Can a lawyer or accountant take a referral fee?
The short answer
It depends. No rule names a fee from a data buyer. ET 1.520 bars a CPA's commission when the firm audits or reviews that client. ABA Model Rule 7.2(b) bars paying for recommendations. Rule 1.7(a)(2) treats a lawyer's personal interest as a conflict. Their state bar or board decides.
This page reports rule text and gives no legal or ethics advice.
Who pays whom when your adviser makes an introduction?
If your lawyer or accountant introduces you to an AI data company, that company may pay them. Several data companies publish referral programs, and micro1's referral terms require the person referring to get consent from an authorized representative of the company first.
The payment comes from the data company, not your price. It's still a personal interest in where you license your data, which is what the professional rules below look at. Data broker commission covers who pays each kind of intermediary.
What do the ABA Model Rules say?
Rule 7.2(b): a lawyer "shall not compensate, give or promise anything of value to a person for recommending the lawyer's services," with listed exceptions. It covers a lawyer paying others.
Rule 1.5(e) sets three conditions for dividing a fee between lawyers in different firms. Rule 5.4(a) bars sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer, with narrow exceptions.
Rule 1.7(a)(2) finds a concurrent conflict where there is a significant risk that a personal interest of the lawyer will materially limit the representation.
Rule 1.7(b) allows it with informed consent, confirmed in writing. Rule 1.8(f) sets conditions for accepting compensation for representing a client from someone else.
None of these names a fee from a data buyer. Whether they reach one is for your bar.
What does the AICPA Code say?
ET 1.520.001 bars a member from recommending a product or service for a commission, or receiving one, while the member also performs an audit, a review, certain compilations or an examination of prospective financial information for that client.
Paragraph .03 requires disclosure of a permitted commission to the person who gets the recommendation. Paragraph .04 requires disclosure of referral fees for CPA services.
The text I read doesn't say whether a data buyer's fee counts as a commission.
How much do states differ?
California's Rule 7.2(b) bars compensation "for the purpose of recommending or securing" the lawyer's services, wording that differs from the Model Rule.
Kansas requires CPAs to follow the AICPA code on commissions and referral fees (K.A.R. 74-5-103). A New York State Bar opinion from 2012 applied Rules 1.5, 1.8(f), 5.4(a) and 7.2(a) to a different arrangement, a nonlawyer firm paying a lawyer.
What should you ask your adviser?
Ask whether anyone will pay them if you sign with the buyer they suggest, and how much. Ask them to put that in writing, and to say which rule for their license allows it.
If their firm also audits or reviews your books, ET 1.520's text bars a CPA commission for that client, so ask how they've handled it.
Our advisor pages show what your CPA, lawyer or deal advisor should check, and who pays whom.
Talk to a privacy or commercial lawyer in your state before you sign.
micro1 may pay us a referral fee if a company we introduce goes ahead with it. How we are paid
Apply to micro1's data partnership (paid link)micro1's own data-partnerships pagePaid link. How we are paid
Vaultfish helps you run the process. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. If you need counsel who knows this area, we can point you to one. Ask for a referral
