You’ve got a handful of lawyers in your practice. They’re of all different shapes, sizes, and personalities. Some excel at litigation, and some are excellent at negotiation and collaboration. They’re all very different from one another.
Over time, you’ve figured out how to tailor the workload of each attorney differently. When a case comes up in front of Judge Smith, you make sure Lawyer A appears at the hearing because she has a better relationship with Judge Smith. The results tend to be better for Lawyer A.
You make sure that Lawyer B drafts the appellate briefs. Why? Because Lawyer B does a better job than the others on briefs.
You’ve got a list in your head of the key skills and attributes of each of your lawyers, and you tailor the workload to their particular assets. It makes sense.
For some reason, however, many of us don’t do the same thing when it comes to initial meetings with prospective clients. For some reason, we assign these meetings according to systems and rules that aren’t consistent with the way we assign other work. Unfortunately, we frequently fail to assign these meetings to the attorney best equipped to handle the prospective client.
Why? From what I can determine, the assignment of meetings with new clients gets bogged down in tradition, compensation plans, and ego. We let a variety of factors influence our decisions on this issue, and this keeps us from simply putting the best person on the task.
Unfortunately, failing to make a rational decision about assigning initial consultations can have a direct and immediate financial impact on your practice. Sending a lawyer who isn’t particularly good at converting prospective clients into clients can cost you money—lots of money.
How should you assign consultations?
You shouldn’t make assumptions about what works and what doesn’t. You need a numbers-based system.
You should start collecting data. You should count the number of consultations conducted by each lawyer and then track the number of retainers. The number of retainers divided by the number of consultations will reveal the conversion rate for each attorney. You should track that number monthly and start creating a graph detailing each attorney’s progress.
It’s important that you compare apples to apples. You’re going to find that attorneys conducting a few consultations per month are sometimes going to have a higher conversion rate than attorneys conducting lots of consultations. It’s hard to remain attentive and empathetic when you’re doing many consultations. Don’t jump to the conclusion that your newbie is a consultation superstar. Give her time to adjust to multiple meetings per month and see what happens to the numbers. It’s stressful giving newbies a bunch of consultations as a test, but it’s the only way to figure out how they’re doing.
Don’t assume that newbies don’t know enough to do a good job in a consultation. You may find that knowledge and experience have little to do with a high conversion rate. You’ll likely find that empathy, compassion, confidence, and listening skills mean more in these meetings than years of experience. Put your newbies in the room and see what happens.
Once you have some data for each of your attorneys, start shifting more of the consults to the winners and fewer to the losers. Think about it. If you move 10 consults to a winner with a 60% conversion rate that might have gone to a mediocre player with a 25% conversion rate, you’ll have 3.5 more clients. Multiply 3.5 times your average client lifetime value, and you’ll see why it’s important to start collecting data and stop making assumptions.
The data in our firm has revealed a wide disparity in effectiveness. We’ve got attorneys with conversion rates as low as 5% and others with rates more than 10 times higher. It’s always shocking to me to see the disparities, and I really can’t tell why one attorney turns so many consults into clients and others can barely get anyone to hire them. It’s odd to see it happen when you know your lawyers and know they do a great job serving clients. It’s shockingly difficult to predict who will succeed and who will fail.
You’re only going to improve the conversion numbers in your firm if you discard your assumptions, do some testing, and wait for the results. My guess is that you’ll be shocked at some of what you find, and you’ll find yourself putting the right people in the right roles and increasing the overall profitability of your practice.
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By Lee Rosen
Lee Rosen has practiced family law for more than twenty years. With three offices, 