How Listings and Referral Services Operate

Millions of attorneys rely on online databases to find experts with niche expertise. Listing with them will get attention from attorneys who might otherwise never find you.

Listing can be strategic and cost-effective. Even one case can justify most levels of investment.

Before “signing up,” it’s helpful to understand how the services make money, and what makes one service a reputable and profitable contribution to your practice, while another does just the opposite.

3 Most Common Models

• Directory, expert pays. Expert pays an annual fee, $500-$1000+. Cost goes up for an upgrade or premium that guarantees you a space at the top of the results.  JurisPro, Experts.com, and SEAK are a few examples, though I don’t recommend them with equal enthusiasm.
• Broker- 30-40% mark up on your fees. The attorney pays a 30-40% mark-up on your fees and the broker keeps the difference. 
• Listing, attorney pays. The site is a “gatekeeper” accepting lists gratis from experts and selling access to attorneys.  Depending on the service, an attorney or law firm may pay as much as $5-10,000 a year. This model is ubiquitous, far outnumbering other referral or directory services in my experience. Examples include ExpertInstitute and  Forensis Group. 

Directory: Doctor pays a listing fee.

A highly visible directory can produce cases and boost your reputation and name recognition. This is true regardless of who is paying to view your bio. In some cases you will pay a listing fee, and you might be surprised to see some highly regarded colleagues along side you.

Defining elements of a successful directory listing:

1. Top Spot. The specialist area in which you practice is available as a “top of page” premium spot. Attorneys who read top down will call those first.
2. No top spot? There are still benefits to being in the bullpen (everyone else who couldn’t get a top spot.) When your expertise is unique, attorneys may scroll until they find someone like you. Especially if there is scarcity in your field. For example, your expertise is pediatric oncology. The expert directory has “top” or premium listings for pediatrics but they are all taken. An attorney looking for a pediatric oncologist will scan over irrelevant listings until they find a bio that speaks to their case (i.e., yours.)
   Being 5th in the bullpen, but first as a pediatric oncologist, means the listing is still valuable for you even if you’re not in first position.
3. Good company among colleagues. There are respected colleagues listed in the category where you practice. Preferably not so many that you are lost in a mosh pit. Look at the directory under a number of categories suited to your practice to assess.

Considerations in Navigating Directories

• The site looks “sales-y” even if it isn’t. Attorneys are turned off by hired guns and the directory might give that impression through something as simple as a terrible website with garish colors or an awkward amateurish layout.
• There’s no category relevant to your expertise. 
• No data is available about the success of the directory for your practice. Ask them what data they provide to track the success of your listing. Alternatively, I use Google Analytics, a back-end tool, to see if traffic to a website originated from a particular referring source. Always ask attorneys how they found you.
• Is your field featured in the directory or is it better suited to another profession? For example, in a SEAK survey, only 17 psychiatrists responded out of 1,000 experts in all fields. This begs the question: what percentage of those listed on SEAK are psychiatrists? As it turns out, SEAK identifies 194 doctors with the keyword “psychiatry.” SEAK, however, does not produce many cases for the psychiatrists I know who list there. Experts.com lists 16 doctors under “Psychiatry” while JurisPro has over 100. JurisPro claims to be the source for millions of attorneys. My clients have received more referrals from JurisPro than Experts.com. However, the real question is: what was the value of each referral? Here’s the surprise answer: the best cases come from (drumroll) LinkedIn. Free. Keeping this data guide your marketing dollars where they can do the most good.

Their Competition Benefits You

Directories and referral services have a bigger budget than you. They will pay for Google Ad space and pricey SEO packages. Letting them foot the bill for that Google real estate is always a good idea.

What Directories Offer

Visibility

These services are hustling to get attorney attention. For example, JurisPro, you will recall, boasts that they reach millions of attorneys. They report they do this by associating with the massive attorney database Lexis Nexis and law firm in-house expert lists. Similar claims are made by other directories.

Another directory tracks and shares their data so you can document if a view of your bio resulted in a retention. JurisPro doesn’t provide this data.

Listing in a directory that gets only a little traffic, however can have a powerful downstream effect, by boosting your name recognition on Google.

A strategic marketing plan includes visibility on multiple fronts. Listing in several directories can boost the frequency attorneys see your name and associate it with your specialization and credentials. 

Subspecialization Visibility

When you sign up with a paid directory, they generally allow you to select at least 10 areas of subspecialization. E.g. PTSD, Surgery, or hospitalist.

Pros

• You own your bio, written in your own words, you describe your specializations, skill, credentials and services. This isn’t something you want the other models: referral or gatekeeper service’s AI doing on your behalf.
• Attorneys access your website, a way to call and email you. You might be provided a button to download your cv, email or visit your website.
• Most have an option to post articles and video on the service’s own platform. Tip: you can re-use material you wrote on your website.

Perceived Cons

• Defending on the stand. An attorney could try and characterize a directory listing as a negative. Any aggressive opposing litigator worth their salt will strive to discredit you as a mercenary. It’s a tactic not a truth. No need to be defensive. Your listing isn’t a page in the New York Times!

How You Sign Up

You register with the directory site online and pay the fee.

You will be asked to complete questions about your experience and professional history,  and write your bio.

• The base fee provides room for an extensive bio and contact information. Some directories offer a free basic listing that puts you in the “bullpen.” You are listed among colleagues that rotate daily. Can be random or alphabetical.
• If a premium or “top spot” is available in your area of expertise, grab it. One directory charges a base listijng fee of $499; upgrading to a premium spot adds $30-$100/month (cost ties to the desireability of the category and whether the position is first, second, etc.) Being retained in a single case justifies the cost.

Broker

A broker connects the attorney to the expert. They make money by marking up your fee 30-40%. Their hope is to pay you a lower rate, and keep the difference. Insist on your regular rate and you don’t lose anything by working with a broker-style company. The burden is on the broker to add on their mark-up and collect.

Despite the added cost to the attorney, many are happy to pay to avoid the hassle of tracking down the right expert.

Some brokers are huge. AMFS, for example, has been in practice for 30 years and has thousands of doctors listed and thousands more attorneys that are happy to pay “extra” to find experts. 

Pro

You will rarely get your name in front of tens of thousands of attorneys without spending a dime. Whether you choose to insist on your full fee, or accept a discount, the broker will always bear the cost and effort of promoting you and closing a retention.

Con

If the brokerage handles all attorney billing they might not allow you to be the first point of retention. This raises legal questions for you: who has retained you? Will legal complications specific to expert witnesses be defended so you don’t lose your fee? For example, your testimony is challenged and you are disqualified. The attorney doesn’t want to pay. Will the brokerage go to bat and insist on your fee? Some will, some won’t. You should ask.

Alternate Model: A “Group Private Practice” That Functions Like a Broker

In this case, a website introduces the expert team. They are vetted and reputable and work together. Generally, the practice focuses on a specialized area of medicine, and complementary adjacent specialties (like neurology and neuropsychology.)

Like clinicians treating patients at a single brick and mortar office, the practice is small and elite. It is also a mark-up model.

The experts are solo contractors who specialize in forensic/expert services. Like any other broker model, their fees are marked up and the practice keeps the difference. However, the association among a handful of experts is tighter and smaller than the massive databases of most “broker” or “mark-up” behemoths.

Pros

If you are practicing within your specialty, with a small group of colleagues, you may have access to

• mentorship from more experienced experts to get answers to thorny questions.
• administrative support with billing and minutiae.
• Depending on the practice, you might benefit from riding the coattails of a respected leader in the field.

Gatekeeper Model

Attorney Pays

The Gatekeeper will be the first, or only, point of contact for the attorney. The attorney contacts the service, tells them about the case, and service decides which experts are the right fit. In some cases, a listing of bios is available, similar to a directory, but your name is withheld.

Access to experts is paid for by the attorney. Attorneys pay as much as $5,000-$10,000/year. 

Expert Institute is a Gatekeeper. EI does have the option for an expert to be listed and viewed by attorneys for free (to the expert) but it is deep on the site. Instead, EI’s Client IQ interface captures the attorney interest up front, and redirects to the gatekeeper pathway — a form on the website that the attorney fills out with case details. In other words, the attorney must start with the gatekeeper before they ever land on your doorstep.

Value added: EI has excellent articles aimed at attorneys. You should check them out as some address legal ramifications of expert witness testimony, best practices, liability and caselaw. 

Once you are retained the service may additionally receive a one time “retention” fee from the attorney.

Con

With some gatekeeper services, they write your bio for you. They will even tell you they are saving you time and this is a service to you.

The problem is, you might not like what they say or how they say it.

At worst, they write the profile following an internal template or even AI.

One service always begins with the Expert’s education–even if the expert went to medical school 40 years ago, or graduated from a less than stellar school followed by esteemed Fellowship, reputation in the field, publications, and appointments, etc.

However, I recommend that particular service because they have a solid reputation with attorneys for providing top-notch Experts.

And they cost the Expert nothing.

Take charge of your bio: I insist the service allow my client to write their own bio. If they won’t, I find most are amenable to a request for changes, especially where facts are unclear or misleading (e.g. a Board-Certification is worded inaccurately.)

Summary

Attorneys Use These Sites.
Tap This Marketing Tool.

All marketing begins with the attorney’s experience. Because cases are not all equal, you can make the attorney’s search land on your practice when their need is very specific.

To differentiate yourself, list only in respected Directories that have a track record for return on the cost of listing. Be sure you control your bio–you write it, and that others listed are respected.

This article is written for Experts, but all content is useful for attorneys.

Endnotes

1. AMA, 9.6.1 Code of Medical Ethics 
https://code-medical-ethics.ama-assn.org/ethics-opinions/advertising-publicity

2. A Psychiatry exemplar with tools most  doctors and psychologists can use:

The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology reports that there are 1,400 active Board-Certified Forensic Psychiatrists and 40,000 Board-Certified (general adult) Psychiatrists. (ABPN, June 2025). Therefore, we can see that about 4% of psychiatrists have unique experience in the med-legal / psychlegal space as you. If we speculate no more than another 5% of solely Board-Certified Psychiatrists are serving as expert witnesses, from time to time–about 2,000 psychiatrists. Of those 1,400 are 100% in the med-legal space. Thus it would be conservative to say your “competition” is perhaps 2,000 colleagues, 1400 of which have the most on-point credentials.

If you hold subspecialty Board-Certification your “competition” in that specialty among clinicians might also be among statistics offered by your Board-granting authority.

3. Example reprinted with permission from JurisPro. I have received no compensation.