Claimant acquisitions and client intake are key to a law firm’s success. Continually converting potential claimants into full-fledged clients generates revenue and builds prestige for litigating attorneys. It’s a tried-and-true process that has been a part of the legal practice long enough to make it a fundamental institution of the legal system.
Today, client intake relies on various technologies to produce the best results, streamlining the overall process for attorneys around the world to convert more leads in less time. However, some law firms fumble this process despite how crucial it is to their overall success. But creating an intake system that works for you is a simple process. Reinforcing it to keep seeing success is the hard part.
Acquiring Potential Claimants
Client intake begins as soon as you attract a potential claimant to your law firm, whether that be through an advertising campaign or word-of-mouth referral. When these claimants make contact is the first real step in converting them into clients. This is also where most falter through a lack of follow-up, slow response, and losing track of a particular lead among other complications. All of these can cause potential claimants to leave for a competitor and hurt your firm’s bottom line.
The solution most litigators have implemented is a customer relationship management (CRM) system. This automation tracks leads after they have contacted your law firm and lets you create personalized messages that can be automatically sent after a given period of time. Follow-ups are never forgotten, communication is constant, and the claimant is satisfied. If they continue to pursue legal action, CRM keeps your foot in the door and continues the conversation.
Importance of Consultation
After the discussion has been started and the claimant is closer to becoming a client, soon you will need to schedule a consultation. This is the best place to learn about the specifics of their legal matter and what you can do to help them achieve their desired goals. In turn, the claimant gets to know why they should trust your firm to handle their case.
This is another instance where automations can save time and money. Instead of the stress that comes from prioritizing multiple projects, automations can be used to screen claimants properly according to your criteria. When these claimants come for their consultation, you already know they’re qualified and capable of working within your case requisites.
Adding to the qualifications, automations can send emails and reminders about your appointment to claimants. No need to constantly chase them down or worry about messages not being received. Programs such as Clio, Salesforce, and Law Ruler are all built for such purposes and make this whole process easier for all involved parties.
Landing a Client
Once a lead has approached your firm for legal services and completed their consultation, now is the time to secure them as a client. All that’s left is to draft up a fee agreement and have them sign on the dotted line to finalize the attorney-client relationship.
Yet trying to create a document that works for you, your firm, and the claimant takes time, especially when juggling multiple leads-turned-claimants. Once again, modern methodology provides ways to streamline this process so it can work for specific clients and general applications alike.
DocuSign is one such method that provides templates for law firms to develop forms covering whatever litigation they’re taking on. These forms can be programmed and automatically sent to any claimants about to become clients in an instant, cutting down time on drafting the agreement and waiting for a response.
The Power of Information
The contract is signed and sealed. You’ve successfully converted a lead into a client. Of course, that is just one client. Streamlining the entire intake process takes an understanding of what potential lawsuits are on the horizon and what claimants want from a successful ruling. But collecting all that information about defective products, knowing the related injuries, and keeping up with the litigation as it progresses takes a lot of time and effort. Any misstep in these fields can lead to your firm lagging behind the competition.
If you’ve implemented these automations and have sought other technologies to further strengthen these programs, you’re already in a healthy position. Your client intake lifecycle built around automations such as a CRM is already doing all the heavy lifting. What you need at that point is people to manage and sustain this system. Broughton Partners can help with that.
Our company is technology-based first and foremost, well versed in all manner of legal marketing software. Each automation and tactic mentioned above is something we do every day we operate. On top of a 24/7 in-house call center, Broughton Partners can deliver pre-qualified mass tort claimants to your law firm through a robust screening process. If you’ve done everything to improve your client intake and still can’t find success or don’t have the resources to strengthen your process, we can perform all these duties without sacrificing your firm’s efficiency.
If you would like to speak with our team of experts, you can contact Broughton Partners by calling (800) 949-8904 or complete our online contact form below.