Internet legal marketing firms getting portion of lawyer’s fees is out of bounds

Found out recently that some companies selling Internet marketing services to lawyers require that the lawyers pay a portion of the fees earned to the Internet marketing company.

To me, that’s overreaching, inappropriate, and depending on how its being done and the state involved, a violation of ethic’s rules.

How do they get away with it? Some lawyers, especially in the personal injury arena, are addicted to SEO and high search engine rankings like crack cocaine. These Internet marketing companies knowing they’ve got these lawyers where they want them, deal them high search engine rankings for a portion of the fees earned.

I am sure some the Internet marketing companies get away with it saying we have a lawyer or law firm heading things up – just running a referral relationship or ‘virtual law firm,’ if you will. That’s bunk. The Internet marketing company is greedy and is not willing to sell its services at a reasonable price in an straight forward fashion.

If the Internet marketing company’s lawyer wants to earn legal fees, let them practice law. If they wish, they can go of counsel in a law firm and do their Internet marketing work.

Assuming you went to law school back when I did, could you imagine standing up in legal ethics class, and asking the professor ‘Do you see any problem with me buying a large yellow page ad for personal injury work and paying the yellow page salesperson 30% of the fees I earn as a result?’ Didn’t think so. You’d have been embarrassed to ask.

As lawyers, let’s not let our professionalism and ethics drop to lows we could not have imagined in law school. We owe to it ourselves and the public.

If such an Internet marketing company can provide a worthwhile service to lawyers, that’s great. But build a business model around it that is commensurate with the traditions of our legal profession. Just because you can get away with something does not mean you should.