The Minnesota Legal Defense Plan, Part I

For the first 4 years as my tenure as National Trustee, we all had the National Legal Defense Plan, some of you still do. At the time, the National Plan was the best thing going - it provided (and still does) administrative, criminal and civil coverage. You also have a choice of attorneys, and you can even add your own attorney, provided that he or she joins the plan.

As I jumped into the Trustee shoes, I immediately found that we had some issues. Members would be refused coverage. Attorneys would not be getting paid. Every National Board Meeting that I attended resulted in me having to go to bat and argue with the Legal Defense Plan Board to get a member covered. After a lot of table pounding, I have to say that I was usually successful. Then two things happened that tore it for me. It was at the Board Meeting in Denver in 2002. I argued for coverage, and told that, not only would they not consider my appeal, but that the price of the plan was going up significantly. Needless to say, I was not happy.

About a week later, a member told me about how he needed coverage. He called the service provider for the Legal Defense Plan, who provided him with a list of attorneys. He started going down the list. Attorney after Attorney turned him down, telling him that the FOP didn't pay their bills. Finally, he got to the last attorney (and I'm going to give credit where credit is due ) - Ann Walther. Ann agreed to help out. After hearing this, I knew that our membership was not getting the coverage that they payed for, needed and deserved. A change had to made, and I think that I had an answer.