Industries · Law firms
Six consults held last week. Two retainers signed. Where did the other four go?
You watch settlements and billables. Almost nobody watches what happens before the matter opens — the Friday-night caller who reached voicemail, the consult that ended warmly and never signed, the engagement letter sitting in a prospect’s inbox for nineteen days. We read your own intake, phone, and case records, and in two weeks hand you a dollar figure on every one of those leaks.
Or call +1 (202) 600-6027 — a person answers.
The pattern
You have probably seen all three of these this quarter.
01
The Friday-night caller
Rear-ended on the interstate, she calls three personal-injury firms from the ER waiting room at 9:40 p.m. Yours goes to voicemail. The second firm answers live, runs intake on the spot, and she signs their fee agreement from her phone before you open Monday.
02
The retainer nobody chased
Your family-law partner ran a strong consult on a contested custody matter and sent the engagement letter and trust deposit request that same afternoon. It has shown “sent” in the system for three weeks. The prospect hired the firm across town twelve days ago; nobody here knows yet.
03
The trust account that ran dry
An associate keeps working a divorce because the client is in crisis and stopping feels wrong. The retainer was exhausted in March, and no replenishment request ever went out. At pre-bill, the partner writes hours down because the balance makes the invoice look unpayable.
What we price
The leaks that get a monthly dollar figure.
- After-hours and weekend calls that hit voicemail — and the consults lost to the firm that answered first
- Consults held that never became signed fee agreements, and how many days each sat with no follow-up
- Estate plans and immigration matters quoted, thought over, and never signed
- Unbilled time aging past the pre-bill cutoff, and trust balances sitting below the replenishment floor
- Closed matters that never produced a review, a testimonial, or a referral touch
The records we read
We take read-only access to your practice management system — Clio, MyCase, or Filevine — and to whatever catches leads first: Lawmatics, Lead Docket, a shared inbox, a spreadsheet. We also read phone and answering-service logs, e-signature histories, and trust and billing reports; we look, we don’t touch.
Three questions
If any of these takes more than a minute, that is the finding.
01
Of last month’s after-hours calls, how many reached a live person — and how many of the ones that didn’t ever called back?
02
How many consults did the firm hold last quarter, and how many ended in a signed fee agreement?
03
How many days does an engagement letter sit at “sent” before anyone follows up — and what is the unbilled time on your books right now?
Not knowing them is not a failing — it is the exact gap The Revenue Review is built to close. More straight answers: fourteen of them, in writing.
If the numbers earn it
What gets built afterwards — in your terms.
- New-client systems →
- Every inquiry — web form, referral, the 9:40 p.m. call from the ER — answered live, conflict-checked, and booked to a consult while the caller still has only one firm’s name in her phone.
- Revenue recovery →
- The follow-up machinery for consults held without a signed retainer, engagement letters stuck at “sent,” and quoted estate plans that went quiet. Money the firm already earned the right to ask for.
- Numbers and alerts →
- One page the managing partner actually reads: consults held versus retainers signed, unbilled time by matter, trust balances against the replenishment floor — with an alert the day any of them slips.
Only what the arithmetic justifies — we do not prescribe what we have not diagnosed. The order comes from the Review, not from a brochure.
Who this is not for
We would rather say it here than on the call.
Solo attorneys who answer their own phone and sign every retainer the same week — you are the intake system, and it works.
Defense and institutional practices whose matters arrive by assignment. This Review is built for firms that live on intake.
Firms mid-merger or mid-partner-split. Settle the letterhead first; the leaks will wait.
Asked on almost every call
The two questions owners here ask first.
- We already run Clio — doesn’t it catch this?
- Clio faithfully records whatever your people enter, which is exactly the problem: the leaks live in what never got entered. The Friday-night voicemail is not a matter; the consult that never signed is a lead someone closed as “not interested.” We reconcile your phone logs, intake records, and case data against each other, and the gaps between them are where the money is. Your software is fine — it has been keeping honest books on the leak the whole time.
- Our partners are in depositions half the month. When would we even do this?
- You don’t staff it. We work from read-only access to your systems; the firm’s total commitment is a kickoff call and a few questions to your office manager along the way. Two weeks later you get the findings document with a dollar figure on each leak and a sequenced fix list, and you decide what to act on. The free 20-minute call up front is where we both check the fit before anyone commits.
The next step
Tell us what isn’t getting followed up. We’ll tell you if we can help.
A 20-minute call about your numbers — no deck, and a straight answer either way, including “not yet” if that is the truth.
We call web forms back the same business day. Or skip the form — +1 (202) 600-6027.