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Lawyer referral trims procedures, seeks lawyers

It takes two lawyers to make a go of practice in a small town, so clients can sue each other.

In some parts of Virginia, the Virginia Lawyer Referral Service would be happy to get just one lawyer signed up for its service.
The referral service, operated as a nonprofit, public service project of the Virginia State Bar, is soliciting active members of the VSB in good standing to sign up to meet with pre-screened potential clients.

The VLRS currently has 625 members statewide. But a number of cities and counties in nearly half of the 31 circuits do not have a single lawyer signed up to take calls. The need is particularly great in rural areas.

For instance, there are 799 VSB-licensed lawyers in the 16th Circuit, clustered around Charlottesville and Albemarle County, but no lawyers signed up for lawyer referral in the Circuit’s outlying counties of Fluvanna, Greene and Madison.

Beginning last July, the VLRS implemented prepayment of the $35 fee collected from callers who set up appointments. Getting the money up front has relieved lawyers of that administrative hassle and helped to cut down on nuisance callers, according to Richmond lawyer Robert L. Flax, a member of the VSB Special Committee on Lawyer Referral.

Rosslyn lawyer Mary Mar-garet Benzinger, who chairs the VSB special committee, says the upfront fee collection has really “streamlined the process” for participating lawyers, who previously had to “send back paperwork even for the no-shows.” Requesting the fee – cash, check or credit card – is a good way to separate the “bona fides” from the people who just want to vent, Benzinger said.

In the fiscal year prior to the fee-collection change, the referral service made about 12,000 referrals to lawyers, but only about 2,000 of those referrals followed up for appointments with lawyers. Since the switch, the VLRS has served about the same number, 2,000, “so the same numbers of people are getting service,” she said.

The caller is screened by VLRS staff and referred to a lawyer with an interest in the kind of legal issue that prompted the call. After the VLRS collects the fee, the caller schedules her own appointment for the initial one-half hour consultation with the lawyer. If the caller has a case the lawyer is willing to take, the lawyer and client work out the terms of their attorney-client relationship going forward. There is no obligation on either side to go beyond the first consultation.

Lawyers signing up for the referral service pay $75 annually and complete an application available at http://www.vsb.org/ docs/application.pdf. The application allows a lawyer to pinpoint areas in which she would like to receive referrals. There are 17 broad categories of practice, from administrative or governmental work to taxation, with at least a dozen detailed practice areas per category. For instance, under “Family Law,” a VLRS panel member can designate an interest in just how a couple gets uncoupled, whether by “Divorce,” “No Fault Divorce” or “Annulment.”

The key to making it work, from the lawyer’s perspective, is signing up for the right number and kinds of practice categories. The lawyer may see the referral service as a way to branch out a little. But it may be better to choose something the lawyer knows fairly well, in order to get a quick read on whether the caller has a case.

Sign up for too many practice categories, and spend too many nonproductive hours telling people they don’t have a legal remedy. Sign up for too few referral areas, and miss out on potential paying clients, or at least some positive word-of-mouth in the community.

Lawyers in rural areas need not worry they will “open the floodgates” if they sign up for lawyer referral, said Richmond lawyer Daniel L. Rosenthal, the VLRS committee vice chair. Participating attorneys can call a temporary halt to referrals during a busy stretch in their practice.

“The purpose of the program is to make lawyers available to as many members of the public as possible,” Rosenthal said, so VLRS tries to be flexible in order to encourage more lawyers to participate.

The following cities and counties in Virginia have no VSB members listed with VLRS:

Accomack, Northampton (1st Circuit)
Surry, Sussex (6th Circuit)
King & Queen (9th Circuit)
Buckingham, Charlotte, Cumberland, Halifax, Lunenberg (10th Circuit)
Nottoway (11th Circuit)
Caroline, Essex, King George, Richmond, Westmoreland (15th Circuit)
Fluvanna, Greene, Madison (16th Circuit)
Henry, Patrick (21st Circuit)
Bath, Botetourt, Craig, Highland (25th Circuit)
Clarke, Shenandoah (26th Circuit)
Bland, Floyd, Giles, Grayson (27th Circuit)
Buchanan, Dickenson, Tazewell (29th Circuit)
Scott (30th Circuit)

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