How does CAMAudit detect overcharges?

CAMAudit runs 20 deterministic detection rules on the client lease and CAM reconciliation statement. Each rule checks a specific billing mechanism: fee calculations, pro-rata share formulas, gross-up provisions, caps, and expense classifications. Rules are triggered only when the documents contain the relevant terms.

What documents do I need to upload?

You need your commercial lease (including all addenda) and your CAM reconciliation statement from your landlord. Both are required. Upload the most recent reconciliation statement first; you can add prior years afterward to check for multi-year overcharges.

How much does a CAMAudit scan cost?

The Partner Review runs the full pipeline inside the partner workflow. Partners can review line-item findings and the correction package inside the full partner workspace before choosing a plan. No contingency fees.

How long does it take to get results?

The full audit pipeline runs inside the partner workflow for most documents.

Commercial Lease Attorney Referral Program: CAM Audit Referral Workflow

Commercial lease attorneys hold a key spot in the CAM world. CAM stands for Common Area Maintenance. It is the shared cost a landlord bills back to tenants. Tenants call you when their reconciliation looks wrong. A reconciliation is the landlord's yearly true-up. It checks real costs against what the tenant paid. Tenants also call when a true-up looks too high. They call when they are already in a fight and need counsel. What happens next comes down to the money. Some calls turn into work. Many do not. The tenant is not sure the numbers support a claim. You cannot check that without billable hours you may never get back.

A referral program for CAM audit software changes the math on those calls. The tenant runs an analysis through the platform first. Then you review the findings. If the numbers support a dispute, you take the case. You build on the record the analysis made. If they do not, you skip hours of unpaid work. You also keep goodwill with a prospect who still got value.

The referral program can also add a revenue line on its own. It does not depend on your case income. The exact terms depend on your partner agreement. They also depend on your ethics duties in each state where you are licensed.

This guide covers five things. Who the program fits. How referral pay should work. The bar ethics points that matter for lease work. Who does what between the platform and you. And the case types that turn into real work.

Who this program fits

Not every lease practice gains from a CAM audit referral. The program fits attorneys who already do tenant-side lease work. It fits best when your clients send you enough CAM questions to justify setup.

Lease litigation practices. You already handle tenant-side fights over rent, CAM, or other pass-through charges. You are the best fit. You already do the legal work that follows a finding. Sending the pre-dispute analysis to a platform frees the hours you now spend building the record by hand.

Transactional lease practices. You draft and negotiate leases. Your clients come back each year with reconciliation questions. The analysis gives you a yearly touchpoint even with no dispute open. Clients whose lease gets checked against every reconciliation tend to stay.

CRE-adjacent practices. You mix real estate, corporate, and tenant-side work. You get one-off CAM questions from clients. The program gives you a clear answer. You say, "Send them here. I will review the findings before they act." You skip a formal case that may not be worth one.

Boutique firms with a defined CRE niche. Small, focused firms gain the most. The referral adds revenue with no added overhead. A solo or small-firm attorney with 30 to 100 active CRE clients can earn steady commissions with little extra work.

Big firms with large CRE practices may care less about the commission itself. The pre-dispute triage value still helps them. For boutique and mid-market firms, the program fits for both reasons.

Referral compensation structure

Review the pay terms first. Check them against your current partner agreement and your local ethics rules. Do this before any referral. Do not build client materials around a fixed public commission rate. Use the terms in force for your firm.

Base compensation. You may earn referral revenue on eligible paid audits by referred clients. This is subject to the current partner agreement. The agreement should spell out eligible clients, eligible purchases, payment timing, and any limits.

Recurring review potential. A tenant who runs one CAM audit may need a yearly review. New reconciliation statements keep arriving. If the agreement covers later eligible purchases, your first referral can keep paying after the first audit.

Portfolio matters. Tenants with many properties create more review work than single-site tenants. Each property-year can need its own analysis. Franchise operators, medical groups with many clinics, and retail chains with many stores drive the most referral volume.

Simple payment mechanics. Commissions build up in the partner dashboard. They pay out on a set schedule, usually monthly. Every audit purchase by a referred client is logged for you. You do not track cases by hand. You do not invoice for commissions.

Volume and exclusivity. Confirm minimum volume, exclusivity, and client ownership terms in the agreement. Refer only when it helps the client. Disclose the relationship before the client buys.

Here is an example. You have a CRE client. They run a regional restaurant chain with eight locations. They ask about a large CAM true-up. You refer them for analysis before you open a dispute file. If the findings are material, you review the report. You advise on strategy. You decide if the matter is worth a legal case. If the findings are not material, the client still gets a clear answer. No big dispute starts.

Referral revenue does not replace case income. That is not the point. The point is a clear triage path. It helps you decide which matters deserve your time. It gives smaller matters a useful path instead of a dead end.

Ethics considerations specific to lease practice

Bar rules govern attorney referral deals. They vary by state but share a common frame. Read the rules for a CAM audit referral with care. The analysis differs from the more familiar fee-sharing case.

Fee-sharing versus referral compensation. Most state bars draw a line here. Fee-sharing is when you split a legal fee with another professional. Referral pay is money from a non-legal service provider. Fee-sharing with non-lawyers is mostly banned. Commission from a vendor whose service is not legal work is usually allowed. It is subject to disclosure and conflict rules. The platform's analysis is not legal work product. It is document analysis and math. So the commission is not a fee share under most state rules. Each attorney should confirm this under their own state's rules before enrolling.

Disclosure to clients. The deal may be fine in structure. Even so, most bar rules want disclosure. That applies when you get paid by a provider you refer a client to. The disclosure should explain three things. The relationship. Your pay. And the client's right to use a different provider. In practice, this is a short written notice. You give it with or before the referral. Template language comes through partner onboarding.

Conflict analysis. You must check for a conflict with the client's matter. In the CAM audit case, the check is usually simple. Your commission lines up with the client's interest in an accurate analysis. Your work for the client in any dispute stands apart from the analysis output. If the client skips a dispute, you still earn the commission on the audit. If the client pursues one, you represent them like any other matter.

Referral versus recommendation. Some states split these two. A "referral" sends a client to one provider. A "recommendation" tells the client about options, and the provider is one of them. The split can change your disclosure duties. It can also change the conflict check. Pick the posture that fits your state's rules. Record your approach in the firm's compliance files.

State-specific variations. New York, California, Texas, and Florida each have rules to review before enrolling. Other states mostly track the ABA Model Rules. Local twists still matter. When in doubt, make a short call to the state bar's ethics hotline. Or ask a practice management attorney. That settles the question faster than a long memo.

The program is built to fit the allowed side of these rules. The platform is not legal work. The commission is not a legal fee share. The disclosure and conflict steps are standard and easy to meet. Confirm the deal fits your state before the first referral. Revisit it if you expand into a new state.

What the platform delivers versus what the attorney delivers

The split of work is clear by design. Blurring it creates ethics and quality problems.

What the platform delivers:

Document extraction. The platform reads the reconciliation statement and the lease sections that matter. It pulls out the structured data the analysis needs.
Detection logic. A set of fixed rules runs against that data. The rules find gaps between billed amounts and lease terms. The math covers management fee caps, pro-rata share, gross-up, and base year. Pro-rata share is the tenant's percent slice of a shared cost. The math is arithmetic, not judgment.
Findings report. A clear document. It lists each gap, the lease clause it breaks, the dollar amount, and the method. It states that the output is factual analysis, not legal advice.
Correction draft. A first draft built from the findings data. It is automation output. It states facts and lease terms. It holds no legal theories, no case citations, no settlement demands, and no strategy.

What the attorney delivers:

Legal analysis. You read lease gray areas. You weigh legal theories. You study case law in your state.
Client counseling. You advise on whether to pursue the matter. You shape the dispute. You set the stance toward the landlord.
Dispute letter finalization. You review and edit the draft. You add legal analysis and strategy. You add any case citations your state needs.
Representation. If the matter grows, you represent the client. That covers talks, mediation, arbitration, or court.

This split is not a marketing line. It is the reason the deal works under bar rules. The platform does not practice law. You do. The platform's output is data. Your output is counsel. They are different products, from different parties, paid for apart.

Case profiles that convert

Not every CAM audit matter is worth a legal case. Legal work needs a case size that covers the billable hours. Below are the profiles that turn audit findings into active cases again and again.

Multi-year overcharge on a large-footprint tenant. Picture a national or regional tenant. They have years of unchecked reconciliations and a big total overcharge, often six figures or more. This is the clearest case. The findings document the overcharge across years. The landlord can defend only so much. The size supports full legal work through demand, talks, and court if needed.

Management fee cap violation with clear lease language. A lease may set a management fee cap. For example, four percent of gross operating expenses. The landlord goes over it by a real amount. Your legal footing is strong. The rule gives a precise dollar figure. You frame the overcharge as a breach and demand a fix. These cases often settle without court. The breach is documented and hard to dispute.

Excluded service charge pass-through. Leases usually bar some costs from pass-through. Examples are capital expenses, structural repairs, leasing commissions, and certain insurance. A reconciliation may slip these barred costs into the CAM pool. The finding is clean. The argument is a plain contract question. These convert well. The analysis leaves little room for doubt.

Base year calculation errors. Base year leases can carry base year errors. Examples are partial-year math, missing gross-up, and a bad restatement. These errors build up over the life of the lease. A client with several years of pass-through on a wrong base year has a multi-year claim. The rule sizes the total overcharge. You frame the path to recovery.

Pro-rata share denominator errors. The landlord may use the wrong total area for the tenant's share. For example, the wrong handling of anchor tenant square footage. Or no adjustment for vacant space. The overcharge grows with the building size and the lease length. These cases often hit many tenants the same way. That can open broader talks.

Some profiles convert poorly. One is single-year matters under $5,000 in total overcharge. Another is clean reconciliations with no material findings. A third is matters where the lease is truly unclear. The cost of discovery is too high there. In those cases, the referral program is not about landing a case. It keeps the client relationship strong. It makes your triage accurate.

Frequently asked questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the commission considered a referral fee under bar rules?

The commission is compensation from a non-legal service provider, not a share of legal fees. Most state bars distinguish between fee-sharing with non-lawyers (generally prohibited) and referral compensation from non-legal vendors (generally permissible, subject to disclosure and conflict rules). The platform performs document analysis and mathematical computation, not the practice of law. Every attorney should confirm the classification independently under their licensing state's rules before enrolling.

Do I need to disclose the arrangement to referred clients?

Yes, in most jurisdictions. Standard practice is a short written disclosure delivered with or before the referral, explaining that you receive compensation from the platform for referred clients and that the client is free to use a different provider. Template language is available through partner onboarding. Specific disclosure requirements vary by state, so the attorney should adapt the template to local rules.

Can I still represent the client in a dispute that results from the audit findings?

Yes. The referral relationship does not create a conflict with representing the client in any resulting matter. The platform produces factual analysis. The attorney independently evaluates the findings, counsels the client on strategy, and represents them if the matter escalates. The commission is earned on the audit purchase regardless of whether a dispute follows, so the attorney's representation decision is independent of the compensation.

What happens if the client uses a different attorney for the dispute?

The commission is earned on the audit purchase, not on any subsequent legal engagement. If the client uses a different attorney or handles the dispute directly, you still earn the commission on the audit and on any future audits the client purchases. The referral relationship is tied to the client and the platform, not to any specific legal matter.

How do commissions get paid and tracked?

The partner dashboard tracks every referred client and every audit purchase in real time. Commissions accrue automatically as clients purchase. Payments are processed on a regular cadence (typically monthly) through the payment method you set up during enrollment. There is no invoicing, no manual tracking, and no reconciliation required on your end.

Related resources

Sources

American Bar Association. Model Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 5.4 (Professional Independence of a Lawyer) and Rule 7.2 (Communications Concerning a Lawyer's Services). https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/
Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA). Experience Exchange Report. https://www.boma.org/
Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM). Income/Expense Analysis. https://www.irem.org/

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about a CAM audit referral program for commercial lease attorneys. It is not legal advice and does not constitute guidance on bar ethics rules in any specific jurisdiction. Attorneys are responsible for evaluating any referral arrangement under the rules of their licensing states and for complying with disclosure and conflict-of-interest requirements. Consult your state bar resources or a qualified ethics advisor before enrolling.