Law firm intake response time: benchmarks and how to measure yours

How fast your firm answers a new inquiry is one of the few intake numbers you can measure this week and improve this month. Here is what the research shows and how to check your own.

What the research shows

Clio's 2024 secret shopper study contacted 500 U.S. law firms posing as prospective clients. Only 40% answered the phone and only 33% replied to email.

Outside law, a Harvard Business Review study of 2,241 companies found that contacting a web lead within an hour made a real conversation nearly seven times as likely as waiting even one more hour. Legal inquiries are no less urgent.

Measure your own response time

• Pick 20 recent inquiries across phone, web form, chat, and email.
• For each, note when it arrived and when someone first replied in a way that could lead to a conversation. Auto-replies do not count.
• Separate business hours from evenings and weekends.
• Calculate the median, not the average, so one slow reply does not hide the rest.
• Repeat with a few test inquiries of your own, sent at different times.

Reasonable targets

During business hours, aim to reply to every new inquiry within five minutes and speak with the person within the hour. After hours, aim for an immediate written reply and a live conversation first thing the next business morning, or sooner for urgent practice areas such as criminal defense.

Common reasons firms respond slowly

• Web forms that email a shared inbox nobody owns
• No coverage while the receptionist is on another call or at lunch
• Voicemail as the only after-hours option
• Intake staff who must wait for an attorney before saying anything useful

Frequently asked questions

Does an automatic email reply count as a response?

It is better than nothing, but measure from arrival to the first reply that can lead to a conversation with a person.

How often should we measure?

Monthly is enough for most firms. Measure after any change to staffing, phones, or forms.

Sources

• Clio, 2024 Legal Trends Report secret shopper study, as reported by the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism↗
• Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, "The Short Life of Online Sales Leads," Harvard Business Review, March 2011↗