Many of you may be familiar with Groupons, a rapidly growing and popular online service where consumers can find great deals from merchants in a particular geographic area. Not surprisingly, lawyers want to use Groupons to offer discounts on popular legal services, like will drafting. The catch is that Groupons (a non-lawyer) gets a cut of the action, thus giving rise to fee-splitting issues.
According to this story in the ABA Journal, the North Carolina State Bar is examining the ethics of these arrangements, which sound similar to the pay-per-click arrangements (also here) that have generated considerable controversy elsewhere.