Two kinds of professional send a registered investment advisor more usable leads than any amount of advertising: a CPA who has already seen a client's full financial picture at tax time, and an estate attorney who is drafting a will or a trust for someone about to inherit or sell something large. Both relationships can be paid, and both are now covered by one federal rule that replaced a patchwork of older ones in 2022: the SEC's Marketing Rule, which treats a paid referral exactly like a paid endorsement and requires a written agreement before the first dollar changes hands.

Who it makes sense to partner with

Natural partners for a financial advisor

Partner type What they bring What you give Usual structure
CPA or tax preparer A client whose tax return just revealed a liquidity event, a business sale, or a retirement gap Tax-aware planning input the CPA can't bill for directly Flat fee per referral or a percentage of first-year advisory fees, under a written solicitor agreement
Estate planning attorney A client drafting a trust or will who needs the assets actually managed Referrals back for estate documents the advisor spots a gap in Reciprocal referral, often unpaid between two licensed professionals, or a disclosed fee either way
Insurance agent (life, LTC, annuities) A client's existing coverage review that surfaces a planning need Referrals for policy reviews tied into the financial plan Reciprocal referral; a captive agent's commission structure is separate from the advisor's fee
Divorce or family law attorney A client who will need a financial plan rebuilt after a settlement Referrals for forensic or litigation-support work Flat fee per referral, disclosed to the client, or unpaid professional courtesy

What the SEC Marketing Rule requires before any fee is paid

The rule, formally 17 CFR 275.206(4)-1, took full effect in November 2022 and replaced the old cash solicitation rule. It treats anyone compensated for sending referrals, cash or otherwise, as a "promoter," and compensation is read broadly: a reciprocal referral, a discount, free services, or anything else of value counts, not only cash. An attorney who regularly sends clients and gets estate-planning business referred back in return can be a promoter under the rule even with no invoice ever issued.

The written agreement does not need to be long, but it needs to exist before the first referral is paid for, and it needs the specific disclosure language the rule requires, not a generic reference to it. A verbal understanding with a CPA that "we'll send each other clients" is the exact relationship the rule is written to catch, whether or not either side calls it a referral fee.

How to structure and paper the agreement

A flat fee per qualified referral is the simplest structure to administer and disclose, and it is what most CPA and attorney referral relationships end up using rather than a revenue share, since neither the CPA nor the attorney wants an ongoing financial stake in the advisor's book. How to write partnership proposals is a reasonable starting point for the conversation before the compliance paperwork is drafted; the agreement itself should be reviewed by the firm's own compliance function, since the written-agreement and disclosure language in the rule is specific and a template pulled from another firm's website is not a substitute for it.

What the written solicitor agreement needs to cover

  1. Scope of the referral activity

    What the promoter is and is not authorized to say about the advisor, and whether they can describe specific strategies or performance.

  2. Compensation terms

    The amount or formula, when it is paid, and for how long (a one-time fee versus an ongoing trail on assets referred).

  3. The disclosure the client will see

    Draft the exact language the promoter or the advisor will show the prospective client before or at the time of the referral.

  4. A disqualification check

    Confirm the promoter has no disqualifying SEC history before signing, and build in a way to find out if that changes later.

What goes wrong

The most common failure is treating a reciprocal referral relationship as outside the rule because no cash ever changes hands; the SEC has been explicit that reciprocal referrals and other non-cash compensation count. The second is disclosure that technically exists but is buried in a long-form brochure rather than shown to the client at the point the referral is made, which is where the "clear and prominent" standard tends to get tested.

A third, specific to this industry, is forgetting that the rule applies retroactively to relationships that predate it: a solicitor arrangement set up under the old cash solicitation rule years ago and never revisited does not grandfather in under the Marketing Rule's written-agreement and disclosure requirements. Advisors who inherited referral relationships from a predecessor firm, through a merger or an acquired book of business, are a common place this gets missed, since nobody on the current team remembers the arrangement being set up in the first place. This is general information, not a review of a specific agreement; an advisor setting up a paid referral relationship should have compliance counsel confirm the agreement and disclosure language before the first payment.