How We Make Money

The short version

• Using the directory and sending an enquiry is free for you. We never ask you for payment and we never sell your details to anyone who is not a solicitor you asked to hear from.
• Firms can pay us for a listing subscription, and in some areas of law for an introduction to a client.
• A paid subscription does affect the order firms appear in, including who receives your enquiry. We say so on this page and beside the enquiry form because you are entitled to know.
• We take no fee at all for introducing personal injury or criminal work. The law prohibits it.
• Nothing we are paid changes the advice a solicitor gives you, and you are never obliged to instruct a firm we suggest.

What you pay: nothing

Searching the directory, reading profiles and reviews, using the cost calculators and sending an enquiry are all free, with no account required to search. When you send an enquiry we pass your details to the firms we match you with so they can reply to you, and to nobody else.

Any fee you go on to pay is your solicitor's own fee, agreed directly between you and that firm. We do not take a share of it and we do not add anything to it.

What firms pay us for

Listing subscriptions

Every firm we hold public regulatory data for is listed free, whether it has ever spoken to us or not. A firm can claim its listing free of charge, and can then subscribe to a paid tier for a richer profile, more detailed analytics and stronger placement in the directory. This is advertising: the firm pays for visibility, not for a particular client. Our paid tiers and what each one includes are set out on the pricing page.

Introduction fees

In some areas of law a firm can pay us a fixed fee for an introduction to a client who has asked to be put in touch. The fee is the same whoever the client is, whatever the case is worth and whatever the outcome, so there is nothing for us to gain by steering you towards a bigger claim or a more expensive firm. The firm pays it; you never do.

Where we never take a fee

We will not accept payment for introducing a client in personal injury work. That includes accident and injury claims, road traffic accidents, accidents at work, industrial disease, and clinical or medical negligence. Section 56 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 makes it unlawful for anyone to pay or be paid for referring this kind of case. That covers payment of any kind, including money routed through another company, and an agreement that breaks the rule cannot be enforced.

We also take no introduction fee in criminal matters, including assault, drug offences, fraud, motoring offences and sexual offences, because the Solicitors Regulation Authority's Code of Conduct bars referral fees for criminal work.

This is enforced in our software, not just in a policy document. A single module decides whether an enquiry may be charged for, it refuses by default, and these areas of law are refused outright even if someone later tries to put a price on them. Firms doing this work are still listed, can still claim their listing, and can still buy a subscription, because that is payment for advertising rather than for a referral.

How we decide which firms you see

When you send an enquiry we first narrow the directory down to firms that can actually take it on. A firm has to cover the area of law you chose, be active in our records, hold a working email address, and be within 50 miles of your postcode. Those conditions are absolute: no amount of money puts a firm in front of you for the wrong area of law, or from outside that radius. We then pass your enquiry to up to three of the firms that qualify.

Among those qualifying firms, we order them by the following, most important first:

1. Subscription tier. A firm on a higher paid tier is placed ahead of firms on lower tiers and ahead of free listings. This is paid placement, and it is the main thing a subscription buys.
2. Distance, in bands of about 10 miles. Firms in a nearer band come first. Firms inside the same band are treated as equally close to you.
3. Firms waiting for their first enquiry. A firm that people have been viewing but that has not yet received an enquiry from us is preferred, so a listing that is clearly of interest gets its chance.
4. How many enquiries the firm has already had from us recently. Firms that have had fewer in the last month come first, so the same office does not receive everything while its neighbours receive nothing.
5. Whether the firm has claimed its listing, because a claimed listing has been checked by someone who works there.
6. Exact distance, as the final tie-breaker.

Being plain about the consequence: because tier is applied before distance, a paying firm 30 miles away can be shown ahead of a free-listed firm 5 miles away, as long as both cover your area of law and both are within the 50-mile radius. What paid placement never does is put a firm in front of you that does not do your kind of work, or that is too far away to help.

Search results and location listings work on the same principle: subscribers are ordered ahead of free listings, and a firm that is there because it subscribes carries a visible "Premium" or "Professional" label on its card.

Going direct instead

You never have to use our enquiry form. Every profile in the directory shows the firm's own contact details — address, plus telephone number, email address and website where we hold them — so you can ring or write to any firm yourself. We are paid nothing when you do. You can browse the whole directory or start from an area of law.

If we do match you with firms, you are under no obligation to any of them. You can ignore the replies, speak to all of them, or instruct somebody else entirely. You can also check any solicitor independently on the Solicitors Regulation Authority's own register before you instruct them.

Questions about this

If anything here is unclear, or you believe a firm has been presented to you unfairly, tell us. We would rather correct it than defend it.