Your Firm Is Bleeding Money (And You Don't Even Know It) 💸

Feb 11

Written By Pamela Foley

Let's be real for a second...

Your marketing is probably fine.

Your Google Ads? Working.

Your SEO? Decent.

That networking event you forced yourself to attend last week? Actually generated a few leads.

But you're still wondering why you're not hitting your revenue goals.

Plot twist: It's not your marketing that's broken.

It's what happens when someone actually picks up the phone and calls you.

And if you're like most law firms, you're losing about 73% of those people before they ever book a consultation.

Yep. 73%.

Let that sink in for a second 😬

The Story Nobody Tells You About Intake

When I was running my family law practice, I thought our intake process was solid.

We were friendly!

We answered their questions!

We explained how we could help!

Then one day I actually sat down and listened to our intake calls.

Friends, we were doing EVERYTHING wrong.

We'd jump straight into the interrogation:

"When did you get married?"

"How many kids?"

"What assets are we talking about?"

Meanwhile, the person on the other end of the phone was probably:

Calling from their car during lunch break so their spouse wouldn't hear
Stress-crying in a Starbucks parking lot
So overwhelmed they could barely remember what questions they wanted to ask

They didn't need a paralegal reading from a checklist.

They needed to feel like someone actually gave a damn.

And we were completely missing it.

Here's the Math That Should Terrify You

The average law firm converts 27% of phone inquiries into booked consultations.

Which means if you're getting 50 calls a month, you're only booking about 13-14 consultations.

The other 36-37 people?

They're calling your competitor.

At an average case value of $3,000, that's over $100K in lost revenue every year.

And here's the kicker — most firms have NO IDEA this is even happening.

They just think "people weren't serious" or "they were price shopping" or my personal favorite, "they weren't a good fit."

Nope.

Your intake just wasn't good enough 🤷‍♀️

What Actually Works (Because I've Fixed This About 100 Times Now)

After completely rebuilding intake for my own practice and then doing it for dozens of other law firms, here's what I know converts:

Start with 30 seconds of actual humanity

Instead of:

"Thanks for calling. Let me get some information from you..."

Try:

"Thanks for calling. I know reaching out to an attorney isn't easy, and I want you to know you're in the right place. We're here to help."

That's it.

30 seconds of warmth before you dive into anything else.

It sounds stupidly simple, but it changes EVERYTHING.

Ask questions that actually matter to humans

Bad question:

"When did the incident occur?"

Better question:

"What's been the hardest part of dealing with this situation?"

Here's the truth:

People hire lawyers when they feel understood, not when they understand you.

Read that again. Tattoo it on your intake coordinator's forehead if you have to.

Stop asking if they want to schedule. Just schedule them.

Never say:

"Would you like to schedule a consultation?"

Always say:

"I can get you on the attorney's calendar either Tuesday at 2pm or Thursday at 10am. Which works better?"

Assumptive scheduling converts 40% higher.

Because you're guiding them, not asking them to make decisions when they're already overwhelmed.

The One Fix You Can Do This Week

Here's something you can implement literally today:

Stop blaming people for not showing up to consultations.

Create a system that assumes they'll forget.

Because they will — they're dealing with legal problems, not planning their calendar.

Set up:

Confirmation email 48 hours before
Text reminder 24 hours before
Quick call the morning of

Firms that do this reduce no-shows by 30-50%.

Not because people suddenly become more reliable.

Because you stopped expecting them to remember on their own.

What Happens When You Actually Fix This

I had a client — estate planning firm in the Midwest — converting 22% of calls to consultations.

We rebuilt their intake script.

Trained the team on active listening instead of robotic question-reading.

Added follow-up automation.

They're now at 64% conversion.

Same marketing budget.

Same lead sources.

Same everything else.

Nearly 3x the consultations just from fixing what happens when the phone rings.

That's the thing about intake — when you fix it, all the other stuff you're already doing suddenly starts working way better.

Bottom Line (AKA The Tea ☕)

You don't need more leads.

You need to stop losing the ones you already have.

Every call that doesn't convert is literally money walking out the door.

And unlike your marketing budget, your intake process is something you can actually control.

Fix your intake, and everything else gets easier.

________________________________________________

Want me to audit what's actually happening on your intake calls?

I'll review 3-5 of your calls and send you a breakdown of exactly what's breaking down and how to fix it.

No fluff. No generic advice. Just what's costing you clients.

Drop INTAKE in the comments or shoot me a DM.