180-day Cornerstone result
The calls increased. The question was whether they were the right matters.
A Seattle employment firm was already getting the phone to ring. Most of it was the wrong practice area, from outside the city, and it was eating the partners' week.
The result in one line
46 qualified conversions in 180 days, and the conversion rate rose 93.7 percent. The number that mattered more was the one that went down.
The firm's problem was never a shortage of calls. It was that the calls were about the wrong kind of law, from people outside the firm's geography, and every one of them cost an attorney part of a day to find that out. A bigger number is only useful when the people calling fit the matters the firm wants and the economics still work after the client pays.
The Cornerstone is one complete 120-day installation with three connected parts: a reason clients choose the firm, a way to see how quickly the client investment is recovered, and written next steps the office can run.
Before the work
Activity without opportunity, and no way to tell them apart.
The firm ran its own paid advertising, without the time or the in-house expertise to compete properly.
Calls came in about the wrong specialty or from outside the service area. There was no call tracking, so nobody could connect an advertising decision to the enquiries or the clients it produced. The account was busy and unreadable at the same time.
The first pass reorganized the advertising into themed groups around the firm's niche, made that niche explicit in the ads themselves, narrowed the geography, and put call tracking in place.
Part 1 of 3
Give the right prospective client a reason to choose the firm
Clarity about the niche was the baseline, not the finish. It stopped some wrong calls. It did not give a right one any reason to pick this firm over the next one.
Every employment lawyer in Seattle says the same two things. Aggressive representation. We fight for your rights. A person who was fired on Tuesday cannot choose between two firms saying identical sentences, so they call both, and then a third.
What changed after the message was applied
A specific, time-bound promise did two jobs at once. Out-of-area and wrong-practice enquiries fell by 82 percent, because somebody with a landlord dispute could see this was not for them. And the conversion rate rose 93.7 percent, because the promise matched the state a recently terminated employee is actually in.
"The only Seattle employment firm that evaluates your wrongful termination case and provides a written action plan within 24 hours."
Live across the firm's landing pages and every Google Ads campaign.
Part 2 of 3
Show how quickly the client investment is recovered
A law firm can run profitable-looking advertising for a year and never know it, because the money arrives months after the matter opens. So the measurement was built on fees actually collected rather than matters signed.
Where the time went
Before the installation, disorganized intake meant matters drifted between the first call and a signed retainer, and the firm averaged 85 days to get back what it had spent acquiring a client. Targeting higher-intent matters and tightening the intake compressed that to 28 days.
| Measurement period | 180 days |
|---|---|
| Qualified conversions | 46 attended, conflict-free consultations |
| Traffic | +153% |
| Calls | +360%, about 4.6x the baseline |
| Conversion rate | +93.7% |
| Cost per acquisition | −45% |
| Return on collected fees | 6:1 |
The firm recovered what it spent acquiring a client in 28 days, against 85 days before the installation. The monthly reading named automated consultation scheduling as the first thing to change, and the niche geographic targeting as the thing to leave alone.
Part 3 of 3
Give every enquiry a next step
Somebody who was fired on Tuesday calls several firms. Whoever answers first is usually who they retain. But speed alone is not enough in law, because the office still has to establish fit, handle sensitive detail, clear conflicts, and book the right consultation with the right attorney.
What happened
Median first response fell from six hours to under 15 minutes. Conflict routing stopped attorneys spending billable hours on matters that were never going to work. And the follow-up sequence recovered 4 of the 18 retained matters, which would otherwise have gone to whichever firm called back.
What was installed
- Automated intake and conflict routingEvery web enquiry triggers a secure questionnaire capturing opposing-party detail, and a paralegal owns the 15-minute conflict check before anything reaches an attorney.
- The 24-hour scheduling protocolCleared leads get a direct booking link immediately, which is what makes the written action plan promise real rather than a line in an ad.
- Engagement letter follow-upA seven-day sequence in the CRM for unsigned retainers, so persistence does not depend on an attorney remembering.
The connected outcome
Three parts, and each one carrying the next.
A 24-hour written action plan gave the right client something to choose and gave the wrong one a reason to self-select out, so traffic rose 153% while unsuitable enquiries fell 82%.
Measuring on fees actually collected rather than matters signed proved the 6:1 return and cut recovery time from 85 days to 28.
Intake, conflict checks, scheduling, and follow-up all moved without depending on anybody remembering, and pulled four retained matters back from firms that would have called sooner.
Partner's view
"As someone who likes to maintain control, it was hard to hand over the reins to my campaign. But six months on, I clearly made the right decision, as I realized we were unable to maintain the ads and clearly were missing the know-how to get the ROI I knew was possible."
Micah D. · Partner
Closing
More calls are useful when they are the right calls, and every one has a next step.
A reason for the right client to choose the firm. A number showing how quickly the client investment is recovered. A next step for every enquiry, consultation, and prospective matter.
Those three connected parts are the Cornerstone. Advertising follows when the firm is ready to identify, serve, and measure what it produces.
Next step. Bring one period of advertising spend, your intake and matter records, collected-fee figures, and the dates the money arrived. We'll show you what can be measured and what is still missing.
Book the 15-minute call: neovora.com/schedule