Avoiding the lawyer referral trap.

What is a lawyer referral service? Under Florida rules, lawyer referral services are defined very broadly. Any person or entity paid a fee or given anything of value for causing either the direct or indirect referral of prospective clients is a lawyer referral service under Rule 4-7.11(c)(1), Rules Regulating The Florida Bar. Pro bono referral services, in which the lawyers agree to represent prospective clients at no charge and in which the lawyers do not pay fees for referrals, do not fall within the rule. However, "any group or pooled advertising program" that uses a common telephone number, and prospective clients dialing that number are referred to the lawyers participating in the program also is a lawyer referral service under Rule 4-7.11(c)(2), Rules Regulating The Florida Bar.

Under that latter definition, the Board of Governors found that the Web site of a local bar association section, which included information promoting the legal services of the section members, provided contact information of the participating section members, and was aimed at consumers, was a lawyer referral service. Under that same definition, the Board of Governors also determined that a statewide organization running an educational campaign to encourage the use of lawyers in transactional work was a lawyer referral service. That's because the advertisements gave a toll-free number that consumers could call and, upon request, be provided with the names of selected Florida Bar members who met specific criteria of the organization and were members of the organization.

Although many jurisdictions prohibit lawyer participation in for-profit lawyer referral services, Florida does not. Florida Bar members may receive referrals from a for-profit lawyer referral service if the referral service meets certain requirements.

Under Rule 4-7.11(a), Florida Bar members must not participate in a lawyer referral service unless: the lawyer referral service advertisements comply with Florida's lawyer advertising rules; the lawyer shares no legal fees with the lawyer referral service (unless the service is a not-for-profit service approved by The Florida Bar); the lawyer referral service only accepts Florida Bar members in good standing; the lawyer referral service either provides or requires the lawyer to have malpractice insurance of $100,000 per claim; the lawyer referral service provides The...