The Intake KPI Dashboard Every Firm Owner Actually Needs

By Bobby Sawyer · Published 2 November 2026 · Last updated 1 November 2026

By Bobby Sawyer · Published November 2, 2026 · Last updated November 2, 2026

A law firm owner needs six intake numbers each week: answer rate, speed to first response, qualification rate, consult booked rate, consult to signed rate, and signed cases by lead source. Read them in that order, because each one is a step in the same funnel. When signed cases drop, the first number that moved tells you where the leak is. A low answer rate is a coverage problem. A slow first response is a follow-up problem. A good qualification rate with few booked consults is a script or booking problem. Many consults with few signed cases is an attorney or consult problem. Keep the whole review to one page and fifteen minutes.

Why do most marketing dashboards hide intake problems?

Most marketing dashboards stop at the lead. They show clicks, calls, form fills and cost per lead. Those numbers say the phone rang. They do not say whether anyone answered, whether the caller was a fit, or whether the case was signed.

That gap is where cases leak. A firm can see lead volume go up and signed cases stay flat, and the dashboard looks fine. The owner needs numbers that follow each lead from first contact to a signed retainer, split by where the lead came from.

What are the six intake numbers a firm owner should review weekly?

Number	How to calculate it	What it tells you
Answer rate	Calls answered live by a person, divided by all inbound calls	Whether people can reach you
Speed to first response	Time from a form, text or missed call to the first real reply	Whether follow-up happens while the lead is still interested
Qualification rate	Leads that fit your case criteria, divided by all leads reached	Whether marketing brings the right people
Consult booked rate	Consults booked, divided by qualified leads	Whether intake turns a good lead into a meeting
Consult to signed rate	Signed retainers, divided by consults held	Whether the consult and the follow-up close
Signed cases by source	Signed retainers, grouped by the lead source on the record	Which sources pay for themselves

For paid sources, add cost per signed case: what you spent on the source, divided by the cases it signed. That one number settles more budget arguments than any other.

What does each number reveal, and what should it trigger?

• Answer rate drops. Look at when the missed calls happened. Lunch hours, after five and weekends are the usual gaps. The action is a coverage change, not a new script. If you run Local Services Ads, this matters twice. Google’s About ad rankings page says “Missed calls may negatively affect your responsiveness.”
• Speed to first response slows. Check who owns web forms, texts and voicemails, and whether anyone works them on weekends. The action is a named owner and a response rule.
• Qualification rate drops. Look at the decline reasons by source. Wrong practice area or wrong location usually points to targeting. The action goes to whoever runs marketing.
• Consult booked rate drops. Listen to a few calls where a qualified lead did not book. The action is usually a script or calendar change, such as offering a consult sooner.
• Consult to signed rate drops. Look at no-shows and what happened after the consult. The action may be reminders, a faster engagement letter, or attorney follow-up.
• A source signs few cases. Do not cut it on one bad week. Watch it for a month, then compare its cost per signed case with your other sources.

How is this different from vanity metrics?

A vanity metric goes up without changing what you do. Website visits, impressions, total calls and leads are useful to marketing, but none of them tells the owner whether a case was signed. Every number above has an action attached. If a number moves and nobody would do anything differently, drop it from the owner’s page.

Call volume is the trap. More calls with a falling answer rate means more cases lost, not more growth.

How should an owner review the numbers without drowning in data?

1. One page, same layout every week. Six numbers across the top, then one row per lead source.
2. Show this week next to the last four weeks. One week is noise. A trend across four is a signal.
3. Flag only what moved. Set a simple rule for what counts as a real change and highlight just those cells.
4. Ask one question per flag. Who owns it, and what will they change by next week?
5. Leave the deep dive for the monthly review. The weekly look is fifteen minutes. Root causes and budget moves belong in a longer monthly meeting.

What has to be in place before the numbers are trustworthy?

The dashboard is only as good as the intake records under it. Three things have to be true:

• Every lead has a source, captured at first contact, not guessed later.
• Every lead has an outcome and a reason: declined, booked, no-show, signed, lost.
• Calls, forms, texts and Local Services Ads leads all land in the same system.

For Local Services Ads, compare your records with Google’s own lead list. The How leads work page explains that you can see each lead’s charge status, marked as “Charged,” “Not charged,” “In review,” or “Credited.” If Google shows more leads than your intake records do, some leads never made it into your system, and every rate on the dashboard is off.

What should an owner do this week?

1. Pull last week’s leads and check that each one has a source and an outcome.
2. Calculate the six numbers once by hand, even roughly.
3. Find the first number in the funnel that looks wrong.
4. Name one person to fix it and check it again next week.

If you already have a dashboard, keep it. Add the funnel numbers your current one is missing and put them on the owner’s page first.

Frequently asked questions

Which intake numbers should a law firm owner review every week?

Answer rate, speed to first response, qualification rate, consult booked rate, consult to signed rate, and signed cases by lead source. For paid sources, add cost per signed case. Read them in funnel order so the first number that moved shows where cases are leaking.

What is the difference between an intake KPI and a vanity metric?

An intake KPI has an action attached: if it moves, someone changes coverage, follow-up, scripts, targeting or budget. A vanity metric, such as total calls or website visits, can rise while signed cases fall, so it does not tell the owner what to do.

How long should a weekly intake KPI review take?

About fifteen minutes. Use one page with the same layout every week, show this week next to the last four weeks, flag only what moved, and leave root causes and budget changes for a longer monthly review.

If you want to know which of these numbers is leaking cases at your firm right now, start with a free intake and sales audit.

Related reading

• Building a Law Firm Dashboard: What Data Actually Matters
• What Is a Good Answer Rate for a Law Firm?
• How to Tie Ad Spend to Signed Cases
• Running a Monthly Intake Review: What to Examine and What to Change