Referrals

Experienced, Aggressive, and Creative Attorneys

We are honored to serve clients that are referred to us by other attorneys. Over the life of our firm, we have received referrals from other attorneys on personal injury matters, employment cases and business litigation. Depending on the type of case and the nature of the referral, we pay referral fees, pursuant to the Texas State Bar rules, and the nature and size of the case. Law Done Right means doing right by our friends in the legal profession too.

No matter the case size, when attorneys refer their clients or friends to Schreiber | Knockaert, PLLC, the referring attorneys can be assured that we will take personal care of the client and the matter and maintain the referring attorney’s client relationship.

Types of Referrals

Shared responsibility and work: The Texas State Bar Rules require fee splits between attorneys (what a referral fee ultimately is) to be proportionate to the degree of responsibility for work, and responsibility for case expenses. We accept referrals from attorneys who maintain responsibility for approximately half the work and half the expenses, and split the fee in half. Other times, we do the majority of the work – particularly when it is an area of law that we have particularized experience in – and take on the responsibility for advancing the case expenses, and in such a case, the fee split is less than 50/50.
Referral from attorneys who practice different areas of law: We are frequently referred cases by attorneys who practice in a different area of law than the case entails. We have been referred personal injury cases from corporate attorneys, employment litigation from personal injury attorneys, and the like. In many of these cases, we rely on the referring attorney to assist with client communication and to give case advice, even if the area of law is not in their normal wheelhouse. In such cases, we make sure to remember our friends who referred the cases to us, do our best to refer cases back to them in their areas of legal practice, and to comply with the State Bar Rules regarding fee sharing if the size of the case and fee earned warrants a fee split.

Kinds of Cases Referred to Us

Personal Injury Cases from other Personal Injury Firms: We tend to handle cases that don’t neatly fit inside the box of traditional torts. We are frequently referred employee injury/nonsubscriber cases where the employment agreement has an arbitration clause. We have tried a number of cases in arbitration forums – both commercial arbitrations and personal injury arbitrations – and are very comfortable with arbitrations. We are referred assault cases that occur in bars/nightclubs and retail stores. Many of these cases have complicated issues of course-and-scope of employment and ratification that determine whether the employer/business will be held liable for the employee/manager’s conduct. We are referred Federal Tort Claims Act cases, and have experience with suing the government, the administrative side of the claims that precede filing suit, and the specialized statutes and case law involved in FTCA.
Employment matters: The vast majority of our employment matters are referred by other attorneys, including unpaid overtime/FLSA, wrongful termination, and executive contract/noncompete/severance negotiations. We have been honored to be referred by attorneys at both large firms (who typically represent the employer side and are conflicted out of representing individuals or executives) and small firms who handle other areas of law. Because we have experience in multiple types of arbitrations, we are comfortable with and experienced in handling employee arbitrations in all areas of employment law. We have accepted cases from other attorneys after they have challenged an arbitration provision, but lost the challenge, and brought us into assist with the arbitration hearings, and after an administrative proceeding (EEOC or TWC) has ended and suit needs to be filed.
Business litigation: We are typically referred business litigation matters by corporate attorneys who are many times the company’s registered agent and play an active role in helping manage the legal risks of the company. We value being part of the company’s team, maintain the attorney/client relationship of the referring corporate attorney, and very often seek input and counsel from the corporate attorney. We are happy to evaluate business litigation cases for free and many times offer alternative fee structures that work on both the client’s and law firm’s interests.