Comments on: From comments: lawyer referral fees

By: More on lawyer referrals and fee discounts

More on lawyer referrals and fee discounts — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 22:47:53 +0000

[…] week ago we quoted reader Phil Grossman’s comment on this subject, provoking a discussion among readers. Now Grossman writes in with a followup: […]

By: PhilG

PhilG — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 13:56:32 +0000

Here’s an example of a non-practicing lawyer, employed as an insurance adjuster, who referred his neighbors to a personal injury law firm, intending to secretly receive a third of the contingency fee, with his share being more than $175,000. But this particular instance of a secret referral fee came to light only because of a dispute between him and the law firm, forcing him to sue for his share:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1185527216844

By: Ron Miller

Ron Miller — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 21:36:44 +0000

Rare disagreement with Eric: I think people say I’ve got a great lawyer all the time. “I’ve got a guy.” But whether the lawyer (1) handles large personal injury case regularly, or (2) actually in fact did a good job for the client is a far leap from “I got a guy.”

There are a lot of bad personal injury lawyers out there making a living off of prior referrals.

By: PhilG

PhilG — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 16:41:05 +0000

Ted brought up Mark Lanier’s comments about “chicken catchers” & “chicken pluckers”. Here’s a link to an article on Mark Lanier’s comments:

http://medicinewatch.blogspot.com/2007/06/personal-injury-lawyers-positioning-for.html

And here’s a link to a PointofLaw article on a Texas self-proclaimed “chicken catcher”:

http://www.pointoflaw.com/archives/2005/02/poultry-in-moti.php

By: Eric Turkewitz

Eric Turkewitz — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:47:37 +0000

it is common for a relative or friend who happens to be a lawyer to offer to refer the victim to a “good personal injury lawyer”.

Walter: A personal recommendation is usually the best way to go, because there is usually some type of actual experience behind it. Few people would recommend a “good personal injury attorney” to a relative or friend without knowing that the lawyer actually did this kind of thing.

As to forwarding fees, it is required to in New York that every dollar that is collected in a personal injury case be accounted for by a statement to the court, with a copy to the client.

One of the first posts I put up, in fact, as I was testing the waters on this whole blogging gig and how to go about it, dealt with the subject of how to find a good PI lawyer. You can find it here, and I think the points I made are those that you and I would agree on:

http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2006/11/faq-new-york-personal-inury-law-part-1.html

By: Ted

Ted — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:49:36 +0000

Cf. also Mark Lanier’s comments about “chicken catchers” and “chicken pluckers.”

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 13:35:54 +0000

Many years ago, as a newly minted lawyer, I worked as a contract attorney for a modest sized PI firm who accept referrals from a PI firm that advertised statewide. When I was sent out to interview potential clients, I was instructed to carefully go over the fee agreement with the potential client. Importantly, if this was a referral (which the client was told of when the appointment was made) I explained to them the referral agreement (1/3 of 1/3) with the other firm. It seems to me that the better practice would be full disclosure. Trust begins at the inception of the relationship. Besides, Client should not object, his cut is not going to be any different.

By: Ron Miller

Ron Miller — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:09:32 +0000

First, I don’t think there is a state in the country where you can share a contingency fee with a non-lawyer.

To answer your question, I also think every state requires the clients’ consent to the nature of the fee split.(If not every, the vast majority.) I can’t tell you how many lawyers don’t put in writing how the attorneys’ fees are being distributed but they certainly should if they want to follow the ethical rules.

This blog post (www.marylandinjurylawyerblog.com/2008/02/contingency_fees.html) references a Point of Law blog post that discussed a study with a theory that better cases get pushed along to better lawyers. There is an efficacy to the system of referrals – lawyers have an incentive to pass the case along to a lawyer who better knows how to handle the case. Local jack of all trades lawyer gets a large malpractice or truck accident victim client. It might not be an awful system that gives that lawyer some incentive to pass the case along to a lawyer who has experience in handling those cases because there is a societal benefit. I would hate for that hypothetical local legislator to try to handle that case himself because if he/she does not know how to handle the case, the change of it getting screwed is pretty high. And the incentive for taking a shot at it is compelling because every lawyer and their mother very wrongly thinks they can pretty much figure out how to handle a tort case.

By: Jason Barney

Jason Barney — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 07:00:50 +0000

Where’s the “Schumer Box” for retainer agreements?

I recently learned of a successful wrongful death settlement, the client for which was referred to the attorney by his paralegal. Rumor has it she was to share in the contingency fee as a reward for the referral.

I thought out loud that was not correct—I thought only attorneys could collect fees in this manner. Someone else remarked about the movie Erin Brockovich where it was depicted that her reward was a larger than expected percentage of the contingency fee although she was a legal investigator, not the attorney on the case.

Any thoughts?