The structure, stated plainly
- Participation is a fixed fee. It does not vary with whether you accept a matter, how it resolves, or what it is worth.
- We take no share of any legal fee, and never will.
- There is no bidding, no priority purchasing and no pay-for-placement. A larger payment cannot move you up a queue, because there is no mechanism for it.
- Matters are routed by practice area, county, your declared capacity, and rotation.
- Matters are offered one at a time, not broadcast.
We are aware that the structure of an arrangement like this bears directly on your obligations under the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct, and that the professional risk of getting it wrong falls on you rather than on us. That is why it is a flat fee and why we are describing it in this much detail before you ask.
Conflict check before identity
When a matter is offered to you, you see a de-identified summary: matter type, county, date of incident, urgency, an outline of the facts with names removed, an inventory of what documentation exists, and whether the person is currently represented.
You see the person's name, contact details, narrative and documents only after you have recorded the outcome of a conflict check and accepted the matter for review. Accepting a matter for review is not accepting representation; offering representation is a separate, explicit step, and we never tell anyone they are represented.
This is built the way it is partly for the prospective client and partly for you — receiving disqualifying information about someone you were never going to act for is a problem you did not need.
What you control
- Practice areas you accept, and the counties you cover
- Matter types you will and will not take
- Maximum open referrals per week
- A pause or vacation hold, effective immediately
- Your profile content — subject to our review before publication, because we are the publisher of it
What we publish about you, and what we will not
Objective, verifiable information only: name, firm, admission year, ARDC number, practice areas, education, memberships, languages, and professional background in your own approved words.
We will not publish rankings, star ratings, superiority claims, case results or testimonials. If you would like your profile to say you are the leading practitioner in your field, this is not the right network — not because we doubt you, but because we cannot substantiate it and neither of us should be publishing it.
Nothing is published until you have approved it in writing, we have verified your ARDC registration as active, and a participation agreement is signed. You are professionally responsible for your own advertising, and we are not going to put words in front of the public over your name that you have not read.
Security
Two-factor authentication is required on every portal account. Sessions expire. Every view of a narrative or a document is logged, as is every release of identity, with who and when. If you are ever asked what happened to a prospective client's information, there is a precise answer.
Interested
Contact us at info@chicagolegalconnections.com or 1-847-803-6922. We will send the participation agreement and the full technical and process description, and we are happy to walk your own ethics counsel through the mechanics.