Referrals & Bids

Two other ways work moves between practitioners: referring a case out, and joining forces on a bid.

Referrals

A referral is when you hand a case (or a piece of one) to another practitioner. On Guild, referrals are for cases you can't or shouldn't handle — the triage's Red tier is the classic case: out of your practice area, out of your jurisdiction, or beyond your resources.

Proposing a referral

From a case, you propose a referral to a practitioner. The proposal asks for:

Referral fee percentage — the share of the ultimate fee that comes back to you (optional, and subject to your jurisdiction's rules on referral fees — typically they must be reasonable and disclosed to the client).
Referral terms — what's being referred and on what basis.
Client consent — you attest that the client has consented to the referral.

The recipient is notified by email and sees the referral in Referrals with status proposed.

Referral statuses

Status	Meaning
Proposed	Sent, awaiting the recipient's decision
Accepted	Recipient took the case
Declined	Recipient passed
Completed	The referred matter is done

Accepting notifies you by email; the referral moves to completed when the matter concludes.

Bids

A bid is a group response to a case that needs more than one lawyer. One practitioner is the lead; the bid names the co-counsel participating, the total bid amount, and the scope of work.

Creating a bid

From Bids → New Bid you specify:

The case the bid responds to.
Co-counsel on the bid.
Total bid amount — a range is fine (e.g. "$15,000–$25,000").
Scope of work — what the group is offering to do.
Position — whether the proposed terms lean provider-favorable, balanced, or client-favorable.

Creating a bid notifies the case owner ("approval needed") by email. Bids you lead or co-counsel on appear in your Bids list.

Bid statuses

Status	Meaning
Draft	Being worked on, not submitted
Submitted	Sent for the case owner's decision
Accepted	The bid was accepted
Rejected	The bid was declined

Only the lead practitioner can update a bid. If a fee split is part of the bid arrangement, it's recorded on the bid detail page — see Fee Splits (the same consent triple-gate applies).

Referrals vs. bids vs. matches — quick comparison

Flow	Direction	Use it when
Match	You seek co-counsel for your own case	Your case, shared work
Referral	You hand a case to someone else	You shouldn't handle it
Bid	A group responds to a case	You're pitching together on a matter

Questions about any of these flows? See the FAQ.