Legal Assist Services: A Free Resource By Brotherhood Mutual

One of the most common reasons ministries fail to update their safety policies is fear of the cost. Hiring a local attorney to rewrite it from scratch is daunting. With legal fees often running hundreds of dollars per hour, many organizations choose to do nothing rather than face the bill.

This can create dangerous gaps- not only can outdated safety policies create gaps within your own church, but they can cause legal liability, too. When your organization doesn’t have a well-defined and recent safety policy, courts can find your organization responsible if anything that happens.

Can you update your policies without hiring an attorney to rewrite them? Your insurance carrier may be able to help as a powerful and free resource.

Brotherhood’s Legal Assist Program

Many specialized insurance carriers, such as Brotherhood Mutual, offer legal assist services. These are internal teams of attorneys and risk managers dedicated to helping ministries navigate the complex legal landscape of liability and safety.

Unlike a local law firm that charges by the minute, these services are frequently provided for free on top the policy. Brotherhood Mutual’s service is free. This is possible because the insurer wants to prevent a lawsuit just as much as the ministry does- if there isn’t a lawsuit, then neither the insurer or the organization have to pay. Therefore, they are willing to invest their own resources to ensure your documents are sound.

How It Works

The process is generally straightforward. A ministry can send their current bylaws, safety protocols, or abuse prevention policies to the Legal Assist team. This team then reviews the documents “word by word, line by line.”

They are looking for gaps in protection. For example, they might notice that a policy fails to mention the “two-adult rule” or does not adequately define the reporting process for allegations. They provide comments, edits, and suggestions to bring the policy up to current risk management standards. This service essentially provides a high-level audit of the ministry’s governing documents without a corresponding invoice.

However, it is important to understand the limitation of these services. A national insurance carrier’s legal team cannot act as your personal attorney, and they generally cannot provide specific legal advice regarding the unique statutes of your individual state. They provide a “big picture view” based on national best practices and general liability principles. Here is the recommended process:

1. Send your policies to the Legal Assist team first. Let them do the bulk of the work. They will handle the general structure, the definitions, and the risk management language. They will likely get the document 90% of the way to completion.
2. Once the document has been refined by the insurance experts, take that near-final draft to a local attorney. Ask them to review it strictly for compliance with local state codes and statutes.

By following this order, you are not paying a local lawyer to draft a policy from a blank page, which takes hours. You are paying them to review a polished document, which takes a fraction of the time. This approach leverages free resources to do the expensive work, leaving the local attorney to simply apply the final state-specific stamp of approval.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

In addition to reviewing existing policies, these services often provide libraries of templates. There is rarely a need for a church to write a “Disaster Response Plan” or a “Sexual Abuse Prevention Policy” from scratch. Agencies and carriers have developed robust, legally sound templates that have been tested in the real world.

Using these templates prevents a ministry from reinventing the wheel. It allows them to start with a solid foundation and simply customize the details to fit their specific culture and building. By utilizing these free tools, a ministry effectively expands its staff, gaining access to a legal department that would otherwise be far beyond their budget.

Learn how to lower liability in lawsuits here.