Legal Matchmaking: The Truth About Attorney Finder Websites - Part Two

Referral Sites
Referral sites gather your information (name, number, case specifics, etc.) and then send it to an attorney who will contact you. The attorney has paid for this service and the case lead. When you fill out the online form the information is sent to the next lawyer on the list. With referral sites, the lawyer is often paying to get a certain number of leads per month. Rather than being routed to the attorney that can best meet your needs, you are simply put in touch with the next attorney in line.

Whether the attorney is listed in a directory or referral site, in both cases the attorney is paying for advertising. This is important to understand because the attorney may not have much, if any, experience in the area of law that pertains to your case. Many times the attorney who pays for this type of advertising may not have even taken your type of case all the way to trial. Sometimes out-of-state attorneys will use a directory or referral site to gather leads and then refer them to an in-state attorney in exchange for a referral fee or broker fee.

Also, beware of those websites claiming that the attorney has been “prescreened” or that the attorney “belongs in their network”. This just means that the lawyer was able to pay the advertising fee. The term “prescreened attorney” usually means that the company that operates the website has verified that the attorney is licensed to practice law, but not necessarily that the attorney is experienced to handle your type of case.