Deciding which legal enquiries to take

A firm of three has more enquiries than capacity. That makes the decision about which work to take the most commercially important one the firm makes. Most firms make it by feel, in the first ten minutes of a phone call, and record none of the reasoning. The worst matter a small firm takes is rarely the one that lost money. It is the one that consumed the weeks a better matter needed.

Three questions, asked at intake

1. Does the firm do this work well? A matter outside the firm's real strengths costs double and reads badly.
2. Can the client pay what it will cost? Not whether they can pay a deposit, but the likely total.
3. Does the diary have room in the weeks it needs? A matter taken into a full fortnight damages the ones already there.

Each answer belongs on the enquiry record rather than in the head of whoever took the call. A decision with no recorded reasoning resists any later review, and a firm cannot improve an unwritten rule. The three answers also give a junior something to apply. Triage living in a principal's head happens only when the principal answers the phone.

Capacity is the one nobody records

A firm can describe its expertise and its fee expectations without much trouble. Very few can say how much work the next fortnight already holds. A matter taken into a full diary answers that question badly and late, usually at the expense of the clients already waiting. Our guide to reviewing work in progress covers making capacity visible before the next enquiry arrives. Diract CRM puts the open matters and their next dates on one screen, so the answer takes a glance rather than an afternoon.

The fee conversation belongs at the start

A client surprised by the cost at the first bill disputes it, and the firm writes off the difference. The same conversation at intake either sets an expectation or ends the enquiry. Both of those outcomes beat a write-off six months later. Work the firm does often, at a predictable cost, suits a fixed fee quoted on the call. A fixed fee converts faster, and it filters out the clients whose expectations were never going to match the firm's rates.

Declining well keeps the relationship

A referrer whose client the firm declines needs to hear why, quickly, and ideally with a suggestion of who might help. Handled properly, a decline costs nothing and often produces the next referral. An enquiry outside the firm's expertise deserves a referral rather than a flat no. Passing it to somebody who does that work well, with an introduction rather than a name, builds the reciprocal relationship the firm will want later. The favour gets returned the first time an enquiry arrives that suits nobody there.

The reasons are the asset

A firm declining twenty matters a year and recording none of them cannot see the pattern in what it turns away. Six months of reasons often reveals a service the firm should offer, or a referral arrangement worth formalising. Diract CRM reports the declines by reason, which turns a year of judgement calls into a rule. Conversion by practice area tells the other half of the story. A firm converting most of its conveyancing enquiries and few of its commercial ones is learning something about its market. The recorded reasons say whether that is a marketing problem or a pricing one.

The urgent enquiry deserves a written rule

A caller with a deadline this week arrives at the worst possible moment and gets a decision made under pressure. A written rule about what the firm accepts at short notice takes the pressure out of that moment. Anybody answering the phone can then apply it, including whoever covers reception on a Friday. The rule also protects the matters already in the diary, which is what an urgent acceptance usually damages.

Review the decisions quarterly

The matters the firm took and regretted are the best available guide to its own triage rules. Reading them together, once a quarter, usually produces one rule the firm applies from then onwards. That review needs the reasons, the fee expectations and the capacity answers recorded at the time. Diract CRM keeps all three as fields on the enquiry, outside the matter list. A triage decision therefore never burns a matter number or distorts the matter count.

What to change first

• Three questions get asked and recorded at intake
• Capacity for the coming fortnight is visible before the answer
• The fee conversation happens at intake rather than at the first bill
• A decline reaches the referrer quickly, with a suggestion
• Every decline records its reason
• A written rule covers the urgent short notice enquiry
• The triage decisions get reviewed quarterly