Law Firm Matching Services; Ethical Rules That Govern Legal Referral

Internet-based law firm matching services which seek to match clients with attorneys are evolving as a new form of advertising medium. Prospective clients describe their problem on a confidential basis and lawyers who have enrolled in the site have the opportunity to make a proposal to the client or are connected to the client through the matching service. Fees for the law firm to be listed vary by type of case and by the matching service.

The oldest and largest service in the legal industry is LegalMatch, founded in 1999. A more recent entry is LegalConnect.com, sponsored by Findlaw. A more controversial service is TotalAttorneys.com. None of these services advertise their listing fees. You have to call the service to get a quote. My sense is that the fee to be listed is geared to a typical full service legal representation at a hourly rate, so these services would not be cost effective for a law firm offering Limited Legal Services at a low price point. If you talk to one of these listing services, try and find out how much they charge as this would be good information for our community. You can list the fees as a comment to this blog entry.

There has been some controversy that these matching services are really legal referral organizations and therefore must comply with a state rules governing legal referral. Much of this controversy is diminishing as state bar associations recognize that these matching services are just another form of advertising. See blog post at http://www.elawyeringredux.com/articles/legal-referral/

See also: Links to State Rules Governing Lawyer Advertising and Marketing fro...