In Spotlight: Lawyered
Putting lawyers 24x7 in the hands of truck drivers in India
“Whenever a loaded truck meets with an accident, the drivers are in a situation of panic. More than saving their lives and getting help, they worry about the goods on the truck. Drivers and their employers stress out and end up paying huge amounts of money to ensure that the goods are either not seized by the police or to ensure that there is no theft of the goods,” says Lawyered.
Commercial vehicle drivers are routinely stopped and harassed by cops. They face issues such as search-and-seizure or stoppage for things like an expired permit. Accidents are also common for millions of truckers on the road. This is reflected in the fact that the logistics industry bleeds thirty-five billion US dollars each year due to on-road legal issues.
This problem became even more visible during the pandemic when trucks were the only vehicles permitted to move. They faced harassment and several risks.
Lawyered, which until then had developed a network of fifty-five thousand verified lawyers to connect with citizens, began to receive calls on various legal issues these truckers faced while on the road. These included harassment related to differing permits at multiple states that truckers met at every checkpoint. They realised that, invariably, if there had been lawyers by their side, they could have taken care of these mostly unnecessary issues.
As they heard more, they realised these problems require on-the-spot solutions, not post-issue legal help.
On the need for proactive legal help
“What happens in India, as far as legal acceptance is concerned, we are still years behind the developed countries, other nations. So here we hesitate in taking legal support, because of the plethora of reasons, stigma attached with legal industries is one of the main reasons. So that’s our mission, we need to bridge that gap and bring legal closure to the consumers at large by helping them solve their problems proactively rather than reactively.”*
Lawyer On-The-Spot (LOTS)
How do you put a lawyer inside every truck?
In collaboration with the All India Transporters Welfare Association (AITWA), Lawyered first created a 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. legal helpline that provided legal assistance to any truck driver. Quickly they learnt that truckers mostly need access to lawyers at night. So they evolved to create a round-the-clock legal helpline that truckers can call for legal support. They have also created a network, empanelling a lawyer for every fifty kilometres of the National Highways and roads connected under their own ‘BharatMala Project’. These lawyers are accessible even at nighttime.
The impactful innovation for LOTS is that it provides for the disempowered trucking driver community in a manner that traditional legal consultation can never do.
Having a lawyer on call to talk to the police and other authorities significantly helps these truckers manage and negotiate their issues. In almost eighty-nine per cent of the cases, having a lawyer on call, who can talk to the authorities directly, solves the problem immediately. In some instances where the physical presence of a lawyer is required, Lawyered provides a lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction through their network within two business hours.
Because they partner with apex transport bodies like AITWA, Lawyered can make their services accessible to truckers and drivers. Truck-owning companies can choose from the various subscription plans available on LOTS to suit their requirements, depending on the number of trucks an owner has. This means not worrying about which truck faces what issue and where for the truck owners, as LOTS can cover all of them. Such partnerships have also helped Lawyered secure customers at scale.
For the truckers using Lawyered services, it does not matter what time of day or midnight hour it is; they are assured of end-to-end incident handling by the LOTS team on the spot. With a fixed, reasonable subscription fee that is affordable to every trucker, LOTS provide a unique solution to the truckers’ problem.
Beyond LOTS
Keeping in mind the deep-rooted problem in the logistics sector, Lawyered wants to stay focused on helping them with unique offerings such as LOTS, keeping in line with the needs of the industry. They are looking to first focus on the entire commercial vehicle space, ensuring and ultimately ‘insuring’ their on-road journeys from all known or unknown legal challenges and costs.
While the specific legal challenges on the road may vary, Lawyered has also extended their assistance to private vehicles, ensuring a more seamless journey for everyone involved.
Note:
*Himanshu Gupta, co-founder of Lawyered, in conversation with Namit Oberoy during Agami Prize 2022.
Edited by Jahnavi Jayanth, Keerthana Medarametla and Supriya Sankaran.
 | A guest post by
|