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Several years ago, I wrote an article about the many benefits of referring work to colleagues within the legal community. Usually, if someone else it better able to handle a given matter, it benefits the client and the lawyer to have the most capable attorney see the client. However, lawyers should be cautious about referring work they can do themselves since this might lead to less work from the particular client well into the future.
Earlier in my career, I worked for a client that provided a substantial amount of legal work to my law firm. We were usually able to handle all of the client’s needs even though the client had diverse needs. One time, the client asked us to handle a smaller legal matter a little outside of our comfort zone. It would have taken us substantial time to brush up on the particular area of the law and might not be worth the time we could have devoted to serving other clients.
Ultimately, we decided to refer the matter to another lawyer. This lawyer had also referred work to us over the years, so it felt right to return the favor with this relatively small matter. Moreover, we had reason to believe that the lawyer had more experience in the subject matter involved in the legal issue faced by the client. The lawyer thanked us profusely and seemingly did a solid job for the client.
After the passage of time, we learned that the client had kept in touch with this other lawyer and had provided projects directly to this lawyer. Some of the projects were work that my law firm might have expected to handle had the other lawyer not been in the picture. It seems that as a result of referring this work for the client to another lawyer, my firm missed out not only on handling that matter but on other legal work for the client. I was not too upset with the lawyer, he just did solid work for the client and offered fee terms that might have been more reasonable than what my firm was offering. However, this situation definitely made me more cautious about referring work to other lawyers that my law firm could likely handle internally.
This leads me to a question that I would love feedback on. If a lawyer receives a referral from another lawyer, do they have any responsibility to help ensure that the referring attorney still gets other matters involving the client? Out of gratitude and respect for people who give me referrals, I usually do everything I can to make sure that an attorney who refers work to me still gets the other work provided by a given client.
For instance, earlier in my career, a colleague referred a litigation matter in a jurisdiction in which I am licensed to practice and in which the other lawyer was not. I did solid work for the client, and he eventually wanted me to work on other matters, including ones that were clearly within the expertise of the attorney who originally referred the work to me. I told my client that the referring attorney was a solid lawyer and that he should continue to refer those types of work to that lawyer. I did end up taking additional litigation matters in the jurisdictions in which I practice from that client since the original lawyer could not handle those cases. In this way, I showed respect and gratitude for the referral, and this eventually led to additional referrals from that lawyer.
Of course, if lawyers have a conflict or are otherwise completely unable to handle a matter, they should refer the matter to different counsel. However, if a lawyer can handle a matter, they should think about the negative consequences before referring work to different counsel.
Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.
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