law in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, the District of Columbia and the US Virgin Islands. I’ve been practicing for almost 35 years now. I’m a senior member of a small firm in Kansas City and a proud member of the ARAG program. When I first was involved in the practice of law after coming out of school it was interesting because I went with a firm that was trying to develop into a larger firm. One of the things that I saw was the opportunity to participate as a plan attorney on a number of different programs including the one that we’re on now. We get calls, normally would be characterized as a cold call in any law firm but in this case we know that they’re coming in, they’re a member of a plan, they have real needs, they have immediate needs, and we’re able to get them in and that helps us develop a level of clientele that have the funding and resources available to them. Depending upon the nature of the plan, some of the problems are solved by direct payment from ARAG and that’s helpful to the firm and allows us to expand and has over the years and in some cases you have that ability where you have a client that just becomes a client not only through the plan but they become a client for life whether they are there or not. And when you have a successful relationship with a client they tell their friends and their friends tell their friends and that helps develop our practice.