A simple follow-up process for inquiries that did not become clients

Without a process, follow-up depends on who remembers. Inquiries that did not hire sit in an inbox, and later nobody can say what was sent to whom.

From the outside, a late or missing answer looks the same as no answer at all.

Published studies describe how often firms answer new inquiries. They do not measure follow-up after a first answer, and we found no figure for it, so we give none.

The one experiment we cite found that many firms could not be reached at all. It says nothing about follow-up, and it was not a nationally representative sample.

• Mystery-shopper experiment, not a national sample

  Clio, Highlights from the Legal Trends Report 2024, 2024 (https://www.clio.com/blog/highlights-from-2024-legal-trends-report/): 40% of the calls were answered, compared with 56% in 2019. Counting call-backs, 52% of the firms could be reached by phone, so 48% were essentially unreachable.

Keep the process short enough that the team will actually run it.

• Record every inquiry with its date, the reason for contact and a status: new, contacted, consultation scheduled, hired, not hired or closed
• Decide who owns each inquiry and who covers when that person is away
• Send a short acknowledgement the same day, and a short second message after a set number of days if the person has not replied
• Offer an easy way to say no thanks, and close the inquiry with a note when the person declines
• When the firm cannot take a matter, say so and, if the attorney agrees, point the person to a lawyer referral service
• Review the list of open inquiries once a week

Illustrative example, not a client case. A simple list can hold one line for each inquiry, with a status, an owner and a next action. The firm reviews it on a fixed day each week and closes what is no longer active.

A person reviews each message before it is sent, and nothing is sent to someone who asked not to be contacted.

• Messages are sent from the firm's own address and a person can answer them
• People who opt out are never contacted again, and the list shows it
• Templates are short, plain and approved by an attorney
• Reminders fire when an inquiry sits too long in one status
• The firm keeps only the information it needs about people who did not hire it, and decides how long to keep it
• Your attorney has checked the local rules on advertising and solicitation before anything beyond a reply to the person's own inquiry is sent