One of the great advantages of Lepmets & Nõges for new clients is the opportunity to receive high-quality free initial legal assistance from local lawyers. Free legal aid is not a new phenomenon in the Estonian legal landscape, but in the private sector it is still a rather unique and customer-oriented approach.
Ambitious lawyers of Lepmets & Nõges offer those in need of help as part of primary legal assistance, the opportunity to let lawyers familiarize themselves with the legal aspects of their problem for free. In the process, lawyers acquaint themselves with the important circumstances of a specific issue and the documents necessary to resolve it. At this point, however, it is important that those in need of help can formulate their question as accurately and concisely as possible. In practice, there have been situations where people in need of help expect lawyers to work through hundreds of pages of material as part of free legal aid, but the law firm does not offer such a service for free. As part of free legal aid, clients receive alternative advice from lawyers on how to deal with the problem in the future. However, in order to implement specific advice and prepare procedural documents, a client agreement must already be concluded with legal aid providers.
In the private sector, the free primary legal assistance offered by Lepmets & Nõges is quite unique. Its purpose is, first of all, to give the customer an overview of the depth of his problem and possible alternative solutions, together with an indicative cost item needed to solve the problem. This protects clients from large expenses for hopeless problems and helps to evaluate the content of the work we provide and the resources required for it. In other words, the offered free legal aid could be seen as a comprehensive quote for solving legal problems, which could be considered even before turning to leading law firms.
In the case of what Lepmets & Nõges offers, it is far from the only way to get legal advice without money. In most cases, the provision of free legal aid to those in need is financed by the state, or several non-profit organizations provide simpler legal aid to those in need. First of all, free legal assistance for the substantive resolution of the matter is offered by the student legal office operating at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tartu, the Office of Legal Services and also the Union of Lawyers. In addition, the Estonian Association of the Deaf and the Estonian Association of Occupational Patients offer free counseling for disabled people.
Legal aid does not always have to be expensive. Act wisely!
About the author: Liisi Pajula is a second-year master's student at the Faculty of Law of the University of Tartu, who completed her procedural internship with us.