Brief History & Timeline
History of Hyatt Legal Plans
The Hyatt organization was founded in 1977 as a way to make quality legal services affordable and accessible for all Americans. It quickly grew into one of the largest law firms in the U.S. In 1981, Hyatt Legal Services implemented its first group legal plan, utilizing its attorney offices throughout the country to provide legal assistance to plan members.
Hyatt's first group legal plan sponsors included American Express, Deere and PepsiCo, and they remain Hyatt legal plan sponsors today. Hyatt Legal Plans was spun off from Hyatt Legal Services in 1990 and was acquired by MetLife in 1997.
Today, Hyatt Legal Plans is the nation’s largest provider of group legal plans. The legal plan is a group benefit at more than 1,300 organizations, including 138 of the Fortune 500® companies. We serve more than two million legal plan members and their families. Here are some of their stories.
Timeline: How Hyatt Legal Services’ group benefits evolved into Hyatt Legal Plans
| 1977 |
Hyatt Legal Services law firm founded |
| 1981 |
First group benefit plan implemented |
| 1987 |
First voluntary enrollment legal plan implemented |
| 1990 |
Hyatt Legal Plans spun off from Hyatt Legal Services |
| 1997 |
Hyatt Legal Plans acquired by MetLife |
| 1999 |
1 million legal plan participants |
| 2002 |
500 group legal plan sponsors |
| 2005 |
The world's largest employee benefit consultants that sponsor a legal plan for their own employees chose Hyatt Legal Plans |
| 2006 |
Hyatt Legal Plans receives "Standard of Excellence" WebAward and wins Call Center Excellence Award |
| 2007 |
10th anniversary as a MetLife Company, 100 Fortune 500® sponsors, 1,000 sponsors, 4 million participants and 10,000 plan attorneys |
| 2010 |
More than 115 Fortune 500® sponsors, 1,200 sponsors and 11,000 plan attorneys |
| 2011 |
138 Fortune 500® sponsors, 1,300 sponsors and 12,000 plan attorneys
Hyatt Legal Plans earns three prestigious customer service awards |