RETAINER ENGINE · PRACTICAL OPERATING GUIDE
Law Firm Intake Scorecard: Run a 15-Minute Weekly Review
By Gabriel Leor · Retainer Engine
A law firm intake scorecard should show where prospective clients stop moving forward and who will act next. Start with a weekly review of real enquiries, rather than a dashboard with dozens of unrelated numbers. The purpose is to identify one operational change your team can make before the next review.
Download the weekly intake workbook
Download the English scorecard workbook (XLSX) · Download the Hebrew scorecard workbook (XLSX)
Start with the blank working sheet. Enter counts for one enquiry cohort and leave unknown figures blank. The workbook calculates contact, booking, attendance and engagement rates separately. Attendance uses consultations already due, not every future booking.
The separate example sheet contains fictional teaching figures, not client results or targets. Use aggregate counts and operational roles; keep client names and case details in your firm’s approved system.
Choose a cohort before calculating conversion
Use enquiries first received during a defined week. Deduplicate repeat calls and form submissions from the same person. Keep spam, supplier messages and existing-client service requests outside the new-business denominator, but record why you excluded them. Otherwise, a change in data cleaning can look like an improvement in performance.
Some matters will not reach a decision in seven days. Keep the original weekly cohort open and revisit it after 30 days. Show the current status separately from the final result. Comparing this week’s new enquiries with this week’s signed retainers mixes people at different stages.
Download the blank intake review worksheet
Download the English weekly intake scorecard (Excel). Enter aggregate counts for one enquiry cohort to calculate contact, booking, attendance and engagement rates. The worksheet includes an owner, due date and next-action tracker. Blank counts and zero denominators display as unavailable. Keep client case details in your firm’s approved system.
Copy these fields into your review sheet
- Enquiry ID, first-received date, source and practice area.
- First human response time and successful two-way contact date.
- Qualification outcome, with a short operational reason.
- Consultation booked date, meeting date and attendance outcome.
- Decision status: considering, engaged, declined or closed without contact.
- Assigned owner, next action and due date.
Use IDs in a shared management report. Keep case narratives and other sensitive information in the firm’s approved system with appropriate access. A scorecard is a process view, not a second legal file.
Measure each handoff separately
| Measure | Calculation | Question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| Contact rate | People reached ÷ eligible enquiries | Are we establishing a conversation? |
| Booking rate | Booked consultations ÷ qualified enquiries | Are suitable prospects taking the next step? |
| Attendance rate | Attended ÷ consultations due | Does the booking process prepare people? |
| Engagement rate | Signed engagements ÷ attended consultations | What happens after the legal conversation? |
Write each denominator beside the percentage. Ten bookings from twenty qualified enquiries means something different from ten bookings from one hundred raw submissions. Show the count as well as the rate, particularly when the sample is small.
Use a fifteen-minute agenda
- Five minutes: review incomplete records and overdue actions.
- Five minutes: inspect the handoff with the largest unexplained loss.
- Five minutes: choose one change, its owner and the next review date.
If attendance fell, read the appointment messages and check time zones before asking for more advertising. If contact fell, inspect coverage and missed-call ownership. If prospects attended but have not decided, review the clarity of the next step with the responsible attorney. Avoid turning a small weekly fluctuation into a sweeping conclusion.
What should a partner see?
A useful summary has three lines: the cohort’s current position, the most important blockage and the action underway. Add capacity when deciding whether to increase volume. A healthy pipeline still needs available lawyers to handle suitable matters. This review complements the broader law firm lead-generation system; it does not replace campaign analysis.
A worked example: separate delay from loss
Consider an illustrative cohort of twenty eligible enquiries. Twelve people have been reached, eight are qualified and six have booked. Four consultations were due by the review date; three were attended. One engagement is signed and two decisions remain open. These are teaching figures, not Retainer Engine results or benchmarks.
The contact rate is twelve out of twenty. The booking rate is six out of eight qualified enquiries. Attendance is three out of four consultations due, rather than three out of all six bookings: two appointments have not happened yet. At this stage, the engagement rate is one out of three attended consultations, with two unresolved decisions displayed alongside it. Reporting those open decisions as definite losses would misrepresent the process.
The most useful next action depends on the records. If the eight unreached people have no assigned callback owner, fix ownership. If callbacks were attempted at times the prospective clients could not answer, review their contact preferences. If the two pending decisions have clear follow-up dates, preserve that context instead of assuming the legal consultation failed.
Turn the review into a small operating experiment
Choose a change the team can describe in one sentence: every missed call receives an assigned owner before the end of the coverage period. Record when the change began and compare equivalent cohorts. Keep practice area, advertising source and availability visible, because a different mix of enquiries can change the results.
Do not claim causation from a single improved week. A practical review records what changed, what remains uncertain and whether the team followed the new process. Revisit the experiment after enough enquiries have reached the relevant stage. If staff cannot complete the data fields consistently, simplify the scorecard before adding more charts.
Act on the handoff that needs attention
If consultations are booked but attendance is weak, review the consultation confirmation and attendance workflow. If ownership is unclear across several stages, compare your process with the human intake, booking and follow-up service. Choose the next action from your firm’s records rather than treating either guide as a performance benchmark.