Case study
Optimizing Case Acquisition for a Personal Injury Law Firm
The Opportunity
Repositioning PI growth with a signed-case, scalable edge
The client, a mid-sized personal injury law firm, faced slowing growth despite seven-figure awareness spend. In a market saturated with billboards, lead brokers, and pay-per-click auctions, the economics were turning against them: click costs rose, quality fell, and intake capacity was misaligned with demand spikes. After-hours inquiries were routinely missed, speed-to-lead lagged the <5-minute competitive bar, and attribution models rewarded cheap form fills rather than signed cases.
Internally, finance budgeted by channel averages (e.g., “$25k per case”) while case values were heavy-tailed; operations chased volume that clogged dockets; creative fatigued; compliance added friction. Externally, the State Bar advertising rules tightened messaging, algorithms favored advantaged accounts, and consumer skepticism about personal injury advertising depressed trust.
The firm engaged our team to reframe the problem from “more leads” to “more profitable signed cases,” align marketing, intake, operations, and finance around a single measure of success, and build a measurement system capable of proving which dollars led to high-fee outcomes.
The goal: design a signed-case engine that could scale responsibly—without inflating CAC—and establish a durable edge in a market optimized for noise rather than value.
The Solution
Transforming the end-to-end process
We ran a 21-day “Signed-Case Lift” sprint led by a partner, engagement manager, media lead, data scientist, and intake ops specialist. We optimized for expected case value—modeling signed-case probability × expected fee × time-to-disbursement at the channel/creative level—then routed budget and intake effort toward high-contribution segments (e.g., >$100k fee band) and killed low-yield volume.
Execution was straightforward: simplified account structures that learn on signed outcomes; sub-90-second speed-to-lead with SMS and weekend coverage plus counselor routing by case band; and a single dashboard tying ad → intake → signed case → fees so finance, marketing, and partners operated from one truth.
Methodologically, we replaced channel averages with cohort modeling and probability-based attribution tied to signed cases, not clicks. Creative ops used a cinematic master cut with dozens of AI-generated variants (language, city, injury type) to keep freshness high while controlling costs. Search, YouTube, and social prospecting drove to a qualification survey; retargeting carried short explainers and social proof to compress time-to-retain.
We mapped fee bands (≤$25k, $25–100k, >$100k) and cycle times so budgets favored segments with higher expected contribution. Operationally, we codified a standard of work (e.g., inquiry at 12:07 → call by 12:09 → intake by 12:39 → e-retainer by 1:00), instituted daily call-score reviews, and gave counselors after-hours signing authority. Vendor contracts were rewritten to index compensation to signed-case contribution rather than impressions or raw leads.
Governance cadence: daily stand-ups for kill/scale decisions; twice-weekly creative reviews; a weekly performance council with partners, finance, and compliance to clear roadblocks. The result was a collaborative system that taught platforms what a valuable case looks like and gave humans the tools to close them reliably.
The Impact
Signed-case engine cut acquisition costs 35% while shifting mix to six-figure PI cases
Cost per signed case fell from $4,500 to $2,925
After-hours loss rate dropped from 30% to 17%
Higher share of six-figure fee cases, lifting overall case value
Within six weeks of the sprint launch, cost per signed case fell from $4,500 to $2,925 (-35%), driven by reallocating spend to high-elasticity segments and killing low-yield units every 72 hours. After-hours loss dropped from 30% to 17% (-42%), adding ~25 signed cases per quarter without incremental media.
Signed-case mix shifted upmarket: the share of >$100k case values rose 28%, lifting average fee by ~15% and smoothing cash flow volatility. Speed-to-lead stabilized under :90 seconds with 90%+ counselor contact on day one; e-retainers signed same-day rose to 70%. NPS climbed into the low-70s; advisor satisfaction improved as routing matched skill to case type; compliance incidents fell to zero.
On an annualized basis, the firm grew revenues ~7% while improving margins, and achieved >4× ROI on optimized channels. Equally important, leaders gained a defensible operating model: a single KPI tree, common definitions, and a shared evidence base that reduced debates, accelerated decisions, and unlocked scalable, repeatable performance.
Industry-standard PI benchmarks indicate sub-five-minute responses double conversion; by institutionalizing this bar and measuring to signed-case value, the firm captured that structural advantage and held it under scale.
Lessons Learned
Strategic Roadmap
Win on outcomes, not optics
Point everything at signed-case probability × expected fee—creative, budgets, scripts, staffing. Leads/clicks are diagnostics, not success.
Operating Model
Design the intake-to-media loop together
Marketing, intake, finance, and compliance should co-author the journey so disclosures, talk-tracks, and bar rules are baked into the UX/CRM—fast and accurate beats loud.
Talent
Learn fast, govern tight
Keep account structures simple, feed server-side signals, test AI variants, and run daily/weekly kill-or-scale with vendors tied to signed-case contribution—that’s how you preserve lift past month one.
Adoption & Scaling
Segment for Personal Injury reality
Personal injury value is heavy-tailed, so segment by injury severity/fee band and route to the right counselor; pair advocacy-led creative with eligibility surveys, and keep model → message → motion in sync as the market shifts.
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