LMA/APRL Referral Source Survey

About This Survey

Thank you for taking part in LMA’s survey in partnership with APRL’s Future of Lawyering Committee. The purpose of this survey is to provide an up-to-date reading on whether and how firms currently share fees for referrals with other professionals. This will help APRL assess how the Rules of Professional Conduct may need to be updated to reflect the changing nature of legal practice.

The survey should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and your individual responses will be kept completely confidential. We will only share aggregated data with APRL.

If you have any questions relating to the survey, please contact Chip Potter at cpotter@legalmarketing.org.

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* 1. How many lawyers are in your firm?

1-50

51-100

101-250

251-500

More than 500

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* 2. How would you describe your firm?

Solo

Boutique

Full Service

Other (please specify)

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* 3. How would you describe your firm as it relates to the options below?

Business to Business (B2B)

Business to Consumer (B2C)

50/50

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* 4. Does your firm or do any of your lawyers utilize online referral services? Check all that apply.

State bar referral service

Local bar referral service

Avvo

LegalMatch

Legal Zoom

Online Legal Directory

Legal networks (such as Multilaw)

No, we do not use an online referral service at my firm

Other (please specify)

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* 5. Which of the following most closely matches your definition of this online referral service?

State bar service designed to help match individuals with an attorney or other legal resource

A service that matches individuals to a lawyer and charges the lawyer for the referral

A network of lawyers that connects people or businesses in need of lawyers with its participating attorneys

Don’t know

Other (please specify)

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* 6. Do you believe online referral services or matching services have the potential to grow a lawyer’s business?

Yes

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* 7. How do you think current ethical rules on the use of online lawyer referral services impact a lawyer’s ability to engage in marketing (promote a practice or service, obtain clients, etc.)?

Make it harder to market

Make it easier to market

Have no impact

Don’t know

If you would like to expand on your answer, please do so here.

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* 8. How does your law firm currently track all types of referrals (online and otherwise)? Check all that apply.

Referral database

New matter process/document

CRM system

Other (please provide name)

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* 9. If your firm is in multiple states, which state ethics rule(s) regarding referrals is the most restrictive, in your experience? If you are unsure, please respond “not sure.”

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* 10. Outside of online referrals, are attorneys at your firm allocated an entertainment budget or “thank you” gift budget specifically for referral services? Check all that apply.

No budget

$1-100 per lawyer

$101-500 per lawyer

$501-1000 per lawyer

$1000+ per lawyer

Other (some firms may calculate as a percentage)

Don’t know

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* 11. Does your firm provide any form of compensation to firm employees for their client referrals? (Select all that apply.)

Money

Gift cards

Time off

No compensation provided

Other (please specify)

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* 12. Please provide any additional comments regarding ethics rules impacting referral sources that you would like to share.

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* 13. Please enter the name of your firm. This information will only be used to validate the data set. No firm names will be disclosed or used in the survey results.

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* 14. If you would like to receive a preview summary of the survey results, please enter your email address. This information will not be disclosed or used in the survey results.

Email Address