Program Description &
Terms of Enrollment
Program Description
Gemstone Legal Consulting, LLC (“Gemstone”) offers the Gemstone Referral Program (GRP) as a service to potential clients and attorneys and law firms throughout Gemstone’s service area. The GRP is a matching service in which Gemstone consultants refer cases of clients needing full-service, specialized, or out-of-state legal representation to law firms which have enrolled and expressed interest in receiving those types of cases.
Terms of Enrollment
By submitting the GRP intake form, you the named Contact Person represent that you are authorized to enroll yourself and/or the Business you represent in the GRP. You further represent that the information you submit is accurate to the best of your knowledge and belief, and that you or other attorneys associated with your firm are licensed, competent, and in good standing to practice law in the jurisdictions and practice areas indicated.
You may update or delete your enrollment information at any time by sending an email to ArGemstoneLegal@gmail.com. When an individual attorney deletes their own enrollment, only that attorney’s information is removed from the directory. An authorized Contact Person of an enrolled law firm may elect to delete the information of all enrolled attorneys from their firm. The attorneys impacted will be notified by email and given a minimum of two (2) business days to elect to remain enrolled.
All non-public information submitted to the GRP is stored in a secure third-party cloud server and is never shared or used for any purpose except to analyze attorney matches for potential clients. Only public contact information (name, address, phone number, web address) is shared with potential clients to allow them to make a choice about where to send referrals.
In addition to information submitted by attorneys and law firms, Gemstone also receives information from clients about the attorneys they are referred to, such as confirmation of fee arrangements and quality of service. This information is maintained anonymously as part of the attorney’s confidential profile. It may be viewed by the attorney or law firm contact, but it is not shared with clients or anyone else.
Terms of Enrollment, Cont’D
Referral listings may be suspended or canceled for good cause, including material deception, loss of credentials, substantiated client complaints, or criminal or unethical conduct including failure to compensate Gemstone for its work.
Fees
The GRP is a value-added service, meaning no fees are charged to the client or the law firms benefiting from any referrals. Gemstone only charges fees for legal or consulting work it actually completes on cases. When Gemstone refers a case without completing any substantive work on that case, no fee is charged. Fees are itemized and invoiced directly to the Primary Counsel on the case (see Client Relations, below).
Client Relations
When a client is referred to you and you accept the referral and execute a client agreement, you become the Primary Counsel for that client on that case. You are responsible for completing all checks for conflicts of interest as they may apply to you, your firm, and any parties of interest. Gemstone as the Referring Party will perform its own conflicts checks for any work it does. In some cases, Gemstone will complete investigatory or other work on the case before referring the case to you. In those cases, to ensure compliance with the applicable Rules of Professional Conduct, you agree to include terms for fairly compensating Gemstone for the work it performs on the case in your client agreement, whether that is by flat fee, hourly rate, or percentage of contingency fee recovery, as permitted by applicable laws.
Choice of Law
By enrolling in this program, you agree that any dispute arising between you and Gemstone relating to the GRP will be governed by Arkansas law, and that you will attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute with mediation or arbitration before resorting to the courts. This choice of law provision is not impacted by whatever law governs any underlying cases or the professional conduct of the attorneys involved in any matter referred.