I am writing in response to recent letters from solicitors who either claim or imply that because their firms don’t pay referral fees they somehow have more integrity than firms that do.

Aside from failing to mention that rule 1.02 of the Code of Conduct requires us all to act with integrity, they have a very narrow and ‘old-school’ view of referral fees.

We all know that referrals are another way for firms to generate income, which can be especially important in a recession, where firms need to diversify and expand their portfolio of clients in order to survive. However, they will soon have an increasingly important part to play in our working lives.

The legal services market is going through some of its biggest changes in over a century. The ‘monopoly’ that we solicitors once enjoyed will be a thing of the past. Competition from other industry sectors is real and is coming.

We can no longer run to the ‘safe haven’ that was once legal aid, with the government and the Legal Services Commission continuously finding new initiatives to reduce our income (and ‘access to justice’ along with it) from an ever-decreasing budget.

To survive, we have to move with the times and this means using all available methods of bringing in new work and changing the way we provide legal services to our clients.

Anyone who believes that referral fees do not form part of the way forward for firms to stay competitive in this new landscape needs to wake up and smell the coffee. There is a younger generation of highly innovative solicitors waiting in the wings who are ready to embrace change and are capable of taking this profession forward, competing head on with the new entrants. But they need to do so on a level playing field.

Shamil Purohit, Solicitor, Content Lawyer Epoq Group