Speaking at a recent UK Law Society council meeting, CMS Cameron McKenna partner, Fiona Woolf warned that despite the Society's official ban on the payment of referral fees, many leading City law firms are asked to pay "finders' fees", and some do manage to "get around the rules".
According to a report from the Legal Week news service, Ms Woolf told the meeting that around 75% of her work comes as a result of referrals from other firms, and revealed that she has been asked to pay a referral fee on a number of occasions.
Although she explained that she had refused, she suggested that some City firms do not always, giving the lie to the widely held belief that the ban is only ever broken by high street solicitors offering services such as conveyancing and personal injury prosecutions.
The Law Society faces the possibility of legal action over this issue from the Office of Fair Trading following its failure to approve reforms which would have allowed referral fees to be legitimately offered.
The OFT announced earlier this month that it would likely take action following a complaint "from a major estate agency chain" which argued that the Law Society's failure to countenance the payment of finders' fees represents a breach of UK competition law.
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