Why Law Firm Lead Quality Is Often an Intake Problem

 

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Law firms complain about bad leads all the time.

And sometimes they’re right. Some leads are bad.

But not every lead that doesn’t turn into a signed case was a bad lead.

That distinction matters, especially if you’re about to make an expensive marketing decision based on what you think your numbers are telling you.

I remember talking with a very well-respected law firm that used several different marketing sources.

As the attorney walked me through them, he got to one company and told me they sent the firm a lot of leads, but they didn’t sign many of them.

He was thinking about stopping the relationship.

I asked him one question:

Are you sure marketing is the problem?

We spent about an hour going through the leads from that source.

And we found missed calls.
Delayed callbacks.

No attorney escalation.
Retainer follow-up was almost nonexistent.

The CRM documentation was inadequate.
Some leads weren’t even entered into their system.

Were all of the leads great? Probably not.

But there was a bigger problem.

The firm’s intake process never gave those leads a real shot.

Before You Judge Lead Quality, Look at Intake Behavior

If you’re going to conclude that a marketing source is underperforming, you need to know what happened after the lead came in.

How quickly did your team respond?
How many attempts did they make?

Was the conversation strong?
Was there appropriate attorney escalation?

What happened after the retainer was sent?
Is everything documented well enough that you can actually tell?

Without those answers, you don’t have enough information to say the marketing source is the problem.

You just know the leads didn’t become clients.

Those are not the same thing.

You Could Be Fixing the Wrong Problem

This is where it gets expensive.

You decide the leads are bad.

You cut the marketing source.

You hire another company.

New leads start coming in.

But the missed calls, delayed callbacks, poor follow-up and lack of escalation are still there.

And eventually you decide those leads are bad, too.

The marketing company changed.
The actual problem didn’t.

Before you blame your lead source, look at your intake process.

Audit what actually happened.
Then you’ll know what needs to be fixed.

Watch or listen to the full episode above. ⬆️