How Should a PI Firm Run Intake? Speed to Lead, Screening and Getting the Retainer Signed

Every injury firm says intake matters. Very few run it like it does.

In 2025, a marketing agency called Hennessey Digital tested 1,333 US law firms. It filled in their website forms and timed the replies. 26% never replied at all. Only a quarter called back within five minutes.

So if you call every lead fast, you are already ahead of most firms.

I spend more time on intake with injury firms than on anything else. That is where most of the money is lost. You can have great ads, but if leads sit in an inbox for three hours, you will sign very few. Here is the process we build.

Where do injury leads get lost?

Every lead goes through the same steps. Each step loses some.

Here is one compensation firm we work with. We took a year of Facebook leads and shrank it down to 100:

Almost half were never reached. That is the cheapest problem to fix in injury marketing.

How fast should you call a new lead?

Within five minutes. Every time, including nights and weekends. Some of our clients have this as a target for their intake team.

Someone who just got hurt and is searching on their phone is ready to act right now. If you call while they are still on your website, you are the firm that helped. Two hours later, they may have talked to someone else, or gone back to dealing with the insurance company alone.

This matters most for Facebook leads. Those people were scrolling, not searching. They forget within hours. Firms that call the next morning often say Facebook leads are junk. Really, the long wait did the damage.

The biggest injury firm we work with in Australia calls every web lead within five minutes, and hits that about 70% of the time. About a third of its leads become signed clients. Morgan & Morgan has more than 100 intake staff for the same reason. Our breakdown of how Morgan & Morgan gets so many cases walks through it.

What should you do in the first 48 hours?

Here is the plan we build for every injury firm. Log each step so you can see which ones get skipped.

Change how you reach out. Call, then text, then email. Three voicemails in a row is not a follow-up plan.

One US note. Texting leads is covered by a federal law called the TCPA. Some states, like Florida and Oklahoma, have stricter rules too. Calling back someone who filled in your form is very different from cold calling. But your form should clearly ask for permission to call and text. Have a lawyer check your setup. Our guide to attorney advertising rules covers more.

What questions should intake ask?

The first call has one job: find out quickly if this is a case you can take. If it is, get it moving. The questions change by case type.

Three rules for every call:

• Ask if they already have a lawyer in the first 30 seconds. Many do, and it saves everyone time.
• Check the state first. If you are not licensed there, it is a referral, not a case.
• Do not give legal advice on the first call. Gather the facts and move the case forward. The attorney gives advice.

Put as many of these questions on the form as you can. Screening on the form is free.

How do you get the retainer signed the same day?

Once someone says yes, every hour before they sign is an hour for another firm, a relative or the insurance company to change their mind.

Morgan & Morgan sends staff to the client's home, work or hospital bed, often within 24 hours. You can get close to that without driving anywhere:

• Use e-signature. Send the retainer, the medical records release and the intake form in one package while they are still on the phone. Walk them through it. The ABA rules say contingency fee agreements must be in writing and signed by the client. Some states, like Florida, add their own rules. Build the package with your attorneys.
• Get an attorney on a same-day video call. Cases where an attorney talks to the client before signing close more often. Even five minutes helps.
• Do something useful right away. Send the letter to the insurance company the same day. For truck cases, send the letter telling the trucking company to keep its evidence. Tell the client you did it. Now they feel someone is fighting for them.

Who should run intake?

The best results come when checking the case and signing the client are two different jobs. An intake person reaches every lead fast and checks if it is a fit. Someone else, or an attorney, signs the client. When one busy paralegal does both, leads wait.

Whoever answers, a script is what keeps the results good. Have a script for each case type. Set a five-minute call target. Listen to a few recorded calls every week.

What should you track?

Keep every lead in one place, with at least these details:

A spreadsheet you keep up to date works better than an expensive system nobody updates. Our guide to tracking which ad signed the case shows how to set it up. And our guide to what a personal injury lead costs shows how these numbers turn a lead price into a case price.

What does good intake look like?

If you only do three things this week: set a five-minute call target, send a text after every missed call, and switch to e-signed retainers. Those three changes often sign more cases than any change to your ads.

If you want help building the full system, from ads to signed cases, that is what our US personal injury marketing is built for. Our guide to scaling an injury firm shows how intake needs to grow as leads grow.