When you're a little guy trying to peddle access to lawyers, be dogged--or be gone.

It’s never easy for a young Company to make a mark in a relatively mature business-legal insurance in this case. How do you compete? If you're Brett Merl, you try to put some new twists into an old idea. His publicly traded company, Legal Club of America, sells access to a network of lawyers-and simple services such as wills, contracts and consumer complaints-for a mere $96 a year. If you need more intensive legal help, club membership additionally gets you the discounted rate of $75 an hour. "Most legal care can be solved with just one phone call," says Merl, 38, Legal Club's chief executive and largest shareholder, with a 12% stake.

Like the handful of his competitors, Merl is targeting what he calls the 150 million Americans who can't afford a lawyer's regular rates. (The American Bar Association can't confirm that number.) But Legal Club isn't restricting itself to selling legal plans to large corporations as a payroll-deduction benefit to their employees. Merl is also going after small businesses and individuals. Giants like Pre-Paid Legal Services, the granddaddy of the industry, sign on lawyers the way health care companies contract with doctors, under the "capitation" system--a fixed rate for each member they treat. But Merl's lawyers don't work for him, Instead, they offer discounts in exchange for referrals. The system functions something like the preferred provider lists of doctors that a health insurer works with.

Do consumers really care about these distinctions? Only if they're unhappy with their Current legal help. Merl will let you switch from a pre-assigned lawyer whenever you want, or use multiple attorneys at the same time. And, unlike many plans, Legal Club will accept so-called pre-existing conditions--lawsuits that predate your coverage with Merl--and cover you if you're a plaintiff in a suit or a defendant in a criminal case.

Still not enough? Starting in December, Legal Club will start giving free Internet access via NetZero or AltaVista to its subscribers. Merl will pocket a small cut of advertising revenues from the ISPs, based on how many Legal Club subscribers use the Web service. Currently you can sign up for Legal Club through priceline.com's Priceline Club.

Merl, a former insurance salesman bought the failing Legal Club in 1996 and, two years later, reverse-merged it into a public shell company, Bird-Honomichl. The stock now trades on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board. After raising $3.8 million in March from investors, Merl revamped his computer infrastructure and launched a stream of side businesses, including a free on-line service for attorneys who join Legal Club's pay-referral subsidiary, the National Association of Networked Attorneys. Based in Sunrise, Fla., Legal Club is a low-key company where top managers among the 57-person staff get used cars as a Christmas bonus.

How's the company doing? Legal Club has 17,000 agents hawking its product, hired by commissions of up to 40% of the premiums they haul in. "We're the first PowerPoint slide," Merl says, when agents make a presentation to employees. Big-ticket corporate customers include Tower Records, Avis

Rent-a-Car and Howard Johnson's Hotels; renewal rates are running a very respectable 87%, compared with 76% for Pre-Paid.