The Texas Tornado, Houston criminal defense lawyer Mark Bennett, touched on a sore subject with me in his post about a referral. Bennett was asked for a divorce referral out of town. He had no one in hand, so he reached out to a friend, who gave him another friend, etc. He called the ultimate referral, who “passed the telephonic smell test.” So he gave the name to the client.
When I refer someone to a lawyer, it’s a personal endorsement. I am saying to that person that I vouch for the competency and ethics of the person whose name I give them. It means something to me, and I feel responsible.
Sure, I’m not my brother’s keeper and can’t do the other lawyer’s work myself. Sometimes things to wrong. Sometimes things just don’t work out well, or the fit isn’t there. But I cannot, and do not, send clients to just a name. Names are easy to come by. I can get you a name pretty much anywhere, but getting a name means nothing.
Contrary to my brethren who assert that cute and interesting twits are a fine basis for the construction of a referral network, I will never refer a matter to someone on the basis of their twits. I may like them very much, and enjoying twitting back and forth with them all day long, but they aren’t getting a case from me based on twits alone. I would require far, far more to have the requisite faith to entrust them with a client.
The flip side of the problem is that clients will react, when I respond to their request that I have no name to give, by asking me to just find someone since they have no one at all and desperately need legal help. I hate it when they do this. I will then make some calls to someone local who bears some reasonable facsimile of competence in their field for the names of a few lawyers who practice in the specific area needed. I will not call a divorce lawyer, if that’s what I’m looking for, but maybe a PI lawyer, and ask about divorce lawyers. My purpose is to get information from someone who has no horse in the race, and hope that she will give me an honest appraisal of the local talent. And hope that my PI lawyer isn’t some loser with a destitute cousin who does divorces.
My calling the lawyers, before having the client call, is usually a better way of initially vetting them. There are questions I will ask, an impression I will get, that is usually more valid a predictor of competence than a client will receive. More importantly, I can reach the lawyers swiftly, as they will take or return my call right away, when clients might get brushed off. The lawyer’s communication, of course, is one of the critical aspects of my determining whether this is a lawyer to whom I would refer.
I will then go back to the client and give him the names of the lawyers who are still in the running, with the caveat that I don’t really know them, can’t vouch for them, and have no idea whether they are great lawyers or just have good phone manners. Talking a good game on the phone isn’t a substitute for competent lawyering, any more than giving good twits is demonstrative proof of being a lawyer to whom you should refer cases.
For those lawyers who I’ve come to know and trust, I will refer matters without hesitation. I know that I’ve put my clients in good hands. But going beyond trusted lawyers scares me to death, and I hate becoming embroiled in such referrals. I try my best to keep out of the mix, even though clients will press me for someone. It takes an inordinate amount of time to find a lawyer, and there’s usually nothing in it for me except the knowledge that I’ve tried to keep a client from crashing on the rocks. For me, a referral is personal. Don’t blow it. Don’t embarrass me. Don’t harm my client.
The faraway lawyer dropped the ball. Hard. Not in a “things could have turned out better” way, but in a less forgivable “didn’t even show up” way. If I were a sports fan, I would surely have some clever simile for how egregious his ball-dropping was. But I’m not a sports fan, so I’ll just say to say that if I dropped the ball that hard, I’d be giving the client the bulk of his fee back to make it up to him.Maybe even more than the bulk? Divorce is, in my opinion, the most difficult referral to make. Clients are constantly seeking referrals for divorce, primarily because so many need a divorced, and don’t know where to turn. It’s a nasty business, and of the various practice areas, divorce law is possibly the one that inflicts the most damage on the litigants. Just get one party riled up and it’s pretty much a lock that whatever assets they’re fighting over will end up in the lawyers’ pockets. Before you know it, the parties have run dry and the lawyers lose interest.
When I refer someone to a lawyer, it’s a personal endorsement. I am saying to that person that I vouch for the competency and ethics of the person whose name I give them. It means something to me, and I feel responsible.
Sure, I’m not my brother’s keeper and can’t do the other lawyer’s work myself. Sometimes things to wrong. Sometimes things just don’t work out well, or the fit isn’t there. But I cannot, and do not, send clients to just a name. Names are easy to come by. I can get you a name pretty much anywhere, but getting a name means nothing.
Contrary to my brethren who assert that cute and interesting twits are a fine basis for the construction of a referral network, I will never refer a matter to someone on the basis of their twits. I may like them very much, and enjoying twitting back and forth with them all day long, but they aren’t getting a case from me based on twits alone. I would require far, far more to have the requisite faith to entrust them with a client.
The flip side of the problem is that clients will react, when I respond to their request that I have no name to give, by asking me to just find someone since they have no one at all and desperately need legal help. I hate it when they do this. I will then make some calls to someone local who bears some reasonable facsimile of competence in their field for the names of a few lawyers who practice in the specific area needed. I will not call a divorce lawyer, if that’s what I’m looking for, but maybe a PI lawyer, and ask about divorce lawyers. My purpose is to get information from someone who has no horse in the race, and hope that she will give me an honest appraisal of the local talent. And hope that my PI lawyer isn’t some loser with a destitute cousin who does divorces.
My calling the lawyers, before having the client call, is usually a better way of initially vetting them. There are questions I will ask, an impression I will get, that is usually more valid a predictor of competence than a client will receive. More importantly, I can reach the lawyers swiftly, as they will take or return my call right away, when clients might get brushed off. The lawyer’s communication, of course, is one of the critical aspects of my determining whether this is a lawyer to whom I would refer.
I will then go back to the client and give him the names of the lawyers who are still in the running, with the caveat that I don’t really know them, can’t vouch for them, and have no idea whether they are great lawyers or just have good phone manners. Talking a good game on the phone isn’t a substitute for competent lawyering, any more than giving good twits is demonstrative proof of being a lawyer to whom you should refer cases.
For those lawyers who I’ve come to know and trust, I will refer matters without hesitation. I know that I’ve put my clients in good hands. But going beyond trusted lawyers scares me to death, and I hate becoming embroiled in such referrals. I try my best to keep out of the mix, even though clients will press me for someone. It takes an inordinate amount of time to find a lawyer, and there’s usually nothing in it for me except the knowledge that I’ve tried to keep a client from crashing on the rocks. For me, a referral is personal. Don’t blow it. Don’t embarrass me. Don’t harm my client.
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It was a criminal case, but yeah.
I couldn’t agree more. When I make a referral that has my name associated with it, I know the reputation of the attorney, I have had some type of ‘relationship’ with them (either adversarial or know of them in circles) and I actually talk to them about the client in advance to vet them.
I’ve even traveled to another state with a potential client to meet with the attorney and told the client if they are not happy we’ll find them someone else.
Why? Because your reputation is on the line, too. I take referrals very seriously as do you. And because I practiced divorce law, so much is in the compatibility of the client and the attorney, the temperament, the issues, the financial fit.
Those who find lawyers through social media should indicate the level of knowledge you have about the individual and say it is no more than a ‘yellow pages’ knowledge but it is a start to help them find someone. If they don’t like them or it’s not a fit…move on.
While I didn’t read Mark’s piece, any lawyer should realize that a bad referral can cost you future business as well.
Hey, don’t blame me for that. You could have made that a bit more clear, considering all the talk of divorce.
While I realize that I’m fighting the tide, I can’t emphasize enough that making friends via social media is not a valid basis to select a lawyer, whether by clients directly or lawyers by referral. Love them all you want as twitter buddies, but that doesn’t make them good lawyers, no matter how cool their twits or links or retwits. At absolute most, it only means they exist. Nothing more.
It’s okay, Scott. Carolyn couldn’t be bothered to read it either.
I read it twice, it was so good, so I made up for “Carolyn”. If it will make you feel better, I’ll go back and read it again.
Uh here in New York the client can grieve not only the attorney retained on the basis of a referral, if things tank, but also the referring attorney. I won’t do it. Who wants brain damage. I tell them to check the lawyer’s guide in the YP and the lawyer referral service run by a large bar assn. in the area.
While true, it’s neither about insulating oneself from possible grievance nor business-getting. It’s about taking personal and professional responsibility for what you do.
How about blogging? If I like reading a lawyer’s blog, and he sounds good there, is there any chance that he’d actually be a good lawyer for me? Just askin’…
It’s a good question, to which I answer, definitely maybe. I think the content of some writing provides a fairly good indication of a lawyer’s knowledge, interest, analytical abilities, concern, etc. But then, it’s awfully easy to appear smart, or caring, in a blog. Indeed, it’s easy to pretend to be a lawyer when you aren’t. Or a social marketing guru, for that matter.
This is a great post and something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately.
When I was young(er) an older much more experienced lawyer asked for a referral. I think I might have looked through MH and gotten some names, I forget. But I gave him some names, and he asked about personality. I said “I didn’t know,” since I hadn’t met all of the names on the list. And that’s when he asked me about “due diligence . . . .” Although I didn’t really work for him, he gave me a lecture on due diligence that I still remember to this day.
As for social media, I wonder whether it’s lowering the referral due diligence bar? Obviously, “referral networks” sit at one end of the spectrum and I’m not talking about those.
On the other hand, I would refer clients to some lawyers without hesitation even though I’ve only interacted with those lawyers online.
I’m not suggesting that we refer people on the basis of tweets . . . I have no quarrel with you there. But “on-line interaction” or due diligence may be possible in the same way that a few phone calls may ferret out the good apples in your experience?
Overall my sense is that people have a fairly low level of due diligence for referrals. Much more so online (you see tweets all the time from random people asking for referrals for people they don’t even know).
I fear that newer lawyers don’t distinguish between online personas and reality. It’s all part of the new way, Law 2.0, techno marketing. They want referrals any way they come, and they would give back the same. As Adrianos said, you’re an expert if google says you are.
Referrals should be simple: “Would I hire this lawyer to represent me?” If more people would ask that question rather than view referrals as a way to “pass clients off” (or get a kickback), there’d be fewer problems with referrals.
Most, though, never bother to ask if the client deserves the same attention we’d give ourselves.
I think one of the biggest problems in making a referral is not vetting the client.
I get calls every day: “Who’s the best criminal lawyer here,” or “I need the most aggressive divorce lawyer there.” I ask a question that I don’t think a lot of lawyers ask: “for what?”
I always laugh when someone asks for a referral on a listserv for a criminal lawyer because someone got a DUI or was arrested for some minor offense and one of the “old guard” refers them to the lawyer there that they co-counseled a multi-defendant federal drug case 20 years ago. Or when someone wants a big time divorce lawyer when they’ve been married 2 years, have no kids and rent an apartment.
Referrals arent easy, on either the client or lawyer end, but it helps when the lawyer knows exactly what the client really needs.
Well put. That really is the only meaningful way to view it.
I gather this is a problem peculiar to Miami, since it’s too obvious to worth saying otherwise.