Reference
Attorney referral fee rules, state by state
Before you send a matter to counsel in another state, two sets of rules matter: yours and theirs. This is a plain-English summary of the fee-division rule in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with the citation and a link to the primary source for each.
Educational summary, not legal advice.
These rules change, and several turn on facts (contingency versus hourly matters, certified-attorney status, whether you had an attorney-client relationship with the person you referred). Read the linked rule and your own state's version before agreeing to any division of fees.
Pure referral fees permitted
A lawyer may share a fee for the referral itself, without doing proportional work or assuming joint responsibility. Client disclosure and consent requirements still apply and vary.
Proportional work or joint responsibility required
The ABA Model Rule pattern: the split must match the work each lawyer does, or each lawyer must assume joint responsibility for the matter.
Distinctive rules
These jurisdictions depart from both patterns. Read the state page before agreeing to any split.
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