The First Date Your Law Firm Can't Afford to Mess Up

Welcome back to The Legal Intake Experts podcast! For more than a decade, Answering Legal has helped growing law firms ensure they never miss a chance to connect with new leads. Now, we’re pulling back the curtain to share our best strategies for strengthening your intake process and turning more callers into clients.

In Episode 11, love is in the air as hosts Nick Werker and Tony Prieto share how they met their significant others, then stay on theme to reveal how law firms can make new leads fall in love from the very first call. Our experts break down why intake is your firm’s “first date,” covering speed to answer, asking the right questions, and clearly outlining next steps. Along the way, they explain how strong intake doesn’t just win cases today, it fuels referrals, reviews, and long-term firm growth.

Check out the episode below. You can also enjoy it on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The Legal Intake Experts is part of the Answering Legal podcast network. Interested in learning more about Answering Legal? Click here to learn more about 400 minute free trial!

Check out the previous episode of The Legal Intake Experts here!

This podcast is produced and edited by Joe Galotti. You can reach Joe via email at [email protected].

Episode Transcript:

Nick Werker (Co-Host): We are back once again on the Legal Intake Experts Podcast presented by Answering Legal. I am joined as always by my good friend. And hopefully, is this inappropriate to say my work Valentine? I hope he's my work Valentine.

Tony Prieto (Co-Host): I guess I wouldn't say no.

Nick: Cool. So I guess I'm supposed to add that the context for that is that it is February, and love is officially in the air.

Tony: Yes, hopefully, everyone has their Valentine's Day plans and gifts locked in, because it's just not worth the stress of trying to figure that out at the last minute.

Nick: I agree with you. And my overarching advice to all those out there who are in relationships, don't do what I do, don't do nothing on Valentine's Day. Although I don't think I do nothing. My wife is one of those people who's like, yeah, Valentine's Day should be every day of the year, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I do nice things for my wife. Like I wrote her a note with her coffee, because I leave really early in the morning.

So I like pre-made all the coffee, and I was like, all you have to do is hit the button, because I don't have like a timer for the button. And I drew her a penguin, because that's the only thing that I can draw.

Tony: You know, I, for Valentine's Day, you know, it's nice to go out, but it is hell to go out. You have to make a reservation a month in advance. Restaurants are trying to move through as many people as possible, so they often have like a pre-fee menu. And what that means is that they've made the food in advance, and it's just sitting there, and they warm it back up and serve it to you. And that's not a big deal, but I have just never had a good experience with those sorts of things. So what my girlfriend and I do now is, and this is a pro tip to anyone out there, is learn to cook, because that means on Valentine's Day, you can cook a nice meal, and then you can go out the Saturday after whatever it is, when things have calmed

Nick: And you are the hero for cooking. That's like the gift on Valentine's Day. But I know I'm supposed to not tell stories, but I have to tell this story. So in another life, I was in the business of very high-end rich celebrity people catering. I've met many famous chefs and restaurant owners and groups and all that. And so one summer, I spent a lot of time working at this very upscale hotel and restaurant on the east part of Long Island. So you could put that together for what you will, owned by and operated by a very, very prominent person in the restaurant world. And this place was a nightmare to work, but I did make a lot of money working there as a younger man. And on Valentine's Day, they needed extra staff, so they called me even though I wasn't, I didn't work for this restaurant. I was a person that would go in and like fix this restaurant. So it's exactly what you're saying. Everything was pre-made, pre-fixed menu for Valentine's Day. This was Valentine's Day. It was just chaos. Everybody there hated their food and sent it all back. And I just remember waiting tables and being like, wow, this is so bad. Thank God that I don't actually work here. And that I'm just like a temporary guy because everybody was upset. And can you imagine, like I don't have to do any like staff meeting there or do it like I get in my car and go home at the end of the night. And that was it. I didn't get any tips though, because like I wasn't actually there. So I didn't get any of the tips from the fancy restaurant, but it's okay.

Tony: It sounds like they wouldn't have been leaving great tips anyway if they had to send all their food back.

Nick: I don't recall whether or not you're right about that. So if I don't remember a specific amount of tips, then maybe there was none.

Tony: Yeah, my distrust for these comes from reading things like Anthony Bourdain, like kitchen confidential learning, like, oh yeah, it's a business. They run it like a business.

If there's only three things on the menu, they're going to have those things prepared so they can turn them out as quick as possible so the next person can come in as quick as possible. Speaking of business, we can get back to the business of helping lawyers secure more new clients. Get back on topic.

Nick: Okay, fine. I will say, regrettably, Anthony Bourdain is not one of the culinary arts people that I have ever met, although I have met some really good ones, and I've met some ones that I don't think liked me very much. But I do want to say, much like a successful relationship, a huge part of the legal intake process is, and I wanted to talk about this last episode, but I refrained because I am practicing self-restraint, is making people feel comfortable and genuinely cared for. And ultimately, your intake experience sets the tone for the relationship that this potential client is going to have with your firm and how they feel about you and maybe how they review you later on.

Tony: One of the many purposes of intake is to make, you know, we're going to stick with this love theme. It is your first date, you know, and even, maybe even in the modern days of dating apps, you know, your first text message conversation. And you want to make a good first impression. And that's where intake really shines if you're doing it right.

Nick: Very interesting. Okay. Before we do that, give me the short version of how you met your, let's say paramour in the terms of Valentine's Day.

Tony: Yeah. One of my oldest friends, he's basically my other brother. He went to college with my girlfriend, and when I went up to visit him, we met and sort of hit it off. We dated long distance for a while before we moved in together.

Nick: Very sweet.

Tony: What about you and your wife?

Nick: I met Katie when I was in between universities. She had went to the same high school for one year as this friend that I had made in college and he invited me over for a Halloween party. And I met her at a Halloween party. She was dressed as a lumberjack, which just meant she was wearing a flannel and a beanie. And I was a frat boy because I was wearing a frat shirt.

Tony: So you didn't come in costume.

Nick: No, that was the best that I could do at the time. I was also delivering pizza. So I came with a pizza, and I think people were happy about that.

Tony: Yeah, I mean, pizza will make anybody happy. It seems like we were both referrals though.

Nick: Yes, and I think we both met our significant others in person, which is a lost art.

Tony: No, I talked to my girlfriend not in person first. I suppose that that's the first meeting. But I met her through a friend. I don't know if that counts. But regardless, in law firm terms, we were both referrals.

Nick: That's very funny. Yes, that's exactly right. So my friend Taylor is the Delisi Friday of my relationship. Okay, so we're talking about first experiences, right? So let's do this. And I am going to make fun of my wife so bad right now. Okay, in this scenario, my wife is the lawyer, and I am a prospective client. Okay, so I reach out, I'm like, hey, I got this case that I need handled. And this is a side by side comparison of how you should handle a new case and how you should not handle a new case. So say that our scheduled consultation was at an ice skating rink for some reason. And I am asking this lawyer all about like what the potential ramifications of my situation are. And that lawyer has not really given me much of a response. That doesn't set up the good experience.

The story I'm trying to tell here is that my wife was very shy and didn't talk to me during our first date, and I didn't know that she liked me until she asked me to go out again. So I think as a lawyer, you should let clients know that you want their case by asking them questions about themselves and talking and relating your experience to the problem that they're having.

Tony: Ice skating rink is a great place to meet future clients as a personal injury attorney. Anyway.

Nick: Wow.

Tony: So I'm going to phrase this in sort of modern dating parlance. You can think of finding a lawyer a lot like people using dating apps, where there are thousands of options to choose from. And unlike people using dating apps who are usually pretty picky, the reality is that someone with a legal issue is just looking for help. They're going to read your reviews before they reach out. But at the point where they've reached out to you, they have decided that they are, maybe they're not excited about any of this because it's scary, but they are happy to be your client. And at that point, the ball is in your court. And if you mess it up from there, it really is just your fault. So, there are ways to make sure that doesn't happen. But one of the things that you need to remember as you do that is that there are other fish in the sea. You have competition who, if you aren't making this client happy on the first impression, they're happily going to call the next person on their list, you know, in Tinder parlance, swipe left on your law firm and find someone else.

Nick: I am having so much fun with this metaphor. Okay, so give me some dating advice, Tony. I am a lawyer who wants to attract new clients. Albeit, this is not very monogamous, but we are going to forsake that.

Tony: Don't worry about it.

Nick: For the point of this argument.

Tony: Don't think too hard about the metaphor.

Nick: Yes, I want as many significant others as possible in this scenario, and none of them are going to be upset about it for some reason. How do I set up a good experience for my potential dating updates, potential new clients? What can I say on the phone? What can I do on the first intake call to, I don't know, inspire confidence or make them like me, or set them at ease, or make them feel comfortable?

Tony: It starts even before you pick up the call. Here's the thing is that you have other clients, you have other leads, and even if the person calling you knows that, they're not thinking about that. They're thinking about themselves, their problem, and a lot like on Valentine's Day, you need to make them feel like they're the most important person in the world to you at that moment. And that means, it starts, like I said before, of picking up the call. You pick up the call, and you pick it up quickly, right? Like, you know, if you miss a call, that's disastrous, obviously. But if you personally are not on the phone call, you know, an answering service picks it up for you. And you are interested in securing this lead, you should call them back pretty soon. Most, I believe, the data from Clio's Legal Trends Report is that most law firms don't pick up the phone. This is 40% pick up the phone. Then only a third call back within 24 hours. And at that point, it really is a matter of making sure that this person feels like a priority for your firm. Even if you have someone picking up the phone for you. Once they are picking up the phone, you need to impress them, ask them a lot of questions about themselves, great first date advice, and make sure that, also great first date advice, you make sure that you seem like you have a place you're going, right? You're a professional, you're an attorney, and you wanna make sure that you impress upon them. You wanna be friendly, of course, but that you are the right person to handle their legal issue.

Nick: Yeah, I like that a lot. I have to drop the metaphor, because I will go too double entendre on myself.

Tony: We kept it for 10 minutes.

Nick: I know, and it was really fun, and then I was really mean to my wife, and now I feel bad about it. She just was so shy, and now she has explained to me that she was nervous because she liked me, but I didn't know she liked me, because I was a young idiot. And thank God that she was smart enough to tell me that I was an idiot. So, the thing about the initial phone call to a law firm is that I think this whole… And this happens to me, too, is that we're so educated on what we can provide for lawyers that we often forget that they have specific worries or needs or questions that they want addressed that we have not accounted for. The important thing to do, and this is true of all sales, is to ask the person why they're calling you, what problem that they're having, and what their major concerns are. Because most likely, if you are an experienced attorney or experienced intake person and have been in the game for a while, you're going to have answers for what happens next in the process, right? So I know we used the... Did we use personal injury? Yes, we did, because you said ice skating rink. Very funny. I think I did fall on our first date and that was embarrassing. So for a personal injury attorney, right? Somebody is calling and their main concern is that they have all these medical bills and they're like, I can't afford any of these medical bills. And the insurance company offered me like $5,000 and the insurance, the insurance I have is not enough to cover the insane amount of medical bill. I don't know, right? Like some convoluted thing. And you go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, cool. So there's a mismatch here. You have all of these medical bills, and the insurance company is trying to make you settle for X, leaving you with, I don't know, let's say $50,000 in like you're in trouble, right? So we have to show that the insurance company or that your damages are far exceeding what the insurance company has offered you. And you explain how you're going to do that and how that's going to work and what the risks involved are.

And you have a conversation in that way. You don't just pick up the phone and be like, hey, what's your problem? Oh, OK, like yeah, that's going to be a 20% contingency.

And if we win, the person is going to be like, what does that even mean? What is a contingency? What do you mean I don't pay you? What do you mean I sign? You have to be ready to handle other questions. You don't have to be the most empathetic person in the entire world. You don't have to cry with them on the phone, but you can tell them that you're experienced. And you'll be like, listen, I've dealt with this. I've seen the stress that goes on. I have my own personal anecdote that goes alongside of this. I just talk to the person like they're a human being. Ultimately, you don't have to be super pushy, right? And that's what I think people are worried about doing. But you also really do have to, every single time you talk to a new person, find out the unique things about them and their situation and their worries and concerns, so that you make sure you're getting them the optimal outcome for them. Not just for you, for them.

Tony: Yeah, I mean, it's a common sort of communication advice to lead with empathy and then offer solutions. As an attorney, you are the person providing the solutions. So obviously it makes sense. Yeah, of course, I can solve your problem. Here's what something like an answering service can do. We can't provide the solutions, but we do provide the empathy. And so when someone calls into your firm with an issue, number one, they want to talk to you about it. Number two, they want to feel like they've made progress on solving this issue. But the third is they just want to explain what happened to someone who understands. Our receptionists, any receptionist really, is in a unique position to provide that empathy, which is exactly what is going to make the lead, the person hold on and wait for your call back so that you don't have to be tethered to your phone the whole time. And they've offered the empathy first, you swoop in with the solution, and it's really just sort of like a one-two punch combo.

Nick: I love that. So let's say that you're really good at that, you take our advice, like, how do I start? They're agreeing that you're going to represent them or help them with this matter that they have. You have to tell them how it's gonna go, right? And you may not have gotten that full picture like painted for them. So once you're done having the conversation, they feel at ease and they're ready to move forward, it's on you to tell them about the process that they're about to undergo with your firm so that really they have clear expectations and they know how to communicate with you and they know the process they're about to go through. Otherwise, like, how are you gonna get them to cooperate? Like, say you need them to send you their medical bills and they don't know that and they're like, I don't have those medical bills and you're not helping them like, okay, you got to call this doctor, okay, we have to show up here, okay, you have to file this thing, okay, you have to sign this thing, okay, you have to come down, you know what I mean? So if you need specific things, you need to set up those touch points, milestones for that person so that they can continue to work alongside. Ultimately, when you hire a lawyer, you don't just like sit around and wait for them to do work. It's a communication style thing, right? The lawyer will be, I need this from you, I need this from you, I need you to appear here, I need you to answer this question, so on and so forth. And if the person doesn't understand what they're getting themselves into, they might blame you for it. I don't, you know, like, I don't know the word, but they might be upset with the process if they're sort of blindsided by every new thing that they have to do along the way.

Tony: Yeah, I mean, the number one complaint lodged against attorneys with the bar is a lack of communication. But it's funny, this is where the modern dating sort of metaphor would absolutely have fallen apart if we kept up with it. Because after your first date, the intake call, you immediately sign a representation agreement, which is kind of like a marriage contract. Anyway, I guess you could then shift into a metaphor of like a 19th century sort of Regency style, Jane Austen kind of thing.

Nick: But what if we're exclusive, Tony? What if we're monogamously exclusive? What if we agree to that? That's the representation.

Tony: Yeah, sure.

Nick: For the sake of the metaphor.

Tony: In the 50s parlance, you're going steady. So the thing is that you've brought up, and it is the first impression is the intake call. You get them to sign a representation agreement, whatever it is, and they're on board. From then on, it is a matter of communication. Like you said, you need to communicate what next steps look like. And it's tough to balance because you have X number of clients and they all need this style of communication. But if you are able to set expectations, like Nick mentioned, right up front, this is what's going to happen. We need this, this, this, and this. If you have material like a PDF or something that has just like straight up steps, this is how this is going to work. And leave room for improvisation, for things to go wrong, stuff like that, so that it's not like, well, we're on step three, what's going on? But if there's a clear method made available to your client, you're going to make sure they stay happy throughout the length of your attorney-client relationship.

Nick: One of my favorite things, I think Christopher Earley told me this. And the reason that I'm just attributing this to Christopher Earley is because he probably did tell me this because he's so smart is what he will do is every time that he hits a milestone or needs to update his client, he just calls them. He doesn't send them an email like, hey, this is what I worked on. He just calls them up and says like, this is what's going on. This is what's happening right now. This is what you can expect to hear from me, whether or not this goes right in the next couple of weeks. But I do want to turn, I want to talk about this is investing in the initial part of your intake ultimately affects how many new cases you're able to obtain in the future. And this is the weird where it falls apart, right? It's like when you break up with somebody, or the relationship ends for whatever reason, they don't then like that person doesn't go out on the town and be like, oh, Tony's like the next guy for you. They kind of just move on with their lives a little bit.

Tony: It depends on how the relationship ended, you know? You want a higher referral rate for your law firm than you do from your exes. We'll put it that way.

Nick: Yes. Well, that's the bare minimum. That and I don't think anybody's going up to their friend and being like, hey, have you dated anybody that you're no longer dating that I can go date now? So I think it's fully falling apart. But there's like two things that really happen when you set the stage correctly for client communication and then do it the whole time that they're a client, is that number one, they actually can refer you, their friends and family and colleagues and people on the internet in the future. Have you ever been on Facebook and somebody in your network posts like, hey, I need, somebody posted this recently, I need somebody who can make steel grates for my living room because my husband is an engineer and he did this, but I can't get the steel grates. That's a referral. You know what I mean? If you know somebody and one of your friends just asks for a recommendation, somebody says like, oh, I was in an accident.

Do you know anybody? Stuff like that. And they end up reviewing your firm, which ultimately attributes to, and I know I sound like everybody out there who's trying to sell you something on the Internet, your SEO and your reputation and your ability to convince new clients in the future,

Tony: Yeah, I mean, things that happen on social media, especially on Facebook, which at this point has a bit of a slightly older demographic. This happens to my parents all the time. My mom is a court reporter. She knows a lot of attorneys. She's friends with a lot of attorneys. Someone she knows posts on Facebook, I was in a car crash. My mom doesn't post on that Facebook post, hey, I know an attorney. She'll text the person, say, hey, do you need an attorney? I know someone who can help you out, stuff like that. There are plenty of people who will say, you know, I was in a car crash. And then their friend will reach out, it's like, hey, are you hurt? Do you need an attorney? I was in this situation five years ago, and this guy, Tom Lawyer, really helped me out. And suddenly you have a referral, and hey, if it's on Facebook public like that, it's not just one person seeing it, right? It's 30, whatever it is. And all of that stems from not just the beginning, like the intake is this what we're talking about, because we are the legal intake experts.

But the reality of the situation is that intake is the first one where you sort of set the bar, and you keep meeting that bar throughout the length of your relationship, all the way to the end of the matter. And that's how you end up with a solid bank of former clients who can be hopefully, I mean, if you're a personal injury attorney, you never want someone to be a client twice, right? But hopefully, they tell their family members, their friends, and they leave a review for you. Or if you have the money to spend on the marketing, you can get a testimonial commercial film, and put that up on your social media. Those will always do really well.

Nick: Yeah, I'm just sitting here thinking about, and I don't want to spoil it. Well, I can spoil it because you're going to see the thumbnail before you watch this episode, but I really hope that you are Cupid shooting me with an arrow. But I know we're always, because I'm getting better at this, referencing Answering Legal, the place where you and I are employed and work, and try to help law firm owners capture more clients by making sure that they're actually answering the phone when prospective new clients call. So I just want to let our listeners know that they can head to answeringlegal.com to learn more about what we actually do and the technicalities and so on and so forth. There's also a link in the bio of this episode to get a 400-minute free trial of the service. I'd also like to personally add on that if you want to just chat about intake or marketing or anything having to do with anything that we talk about on this podcast, email me at [email protected] and I will email you back and it will be fun.

Tony: You can also email me if you'd like, tprieto, that's P-R-I-E-T-O, @answeringlegal.com. I'd like to thank you, even if you don't email us, thank you for listening to this podcast. You can always join us for the next episode of The Legal Intake Experts, wherever podcasts can be found like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and the Answering Legal YouTube channel.

Nick: We will see you next time, everyone.