Somewhat the same concept but not exactly.  Robert proposes that this site (revised) or a new site allow title companies, lenders, etc. to directly send orders in to the site which distributes it to the independents of each county.  The particular one they are proposing allows the individual company to pick the abstractor (but eliminates the need to go through a vendor management company).  What this person is proposing is gathering people together now that are close in proximity to them and open the other counties to their particular clients where the person receiving the order and the person it is given to splits profits by percentage. 

The split may be better than what I had agreed to with another independent because I tell you what happened to me.  When gas got higher and work got lighter I made a similar agreement with an independent - we did not split or give each other title work - I would not - because there is too much liablity to it but we would do each other's doc retrievals, court and lien searches and we would take all the profit ourselves.  We felt that since we were normally there an order or 2 of the other person would not hurt and if it got uneven we could talk about paying the other person for the access.  Well I did my part, and even stopped a couple of times for rushes at a county I had no orders for but was on the way to another.  It went well for awhile until I had orders coming her way and maybe nothing in that county for her - she not only did not do the orders - she did not even tell me she wasn't going to do them.  So don't ever do that.  I had a very embarrassing moment with the new client - I have never not met deadlines EVER and I will never depend on another at least the way that we did it.  I do think that your way may work and I believe that some larger abstracting companies even do that with smaller independents - like subtract the work.  I like the idea of the percentage splittage and maybe will even talk to someone I have been talking to about it - we actually have been considering just switching client lists because we are in the same state but none of our counties overlap so there would be no competition in that.  That is another way you could do it - get an abstractor that is on one side of your state that doesn't compete with you to share client lists and maybe referrals.  However - here I go again - referrals should not be done unless you know this person's work personally - it could backfire on you.