In the Law Society Gazette last week was an article on referral fees with a leading insurer questioning whether solicitors could actually afford to pay them. My experience of referral fees relates to personal injury, company commercial, conveyancing and medical negligence matters. It also relates to experience in the recruitment industry, where one agency will pay another one a referral fee for cross-referring into different fields. I have to say that I am yet to come across anyone apart from claims management companies who appear to have made any money out of paying referral fees. Often the fees are fairly hefty, and eat into the profit margins quite substantially. I seem to recall a firm telling me they had signed up to an internet conveyancing referral site that was charging in the region of about £200 to £300 for each of its referrals. If you consider that an average conveyance will only cost in the region of about £500 to £700, it does not leave much left for a solicitors firm to ...
Award winning blog with 100s of articles on the legal profession, legal recruitment and legal job markets by Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment, recruitment consultants based in the UK providing a full range of services for solicitors.