Getting started with Conifer
Welcome to Conifer
Conifer is professional referral infrastructure designed to improve client outcomes and organic business development. It turns informal introductions into structured, trackable referrals, with a documented rationale behind each interaction and a clear record of the end-to-end process.
Membership works in both directions. Intelligent and dynamic matching helps you find the right counterparty for your specific client need, beyond the firms and individuals you already know. As a part of the network, you are also discoverable for professionals seeking your services. Conifer ensures inbound referrals are well suited to your expertise.
This guide covers what to prepare, how to set up your firm and team, how a referral works from enquiry to engagement, and what to expect once you are live on the network.
Why Conifer exists
Referrals already drive professional services. Yet most firms would struggle to say precisely what referrals they have made, where they went, what came of them, or how the recipient was chosen.
The issue is rarely poor judgement. It is that the process around the judgement is informal, inconsistent and difficult to evidence. Conifer addresses three problems that hold firms back:
Discoverability.
You can only refer to the firms you know. The specialist best placed to help a client may be one you have never met. Conifer assesses the whole network against your client's circumstances and returns a ranked shortlist, with the reasoning behind each match.
Evidence.
Introductions made by email or over coffee leave no record of why a recipient was chosen or what the client agreed to. On Conifer, each step from enquiry to outcome is captured on a time-stamped ledger, including the matching rationale, disclosures and client consent. It gives your firm a record that can support its own processes.
Oversight.
Referrals tend to live in inboxes and memory. The platform carries the operational load: firmwide status tracking, documentation, outcomes. Referrals no longer live in inboxes; they are managed by Conifer.
What Conifer means for your business
Joining Conifer places your firm in a reviewed network of professional counterparties: one you can refer out to, and one that refers to you.
When you send a referral
- Reach suitable specialists, within and beyond your existing network.
- Make client-centred introductions with a documented rationale.
- Keep a complete record of each referral, from enquiry to outcome.
- See what happened next, so you know your client is being looked after.
When you receive a referral
- Be discovered for your firm's, and your own, areas of expertise.
- Take on opportunities matched to your specialism, capacity and fee structure.
- Manage every inbound enquiry in one place.
- Pay a success fee only when a referred client engages your firm.
For your clients
A more considered introduction, based on their circumstances rather than the limits of any one professional's contact book, with accountability on both sides of the referral.
Setting up your firm – 30 minutes
Decide who will be your Licence Administrator.
This is the person who registers the firm, holds its administrative controls and manages users, teams and permissions. The Licence Administrator can receive referrals personally if they complete a professional profile, or they can simply act in an administrative function. Conifer will send the Licence Administrator their login details directly.
Enter your Business Profile.
Navigate to “My Profile” to complete regulatory status and registration details; office address and the services your firm offers.
Add users.
The Licence Administrator can add users through the Manage Team section. “Manage Users” shows everyone at the firm, their role, their team and their status, in one view. Users can be grouped into teams under “Manage Teams”, so activity is organised the way your firm already works, whether by desk, office or practice area. Licence Administrators have full access to edit profiles and settings of all users.
Firm Admin Permissions.
The Licence Administrator can view and edit user profiles both individually and centrally. The Licence Administrator can grant permissions to each user on a firmwide or teamwide basis so that team leaders or additional admins can make wholesale or limited changes on behalf of other users.
Build individual profiles.
Each user completes their own profile under My Profile (or an Administrator can complete profiles for each user). The sections mirror how matching works.
Profile quality drives match quality. Every section feeds the matching engine directly: your specialist expertise is matched against what clients ask for, your capacity against whether you can take the work on, your fee structure against what the client expects to pay. A complete, current profile means better-matched inbound enquiries and a stronger showing when other firms review their shortlists. An incomplete profile makes you harder to find and easier to pass over.
Once your firm is set up, every referral on Conifer moves through the same five stages. This is the backbone of the platform, and of the next three sections.
Enquiry.
A professional opens a structured enquiry on behalf of a client, capturing the need and the constraints. Nothing is shared with anyone at this stage.
Match.
The engine assesses the network against the client's circumstances and returns a shortlist of up to three professionals, each with a score and its reasoning.
Referral.
The referrer confirms and sends. Only now are the client's details shared with the receiving professional.
Engagement.
The client formally appoints the receiving firm. This is the point at which the success fee becomes payable by the receiving firm.
Outcome.
The result is recorded on the referral's ledger, and both firms see the same status throughout.
Sending a referral
Open an enquiry
To find the right specialist for your client, open a new enquiry and describe the situation: the need, the context, preferences and any constraints. The more precise the enquiry, the better the shortlist.
You can also nominate someone from your own network as a preferred recipient. This individual will be surfaced in the matching and scored against the rest of the network.
Your client's identity stays private at this stage. Creating an enquiry shares nothing with anyone.
Use the “Anything else” sections to add additional detail where necessary.
Review and submit your enquiry once you are happy.
Review your shortlist
On submission of the enquiry, you will be able to see its status in the Outbound dashboard. Clicking into each enquiry will reveal matches for that specific client, each with a score and a written rationale explaining why that professional fits your client's circumstances.
You will also see the preferred recipient; Conifer scores them against the same criteria, so you can see how your existing relationship compares before you decide.
View Professional Profiles
Clicking into each match will reveal the Professional Profile associated with the potential recipient. You can do your own due diligence, send the profile to your client, or contact the professional to ask further questions.
The Compliance Ledger
The Profile is also home to the Compliance Ledger. Every referral builds its own record as it moves: the parties, the algorithmic match record, disclosures, client consent and the tracked outcome, each entry time-stamped as it happens rather than reconstructed afterwards.
This is also your opportunity to interrogate how each score was built up from each matching dimension. The Compliance Ledger gives total transparency into the process.
If a client, a colleague or a regulator asks why an introduction was made, the answer is on one page: who was considered, who was chosen, on what reasoning, with what consent, and what came of it.
The Compliance Ledger is also visible from the recipient’s side.
Conifer does not make your firm compliant, and no platform can. It gives your firm a clear, time-stamped record of how and why each referral was made, which can support your own compliance processes.
Confirm and refer
Choose your recipient(s) and click Refer. This is the point of referral, and it is only now that your client's details are shared with the receiving professional, in line with the consent recorded on the enquiry.
You will be prompted to introduce the client to the professional over email, but you decide how you make the introduction. Conifer simply tracks the outcome.
The decision is captured as you make it: who was shortlisted, who was chosen, when, and the reasoning behind the match, all recorded on the referral's ledger.
Receiving referrals
Being on the network also means being found. When another professional's enquiry matches your profile and they confirm the referral, it arrives on your Inbound Dashboard with the client's details and the reasoning behind the match, so you can see why the opportunity has come to you before you pick up the phone.
Review the referral, client profile and Compliance Ledger before you make contact and proceed as you normally would. If the client formally engages your firm, update the status, the engagement is recorded and the success fee becomes payable under your membership terms. If no engagement results, nothing is payable.
Inbound quality is a function of your profile. Keeping expertise, capacity and fees etc, current, is what keeps the opportunities relevant.
Spotting referral opportunities
Referrals start in ordinary client conversations. When a client has a need your firm cannot, or would prefer not to, serve in-house, that is the moment to open an enquiry rather than reach for the nearest name. Common triggers:
A client buying or selling property, at home or abroad, who needs a solicitor or a currency specialist.
A client selling a business, or with a complex or cross-border tax position, who needs an accountant or tax adviser.
A client with no ongoing investment manager, or unhappy with their current arrangement.
A client with a significant life event ahead: retirement, inheritance, divorce or a move overseas.
Opening an enquiry commits you to nothing and shares nothing. It simply shows you who the network holds for that client's circumstances.
What to expect after joining
Joining is the beginning of an active network, not the end of a form. Conifer works to create the conditions for referrals as well as the infrastructure for them. As a member you can expect:
Matched enquiries for your clients.
A route to a suitable specialist whenever a client's need sits outside your firm, with the introduction still coming from you.
Inbound referrals for your firm.
Opportunities that arrive because your profile fits, not because you happened to be top of mind.
Newsletters and thought leadership.
Practical, not promotional: individual, firm and industry updates aimed at helping members turn everyday client work into referral signals.
Networking events.
Dinners and smaller gatherings that build familiarity between members before a referral is ever needed.
Member spotlights.
Featured coverage of a firm or individual across Conifer's content, raising visibility with the professionals most likely to refer to them.
Curated introductions.
Small, deliberately chosen pairings of members whose practices complement each other, where a relationship is likely to be useful to both.
The relationship runs two ways. Keeping your profile and capacity current, staying responsive, and treating every client conversation as a possible referral are what make the network worth being part of, for you and for everyone referring into it.
The purpose of all of it, the events, the introductions, the content, is referrals: better sent, better received and properly recorded.
Support and next steps
Your Conifer contact will walk your Licence Administrator through setup and stay involved while your first profiles are completed. For anything else, please contact a member of the team.
To get started this week:
- Confirm your Licence Administrator and register the firm.
- Complete the business profile and individual profiles.
- Add your team, set teams and permissions.
- Open your first enquiry, even as a trial run. It shares nothing and shows you the network.