Strategy and data for law firms
A firm that cannot say what an enquiry costs it is guessing, and guessing is expensive at these rates. This item sets the quarterly plan, builds the live dashboard and reduces the whole operation to the one number a partner actually looks at: cost per signed instruction.
A 30-minute video call. The audit document and the 90-day plan.
Nobody in the firm can say what an enquiry costs
You know last month’s billings and you know the retainer. What nobody can say is how many enquiries came in, which practice areas they were for, how many became instructions and what each one cost to obtain. Without that, every marketing decision is a matter of taste, and taste is the most expensive way to buy anything.
Strategy & Data
A quarterly plan
Which practice areas grow this quarter, which territory, which searches and which channel takes the weight. Three months, written, with what we will stop doing as well as what we will start.
A live dashboard
Enquiries, cost per enquiry and attributed instructions, by practice area and by channel, open to the firm at any hour without asking us for it.
Attribution to the instruction
Not to the click. Tagged links, an intake question and the state in the CRM, so an enquiry can be followed from search to signature.
A monthly meeting and a one-page report
One page. What moved, what did not, what changes. If it needs forty slides, it is not a report, it is a defence.
The single number
Cost per signed instruction, per practice area. Everything else on the dashboard exists to explain that one figure.
How it runs
- 01
01 · The baseline
What comes in today, from where, and what it is worth. Uncomfortable, and the only honest starting point for a plan.
- 02
02 · Instrumentation
Analytics, tagged links, forms and CRM states connected once and properly, so the numbers agree with each other from the first month.
- 03
03 · The quarter
One plan, one set of priorities, three months. Changing direction every fortnight is how a firm pays twice for the same ground.
- 04
04 · The monthly review
Thirty minutes on the one-page report. Decisions taken in the meeting, not in an email thread the following week.
What changes
The partner can say what an enquiry costs and what an instruction costs, by practice area.
Budget moves towards the practice areas that pay, and away from the ones that flatter.
Marketing decisions get argued with a figure instead of an opinion.
The firm knows in month two whether the plan is working, not in month twelve.
Who we work with
Personal injury and liability
The speciality of the house: the enquiry that is searched for once and decided in a day.
Family and succession
A long, private decision: the client reads for weeks before anyone calls.
Employment
Two clients in one practice: the dismissed employee and the company that needs a retainer.
Criminal defence
The most urgent enquiry there is, and the one where restraint matters most.
Commercial and tax
A long sale to a board: the retainer is decided months before anyone asks for a proposal.
Boutique firms
Two to fifteen lawyers, one speciality, and no marketing department to run it.
Questions
Do you need access to our billing?
No. We need to know whether an enquiry became an instruction and, if the firm wants cost per instruction by value, an average fee note per practice area. Ranges are enough; individual matters are none of our business.
What counts as a qualified enquiry?
One that matches the practice area and the territory agreed in the plan and reaches the firm with enough information to be triaged. We define it in writing at the start so nobody argues about the denominator later.
Can we see the dashboard without asking you?
Yes. It is live, it is in the firm’s name, and it stays with the firm. Data you have to request is data somebody is curating before you see it.
Is the dashboard included in every retainer?
Reporting is in all three. The live dashboard with cost per enquiry and attributed instructions belongs to this item, and the audit will tell you plainly whether you need it yet.
Related services
Content & SEO
Eight pieces a month, reviewed to legal standards, and the rankings that carry them.
Newsletter & CRM
A fortnightly newsletter, a segmented CRM and three automations that stop enquiries going cold.
Social
LinkedIn three times a week for the partner and the firm. Measured in enquiries, never in likes.
Book your free audit
A 30-minute video call. The audit document and the 90-day plan.