Law firms - the long version
How many new inquiries can your desk absorb in a week?
Volume a firm cannot answer is not volume. It is a queue with a deadline.
For attorneys and firm administrators. Injured people should not use this page.
Reading time is about eight minutes. Nothing here quotes a price or promises a result.
The situation
Capacity is a staffing question long before it is a marketing one: how many new conversations can this desk genuinely start in a week, given court days, holidays and the existing caseload.
Once that figure exists, pacing is arithmetic rather than negotiation, and a pilot can be sized so the firm is never buying inquiries it will answer late.
The figure is also a defence. It gives the firm a plain reason to refuse volume that would otherwise look like an opportunity.
What exceeding capacity does
- Follow-ups stop happening first, and they are where most matters are actually signed.
- Staff start silently selecting the easy inquiries and leaving the rest.
- Records go in late or not at all, so the review at the end has nothing to read.
- The source gets blamed for a staffing limit, and the wrong thing gets cancelled.
How the capacity figure is produced
Counted from what your staff actually do, not from how busy the week feels.
01 - Count the touches
First call, follow-ups, consultation and file opening - the full sequence one inquiry consumes.
02 - Time the sequence
Honest minutes per stage, including the calls that go nowhere.
03 - Subtract the rest of the job
Existing clients, court, admin and cover. Intake gets what is left, not what is nominal.
04 - Produce the weekly ceiling
The number of new inquiries that fit, with a margin for bad weeks.
05 - Pace delivery to it
Weekly and daily caps written into the pilot scope, adjustable between periods.
Bring rough numbers. The call turns them into a weekly ceiling and a pacing schedule.
What you keep
What you keep from this exercise
- 01
A weekly intake ceiling
One number you can plan staffing and spend against.
- 02
A time-per-inquiry figure
Useful for every hiring decision that follows.
- 03
A pacing schedule
Delivery limits that stop volume outrunning the desk.
- 04
A hiring trigger
The volume at which another person is required, decided in advance rather than during a bad month.
Straight answers
The questions firms ask about this
- Can we raise the cap mid-pilot?
- Yes, in writing, applied from the date you approve it. Raising it is a decision rather than a drift.
- What if we are quiet one week?
- Pacing is set per week, so an unused allowance does not accumulate into a flood the following week unless you ask for it.
- Do you handle intake for us?
- No. Inquiries are screened against your criteria and passed to your firm. Everything after that is your process.
- What if capacity turns out to be lower than we thought?
- Then the cap is lower and the spend is lower with it. That is a better outcome than paying for inquiries nobody calls back.
Your criteria
Send us your capacity figures
Tell us who works intake and how the week is divided. We come back with a weekly ceiling and a pacing schedule to correct.
What happens next
- 01We reply within one business day and propose a time.
- 02We draft your criteria document and send it back for corrections. Nothing is delivered until you approve it.
- 03If we can meet the standard, we quote per billable inquiry. If we cannot, we say so.
We do not sell or share what you submit here, and we do not use it for anything other than responding to your enquiry.
Or take it to a call
Thirty minutes on criteria and economics
Bring the figures this article asked for. You leave with a draft standard either way.
Criteria and Pricing Call · 30 minutes
Discuss criteria, delivery needs, and pricing for MVA and workers’ compensation inquiries, live phone transfers, signed cases, signed commercial cases, and catastrophic commercial cases. No questionnaire is required before booking.
Book a CallBook within the next four days. The calendar opens in a new tab. Complete your booking to receive your confirmation and calendar invite.
Next step
Cap the volume at the number your desk can hold
Forty-five minutes on staffing, time per inquiry, the weekly ceiling and the criteria behind it.