Lead generation for law firms, from first call to intake
Hardly anybody calls one law firm. They call three in the same twenty minutes, usually from a phone, usually at a bad moment, and the firm that answers gets the conversation. This page covers the layer above the channels: the contact paths, the intake questions, the call handling, the follow-up, and one dashboard showing where every call, form, and text came from.
Free consult · You own the lead history · Month to month, no contracts
Where a law firm's inquiries go missing
Firms usually call about traffic. Traffic is rarely the whole problem. Most of what goes missing goes missing after somebody has already found the firm, in steps nothing is counting.
Nothing answers after five. Arrests and accidents do not keep office hours. The line rolls to voicemail, the caller does not leave one, and plenty of them would have sent a text if the site had offered one.
An answering service nobody has listened to. Few firms have heard a recording of their own after hours calls. The script takes a name and a number, and the message says nothing about whether it was worth returning first.
One form marked "Contact us." Name, email, message. Nothing in that tells you the practice area, the state, whether a court date is set, or who the other side is, so the first call gets spent on questions the form should have asked.
Every source lands somewhere different. A map pack call hits the office line, a form goes to a shared inbox, a referral reaches a partner's cell, and an AI answer drops a stranger on the homepage. Nothing adds them up, so the month is a feeling instead of a number.
The capture layer is a set of small pieces, and each one quietly costs a firm work when it is missing.
Intake that scopes the matter. Questions matched to the practice area: what happened and roughly when, which state and county, whether a court date is set, and the names needed to run a conflict check before anybody picks up the phone.
A way in on every page. Tap to call, tap to text, and a scoped request matched to the page. A DUI page at one in the morning and an estate planning page on a Sunday should not ask the same thing.
Call handling built on purpose. Tracking numbers by source, a ring order matching who is actually free, defined after hours behavior, an automatic text back when a call rings out, and the answering service script treated as part of the build.
Routing and ownership. Every inquiry gets one name attached and a rule for what happens if nobody has touched it within a set number of hours. Most leads that die were nobody's job.
Follow-up that runs whether or not anyone remembers. A short sequence for inquiries that went quiet, and a separate place for planning work that was never urgent, so somebody who asked in March hears from you in the fall. That is email marketing as a reminder system.
One first-party dashboard. Calls, forms, texts, and chats, each tagged to the source that produced it, in a view you open on your own site. We have first-party lead dashboards running on more than 20 of the sites we manage.
Something for the visitor who is not ready to talk. A deadline checker or a fee explainer, built as custom tools, with any chat running on wording the firm approved rather than a bot.
Reviews feed the next inquiry, so the request belongs in the same chain: we have built a one-tap review-request tool before, for a New Jersey glass and mirror shop. See reputation management, analytics and CRO, and the lead generation hub.
Speed, screening, and the matters that take a year
Two things separate a law firm from most local service businesses: how fast the urgent half moves, and how much of what arrives is not the firm's to take.
Speed comes first, because nothing else in the capture layer competes with it. The person arrested on a Saturday night is rarely the one calling. A parent or a spouse is, working down a list of three firms, and whoever answers or texts back first gets the conversation. That is why after hours behavior gets built first, and why intake cannot assume the caller is the client.
Then screening. Legal takes in an unusual share of inquiries nobody can accept: wrong state, wrong practice area, a deadline that already ran, someone already represented, someone whose adverse party is already a client. Each costs intake time, and more volume is no help when that is what it is made of. Better questions at the front let the firm decline courteously, which people remember.
The rest of the practice runs on a different clock. Wills, trusts, and business formation get researched months before anybody signs, then get triggered by something unrelated, so someone asks in March and retains in November with nothing running across the gap. Referrals behave the same way, including the ones from other attorneys: the person handed your name still opens the site that night, and one optional question asking how they heard of the firm is the only way that referral lands next to search in one view.
What we will not put on a law firm's intake form
A web form is a good place to start a conversation and a poor place to receive a case, so the capture layer runs on a short list of rules.
The form asks enough to scope the matter and run a conflict check, and not enough to tell the whole story. A wide open message box invites confidential detail to a firm that has not checked conflicts yet.
There is space near the form for a short notice about what submitting does and does not create. The firm or its counsel writes that language, not us.
No documents, no medical records, no police reports, and no photographs through a web form. Those move through whatever secure channel the firm already uses, linked plainly from the site.
Auto-replies, text backs, and chat scripts are advertising copy, and in some states a solicitation carries labeling requirements. Ours run on wording the firm approved, and nothing on the site composes a new answer to a stranger's legal question.
Call recording is the firm's decision, since consent law varies by state. Notifications stay thin for the same reason: what lands on a phone lock screen should be enough to act on, not a summary of somebody's situation.
All of it is built with bar advertising rules and confidentiality norms in mind. We are not attorneys, and the firm or its bar counsel signs off on anything that goes live.
What makes Kelly WM different
Most of what gets sold to firms as lead generation is either a directory platform renting you leads it also sells down the street, or three subscriptions stitched together, each holding a slice of your inquiries.
The capture layer is part of the site. Forms, tracking, routing, and the dashboard are built into a custom-coded site rather than bolted onto one, which is why the numbers reconcile. How we build covers the approach.
The lead history is first party and yours. It sits on your own site and it exports. The tracking numbers are yours too, because a number you do not own leaves when the vendor does.
You talk to the person doing the work. Kelly Webmasters and Marketers is one operator in Orlando, FL, working with local service businesses nationwide since 2008. Call or text (407) 694-2055 and you reach whoever built the form.
Nothing is held hostage. Month to month, no long-term contract, and the site, the content, the accounts, and the lead history stay yours. The free tools at kellywm.com/tools have no email wall either.
1. A free consult, and a test of your own front door. We fill in your form, call your main number at nine on a Tuesday night, and send a text, then tell you how long each one took to come back and how much you knew before you replied. Start with a free mockup, or call (407) 694-2055.
2. Measurement before changes. Calls, forms, texts, and chats get tagged to their sources first, so there is a baseline. Change the site before the tracking works and every result after it is a story rather than a number.
3. Build the capture layer. Intake questions by practice area, contact paths on every page, call handling and after hours behavior, routing rules, follow-up sequences, and any chat script, with the firm's review scheduled in rather than bolted on at the end.
4. Read it monthly and fix the weakest step. We look at the inquiries that went nowhere, find the step that lost them, and change that one thing. The report is plain: what came in, from where, how fast it got answered, and what changed.
There is no single price for lead generation. It is assembled from parts, and every figure below is published elsewhere on this site.
The capture work and the dashboard. Where we build and manage the site, these come with the work rather than as a separate subscription.
The site itself, if it needs rebuilding: $3,500 to $12,000 or more, one time. How much a website costs covers what moves that number.
Ongoing search work, if you want the traffic side handled too: $1,500 to $3,500 a month for most firms, and $3,500 to $7,500 a month in competitive metros or for firms with several offices. See how much SEO costs.
Custom tools. A calculator starts at $600. Most workhorse tools, the intake flows and checkers, run $1,500 to $4,000. Tool Care, watching and updating a tool after launch, is $75 a month per tool and optional.
Google Ads, if paid traffic feeds the system. Management is commonly billed as a flat monthly fee or as a percentage of ad spend. We use the flat model and quote it after a free consult.
Everything ongoing is month to month, and you own the site, the content, the accounts, and the lead history. For a rough range first, run the free what should you pay tool.
Common questions
How is this different from SEO or Google Ads for our firm?
Those bring people to the site. This decides what happens once they are there, and either one can feed it. Lead generation here means the intake questions, the phone paths, the routing, the follow-up, and one dashboard showing which source produced a real consultation. Most firms buy traffic long before fixing what happens to it.
Most of our matters come from referrals and other attorneys. Does this apply to us?
More than you would expect. The person handed your name still opens the site that night, often at an hour nobody is answering, and often wants to book without a phone call. Handle that badly and the referral cools. One optional question about who sent them also puts referrals in the same view as every other source.
Will the intake form ask people to describe their whole case?
No. It asks enough to scope the matter and run a conflict check: practice area, state and county, whether a court date is set, and the names involved. A wide open message box invites confidential detail before anyone has checked conflicts. Any notice near the form is written by the firm or its counsel.
What happens to calls that come in after hours?
That is usually the first thing we set up. Calls route in an order you define, an automatic text goes back when one rings out, and the answering service script is treated as part of the build. We cannot make anybody answer at midnight, but a missed call should be visible the next morning.
Can you guarantee a number of new cases or signed clients?
No, and be careful with anyone who does. Whether an inquiry becomes a matter depends on the facts of that person's situation, your practice areas, and your own intake, none of which we control. What we can do is concrete: tag every call and form to its source, and fix the step losing people.
Do the automatic replies and chat answers follow our state bar's advertising rules?
We build with bar advertising rules in mind and keep everything scripted, so auto-replies, text backs, and chat answers say only what the firm approved. Nothing on the site composes a new answer about somebody's legal question. The firm or its bar counsel reviews the wording before it runs. We are not attorneys and not your ethics counsel.
Who owns the lead data and the tracking numbers?
You do, both. The lead history lives on your own site rather than inside a vendor's platform, and it exports. The tracking numbers are yours too, which matters more than it sounds: a number registered to an agency leaves with the agency, and the calls to it stop.
Book a free consult and we will fill in your own form, call your own number after hours, and tell you plainly what came back. Call or text (407) 694-2055, or email [email protected].
Tell us a little about the business and we will come back with an honest read: what we would fix first, what it costs, and whether you need us at all. Prefer to see work before you talk numbers? Get a free homepage mockup, built for your business, yours to keep either way.
Got it, thanks!
Brandon reads every one of these himself. You will hear back shortly with an honest read on what we would do first, what it costs, and whether it is worth it for you.
