When a truck wouldn’t run after the mechanic at the auto dealer cleaned the vehicle’s fuel injectors the dealer balked at fixing the engine, and the owner called his lawyer.

The lawyer helped him prepare documents for his small-claims court case and advised him on what to wear and say in court. The advice paid off for the truck owner won and recovered the cost of a replacement engine.

His legal tab? Zero — or $13 a month, depending on how you look at it.

To wage the small-claims fight, the individual tapped into prepaid legal services that his employer offers as an employee benefit, like life insurance or dental care.

A monthly payroll deductions gives all employees access to a roster of lawyers affiliated with a firm which handle most matters at no additional charge, a phenomenal bargain considering that experienced lawyers often charge $250 to $700 or more an hour.

Having an affordable legal team on call gives everyone peace of mind.

An estimated 90 million people in the U.S. work for companies or are members of unions that offer the type of legal benefit to the American Prepaid Legal Services Institute, a Chicago-based trade group affiliated with the American Bar Assn.

Sometimes called legal insurance, group legal services provide the average person a family lawyer like you used to have a family doctor; a person to take care of things the family needs, so they don’t have problems later.

Americans were introduced to prepaid legal services, imported from Europe in the 1970s, when they were included as benefits in labor union contracts. The popularity of legal plans has grown. Last year, 27% of 9,000 employers surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) offered them, up from 22% six years ago.

Individuals can buy into prepaid plans on their own, but the majority of people sign up through the workplace. Enrollment is voluntary, and in most cases employees pay monthly dues ranging from $9 to $25, with the employer usually contributing nothing. Under some union contracts, the employer foots the entire bill.

Legal plans function as health maintenance organizations do, pooling the risk of costly litigation on the bet that participating lawyers can help most clients over the phone or with a few hours’  work. People usually tap into the plans for help with "everyday legal life events" such as buying or selling a home, estate planning, adoption or changing a name. Although the services vary by plan, people enrolled through their employers generally can get help with divorces, credit problems, identity theft, immigration difficulties and tax audits.

For time-consuming or complex matters — such as when an uncontested divorce escalates into a "Kramer vs. Kramer" situation — clients may be charged additional fees but usually at a discounted rate. It all depends on the fine print in the contract.

Many plans cover misdemeanor offenses, such as traffic tickets. But don’t look to lawyers in your plan to keep you out of prison: Most don’t handle felonies. Most plans also exclude fee-generating cases such as class-action and personal-injury lawsuits.

Oh, and forget about enlisting your employer-sponsored lawyer to sue your boss.

Prepaid legal plans are a bad deal only if you never use them.

How do you know you can trust the lawyers in your plan? They apply to be listed on plan rosters, and providers regularly audit the practitioners they accept. Client complaints can trigger more frequent audits of a particular attorney or his or her removal from the roster.

Some lawyers get all of their clients through referrals from prepaid plans, listing themselves with as many as six providers. But most plan attorneys represent other clients as well.