Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT117 S1 P1 Q5 Explanation

CAW Legal Services Plan

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsInferenceLaw

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Passage

The Canadian Auto Workers’ (CAW) Legal Services Plan, designed to give active and retired autoworkers and their families access to totally prepaid or partially reimbursed legal services, has been in operation since late 1985. Plan members have the option of using either the plan’s staff lawyers, whose services are fully covered by in Canada. A department store is even offering a plan to holders of its credit card.

While many plan members seem to be happy to get reduced-cost legal help, many lawyers are concerned about the plan’s effect on their profession, especially its impact on prices for legal services. Some point out that even though most lawyers have not joined the plan as cooperating lawyers, legal fees in the other referrals who are not plan subscribers and who would therefore pay the firm’s standard rate.

But it is unlikely that increased use of such plans will result in long-term client satisfaction or in a substantial increase in profits for law firms. Since lawyers with established reputations and client bases can benefit little, if at all, from participation, the plans function largely as marketing devices for lawyers who will mean less time devoted to complex cases and a general lowering of quality for clients.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
5.

The passage most strongly suggests that, according to proponents of prepaid legal plans, cooperating lawyers benefit from taking clients at lower fees in which

Answer choices

  1. Unrelated to Goal: expertise9% picked this

    Lawyers can expect to gain expertise in a wide variety of legal services by availing themselves of the access to diverse

    We're looking for "the clients they help at a discounted rate through the CAW plan will refer the law firm to other people who will then pay full price". It doesn't have anything to do with gaining expertise in a wide variety of legal services.

  2. Unrelated to Goal: experienced vs. new1% picked this

    Experienced cooperating lawyers are likely to enjoy the higher profits of long-term, complex cases, for which new

    We're looking for "the clients they help at a discounted rate through the CAW plan will refer the law firm to other people who will then pay full price". It doesn't have anything to do with talking about a distinction between experienced and inexperienced lawyers, as it pertains to longer more complex cases.

  3. Correct87% picked this

    Lower rates of profit will be offset by a higher volume of clients and new

    Why this is right

    We're looking for "the clients they help at a discounted rate through the CAW plan will refer the law firm to other people who will then pay full price". Lower rates of profit = the CAW plan client gets helped at a discounted rate offset = net benefit higher volume of clients and new business through word-of-mouth recommendations = satisfied clients are referring this lawyer to 3 or 4 other people

    Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  4. Unrelated to Goal2% picked this

    Lower fees tend to attract clients away from established, nonparticipating

    Unrelated to Goal: steal other firms' clients Contradicted We're looking for "the clients they help at a discounted rate through the CAW plan will refer the law firm to other people who will then pay full price". This is talking about "giving the CAW clients the discounted rate to lure them away from other firms that are more established". But this is actually contradicted by the idea that proponents are saying cooperating lawyers who work with CAW clients will "get professional contact with people who would not otherwise be using legal services". The initial clients a lawyer would get through the CAW plan are not clients of any law firm.

  5. Unrelated to Goal: market forces1% picked this

    With all legal fees moving downward to match the plans’ schedules, the profession will respond

    We're looking for "the clients they help at a discounted rate through the CAW plan will refer the law firm to other people who will then pay full price". It doesn't have anything to do with the industry's pricing benchmarks moving downward from market forces.

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