Raw conversion shows the result of the entire intake funnel. Wanted percentage reveals what happens after the firm has said, in effect, “Yes, we want this client.”
I spend a lot of my week talking to the people who run client intake at consumer law firms. Most of those conversations cover familiar ground: how quickly the phone gets answered, how many leads came in, and what the conversion rate looks like this month.
A recent conversation with Vanessa Soto went somewhere more interesting. Soto runs intake at Law Bear, a personal injury firm in Arizona. Before that, she led intake at a large, multi-office firm that signed roughly 1,500 cases a month. During our call, she mentioned a metric I had never heard a firm discuss so directly: “wanted percentage.” It offers a much clearer view of whether an intake team is doing its job.
Raw conversion mixes two different problems
Raw conversion is the number nearly every firm knows: total leads compared with signed cases. Soto removes fake or obvious junk leads first, then expects the remaining conversion rate to sit around 30 to 35 percent.
That number matters, but it blends several things together. It changes with the quality of the firm’s marketing, the mix of referral sources, and the decisions made by the people answering the phone. If it falls, the number alone does not tell you which part of the system failed.
Many firms have an even earlier problem. In a 2024 study of 500 US law firms, a person answered only 40 percent of calls, down from 56 percent in 2019. Even after callbacks were counted, Clio found that 48 percent of firms were effectively unreachable by phone. Before a firm worries about conversion, it has to make sure prospective clients can reach someone.
Wanted percentage looks at intake execution
Wanted percentage starts later. It includes only cases the firm has decided it wants, including leads that received a retainer but never signed. Then it asks: how many of those wanted cases became clients?
As Soto explained it: “You wanted this case because you sent out the documentation, you moved forward with it. How much of that are you actually converting into an actual sign-up?”
Her benchmark is at least 90 percent. At her previous firm, the team reached 97 percent. Law Bear is about a year old and still building its intake operation, so the team currently sits between 85 and 90 percent. Her eventual target is 95 percent.
Together, the two numbers help narrow the problem. If raw conversion is weak but wanted percentage is strong, lead quality may need attention. If wanted percentage is weak, the firm is losing cases after deciding that it wants them. Neither number proves the cause, but the second puts the intake process under closer scrutiny.
What improves wanted percentage
When the firm wants a case, the intake specialist stays on the phone while the client receives and signs the documents. The retainer can arrive by text or email, depending on what works for the client. The specialist walks through it, answers the questions they are allowed to answer, and confirms the next step before ending the call. If a case manager will call within 24 to 48 hours, the client should hear that clearly.
The retainer should also be as short as the firm can reasonably make it.
Soto does not rush calls that may become good cases. A complete intake usually takes 20 to 25 minutes. That gives the caller time to explain what happened and gives the intake specialist time to notice facts that might point to another claim. Her example was a caller asking about a knee replacement who also mentioned military service, which could have made a separate mass tort claim relevant. By contrast, the team can usually identify a clear turn-down within the first five minutes.
Speed still matters before the conversation begins. When someone submits a web form, Soto expects a response within two minutes. If the person does not sign on the first call, the team follows up by phone, text, and email.
A higher number does not justify crossing the legal line
There is a limit to what intake staff should do to secure a signature. They can explain the firm’s standard contingency terms and guide a client through administrative steps, but they cannot drift into legal advice. Soto escalates questions beyond the team’s remit to a manager or attorney.
The American Bar Association addresses this in Formal Opinion 506. Trained non-lawyer staff may check conflicts, gather information used to screen a claim, explain fees and costs, and send a standard fee agreement. The prospective client must still have an opportunity to discuss the agreement and scope of representation with a lawyer. The ABA warns that delegation without proper policies, training, and supervision can create ethical problems. The precise boundary depends on the jurisdiction and the question.
A 90 or 95 percent target is not permission to push for signatures at any cost. Firms should improve the number through better training and a simpler signing process. If staff feel pressured to answer legal questions they should hand to a lawyer.
Incentives need to reward the right behavior
Soto ties bonuses to both team and individual performance. That means a strong intake specialist can still be rewarded when the wider team misses its target.
She changes the bonus structure every six months as the operation’s needs change. The target starts slightly below her eventual goal, then rises as performance improves. The criteria change too, so the bonus rewards the behavior the firm currently needs instead of becoming something the team learns to game.
Arizona’s alternative business structure program has allowed non-lawyers to hold an economic interest or decision-making authority in licensed firms since 2021. Law Bear uses that structure. Because Soto is building intake while the firm is still new, its workflows, targets, and incentives are being designed together rather than retrofitted later.
The metric depends on honest data
Wanted percentage is easy to flatter if case statuses are wrong. The people being measured often choose the labels that feed the calculation, so Soto checks the underlying data closely.
Soto once listened to every call herself, but that stopped being practical as volume grew. Her team now uses AI to review tone, sympathy, and empathy. It marks calls red, yellow, or green so a smaller quality control team can focus on the ones that need attention.
Soto prefers a live person for signing retainers because many personal injury callers want human reassurance and may resist sharing sensitive information with an automated system. But AI can review far more calls than a manager can hear manually. Her preferred model is a balance: people handle conversations that depend on trust and judgment, while technology helps monitor the work.
Firms need both metrics. Raw conversion shows the result of the entire intake funnel. Wanted percentage reveals what happens after the firm has said, in effect, “Yes, we want this client.”
That is the part an intake leader can train, audit, and improve.
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