Can you pay intake staff per signed case? Rule 7.2 and runner/capper risks

The rule that speaks to paying for clients is Model Rule 7.2(b).

The ABA's model text reads: "A lawyer shall not compensate, give or promise anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer’s services except that a lawyer may:" — and what follows is a short list of exceptions.

The exceptions matter because they mark where payment is still possible: advertising costs; legal service plans and qualified referral services; buying a practice under Rule 1.17; non-exclusive reciprocal referral agreements; and nominal thank-you gifts.

The gift exception is the one firms read most hopefully, so its wording is worth quoting: a lawyer may "give nominal gifts as an expression of appreciation that are neither intended nor reasonably expected to be a form of compensation for recommending a lawyer’s services".

Both halves limit the allowance.

The gift has to be nominal, and it cannot be intended — or reasonably expected — to be compensation for a recommendation.

The model text we read states no dollar figure for "nominal"; the allowance turns on intent and expectation, not an amount.

One attribution point before the rest of the page: this is the ABA's model text.

The ABA publishes the Model Rules for states to adopt, and the model text binds no one by itself — the version your state has adopted, which may differ in wording or exceptions, is the one that governs your firm.

Confirm it with your state bar.

Where intake pay fits in the wider employer picture, see our guide to hiring for your law firm.

Per-signup pay puts two rules in play at once.

The first is the recommendation bar above: dollars paid for each client who signs are dollars paid for bringing the firm its clients.

The second is fee-sharing.

ABA Model Rule 5.4(a) provides: "A lawyer or law firm shall not share legal fees with a nonlawyer, except that:" — four exceptions follow.

A bonus computed from a case's fee sits close to that line.

The fee-sharing mechanics have their own guide: Rule 5.4 staff bonuses.

The state bar opinions make the risk concrete.

In New York, NYSBA Ethics Opinion 887 (dated 11/15/11) evaluated a nonlawyer marketer's bonus and allowed a profit-sharing plan paying the marketer "based on overall profits of the firm or on a percentage of the employee’s base salary."

The same opinion drew the outer line: the bonus "may not be based on referrals of particular matters".

Restating New York's Opinion 733 from 2000, the opinion held that "a lawyer may not pay a non-lawyer employee a percentage of fees attributable to matters referred by the employee as compensation for the referral."

A commission on referred matters is barred outright in New York.

D.C. Bar Ethics Opinion 322 reached the same result on a different design: a firm may not pay a nonlawyer employee a percentage of the profits from designated cases.

(The same opinion noted that a separate organization with the nonlawyer could be permissible under D.C.'s own Rule 5.4(b).)

Both opinions speak for their own states — New York and D.C. — and neither binds yours.

But they are the closest published answers our research found to the per-signup question, and both treat pay keyed to particular matters as the prohibited structure.

The design question ends with your state bar's ethics counsel, not with another state's opinion.

The term first.

This page uses "runner" and "capper" the way the pay-for-clients debate uses them: for a person paid to procure clients for a law firm — soliciting prospective clients and delivering them to a lawyer — rather than an employee paid for legal-support work.

What defines the arrangement is the client: pay follows each person brought in, which is the same per-signup structure the sections above addressed.

That is a working definition for this page — our research verified no state statute that defines the term.

What makes this layer different is the kind of exposure at stake.

The ethics rules covered so far are professional-responsibility rules, and breaking them puts lawyers in front of the state's disciplinary process.

Some states may also have statutes, sometimes called runner or capper laws, that could add criminal exposure on top of discipline; our research did not verify any.

What such a law would cover, and whom it would reach, is not something this page can tell you; whether your state has one is a question its own law answers.

A caveat this page takes seriously: our research verified the model rules and the New York and D.C. opinions above, but it did not verify the text of any state's runner or capper statute, so this page names no statute and summarizes none.

A statute summarized from memory is worse than no summary.

If your compensation or marketing plan touches pay per case, ask your state bar's ethics counsel two questions — what your state's rules say about per-case intake pay, and whether your state's statutes add criminal exposure on top of discipline.

The opinions above are silent on the criminal question; only your state's own law can answer it.

Assemble the safe structures from what the sources actually allow.

ABA Model Rule 5.4(a)(3) lets a firm include nonlawyer employees in a compensation or retirement plan even when the plan is based in whole or in part on profit-sharing.

New York's Opinion 887 shows the shape in practice: a marketer's bonus paid from a profit-sharing plan based on overall profits of the firm, or a percentage of the employee's base salary.

New York's Comment [1B] to Rule 5.4 adds the measurement rule: profit-sharing with nonlawyer employees must be based on total profitability of the firm or a department, not the fee from a single case.

Read together, the sources on this page converge on one measurement line: pay follows the firm or a department, never a particular matter.

Concretely:

• a bonus pool funded from overall firm or department profitability;
• a bonus expressed as a percentage of the employee's base salary;
• compensation or retirement plans based in whole or in part on profit-sharing, under Rule 5.4(a)(3);
• nominal appreciation gifts that are neither intended nor reasonably expected to be compensation for a recommendation.

What the sources do not bless is pay computed from particular matters: New York bars a bonus based on referrals of particular matters, and a percentage of fees from referred matters, outright.

A flat amount per sign-up sits outside even those answers — none of the sources on this page addresses a flat per-matter amount not tied to fees or referrals — so that design has no verified answer here either.

KPIs that measure the work, like call handling or file completeness, are a different question, and the sources are silent on attaching bonus weight to them; ask before you link bonuses to any of them.

Put the actual plan document in front of your state bar's ethics counsel before it reaches payroll.

The role itself — coverage, scripts, hourly staffing — is separate from how it is paid.

Our guide to hiring intake specialists covers the role, and PI intake staffing covers building the team at a personal injury firm.

The recommendation bar does not stop at your payroll.

Model Rule 7.2(b) reaches anyone paid for recommending the lawyer's services, which is why the vendor question turns on the same exceptions list.

Two of them matter here: advertising costs are an exception, and so are legal service plans and qualified referral services.

The line the rule draws is between paying for the advertising and paying for the client.

A vendor paid for advertising is being paid for the costs the advertising exception names.

A vendor paid per client delivered is paid for recommending you, the structure the rule bars.

Where a particular contract sits — flat monthly fees, per-lead pricing, per-signed-case pricing — is a judgment the exceptions leave open, and no opinion this page verified addresses lead-generation pricing.

The pattern worth noticing: the closer a contract's price tracks the number of clients delivered, the more directly the recommendation bar speaks to it.

For marketers inside the firm, New York's Opinion 887 is again the closest published answer: a nonlawyer marketer's bonus was acceptable when based on overall profits of the firm or a percentage of base salary, and not acceptable when based on referrals of particular matters.

For outside vendors, have your state bar's ethics counsel read the actual contract — the exceptions are narrow, and the fit is a judgment for the state that governs your firm.

Employer information, not legal advice. This page describes the ABA's Model Rules and ethics opinions from New York and D.C.; the rule your state has adopted controls. Confirm your intake pay plan and marketing agreements with your state bar's ethics counsel before you act on anything here.