Proper Language About Order of Contracting & Relationships Between Parties:
- Avoiding UPL, Running & Capping, Cannot Establish Attorney/Client Relationship, only Attorney can. These are the documents we use to contract at Apex Law Service.
- Using some sort of “Overarching Law Service Memorandum of Understanding” like this can help keep things clear with respect to who the Parties in an Outsourced Paralegal Business Transaction are and how they interact.
- The Attorney and the Client to whom you introduce the Attorney are both your Clients. You are first marketing to find a Client who wants to hire you to do the Outsourced Paralegal Work for the Attorney to whom you are about to introduce them and whom they can hire if the Attorney offers.
- You will have your Attorney Client first agree to use you for the Outsourced Paralegal Work (recommended 80% of work on case) they require for the Client’s Case.
- You collect a separate retainer than does the Attorney. First collect a deposit on the retainer and then put together everything the Attorney might need to see so they can talk with their new Potential Client.
- The Attorney will give them an estimate of how may Attorney Hours the case will take and how many of your Paralegal Hours the case will take. Some people feel comfortable paying referral sources a referral fee based on hours billed to the Client with the legal issue since there is a separate retainer for the Outsourced Paralegal Business and the Attorney and therefore pay a portion of the Outsourced Paralegal Business Billed Hours. Some people feel this is getting too close to the Rule that an Attorney cannot pay a referral fee based on hours billed since the Attorney does in fact estimate to the Client with the legal issue how many Paralegal Hours they will probably order from the Outsourced Paralegal Business. This is an issue that you as a Business Operator need to settle by doing your own research and by retaining Counsel.
- Most people feel 100% comfortable paying referral sources a set “marketing fee” for any and all cases. Read this short essay from the ABA on the issue.
- If a Client with a legal issue is brought into your Outsourced Paralegal Business by an Employee Paralegal or Independent Contractor Paralegal most people feel comfortable paying an additional $Amount per Hour to that Paralegal for the work they do on the Case.
It is a case out of California in which an Attorney named Matthew Higbee who runs an Expungemt Law Office with a website called “Record Gone” sued an out of State unregistered Legal Document Assistance Business which was also committing acts of Unauthorized Practice of Law.