How to Find a Legal Lead Provider You Can Trust

If a law firm is going to grow, it will have to succeed at finding new clients online. Legal lead providers offer a powerful solution to this problem by using their advertising expertise to forge connections between attorneys and potential clients.

However, the lead industry has some “trust issues.”

Quality varies greatly in the online lead industry, so while there is incredible potential for legal leads to drive growth for a firm, many attorneys have had negative experiences and are frustrated in their quest to unlock that potential.

It’s a shame, because when it works, it really works.

• Law firms stand to access a far larger pool of clients than they could on their own.
• They also stand to save a great deal of time and money in the process. The savings on marketing overhead alone can be transformational.

We know how critical trust is to the process. Our company, 4LegalLeads, is one of the oldest in the industry, and we’ve grown steadily for two decades by focusing on building trust with attorneys.

So, we’re going to share some insight and actionable ways to find a trustworthy lead provider who can truly become a partner in the growth of your firm. In the right relationship, leads work, and you deserve a chance to experience that success.

Does your legal lead provider want to earn your business?

Many of the trust issues between attorneys and lead providers come from a long history of requiring law firms to sign contracts and make large commitments when purchasing leads. If the quality is low, the attorney is trapped by their agreement, and they feel like they’ve been cheated.

Commitments unmask a provider’s lack of trust in their own product. If they do quality work, they should have confidence in their product’s ability to earn a commitment.

• Look for a legal lead provider who understands that trust is earned, one who has confidence in their product.
• Look for a provider who doesn’t require contracts and who offers a guaranteed refund on your account balance that’s available whenever you want to step away from the relationship.

You need the freedom to be able to find trust in a provider, and you deserve it. When leads are forced to prove their own worth, a long-term partnership that benefits both parties can grow.

Are your legal leads exclusive?

The issue of exclusivity forms a strong indicator of trustworthiness. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept in leads, it will seem odd that this has to be said, but here it goes.

• Exclusive leads mean they are only sold once and sold only to you.
• Or put another way, it’s a one client per one lawyer connection.

In contrast, some providers will put lawyers into a multi-share model where a lead is distributed to multiple attorneys at the same time. Response time is the key to success with leads, so all of the law firms involved are forced into a race to see who can contact the lead first.

This only benefits the provider as they are able to dramatically increase their profit on every lead while simultaneously making it seem like their leads are a bargain. If that sounds like grounds for trust issues, you’d be right.

Make sure you ask whether your leads are truly exclusive to you and only you.

Is your legal lead provider taking good care of your leads?

A good lead provider should be just as invested in providing quality, ethical service to your leads as they are to you. There’s a separation online in the form of advertisements, landing pages, and forms between providers and leads, and it’s too easy to forget that leads are people. In fact, they are usually people in a vulnerable situation who are worthy of great care.

The lead provider who is trustworthy won’t forget.

By necessity, it’s not usually possible for you to view the landing pages and ads that providers use to source leads. It’s a hyper-competitive market, and providers are forced to protect their proprietary solutions, but there are still revealing questions you can ask.

• Are you bar compliant in your advertising practices?
• How are you holding yourself accountable to regulations and ethical guidelines?
• Do you have a way to screen for leads who are unable to pay for an attorney?

That last one is very important. Not only does that protect your time, but it also keeps a lead from having false hope that they’ve found the help they need. People with limited finances need to be routed to real, accessible solutions.

If a provider you’re vetting can demonstrate intentional, systematized care and concern for the treatment of leads, you’ll have a good indicator of trustworthiness.

How do you view the relationship with your legal lead provider?

If we’re talking about trust and relationships, then we’re talking about a two-way street. Unfortunately, we’ve found over the past 20 years that far too many attorneys short-circuit a potentially beneficial relationship with a provider before it can form.

It’s understandable. We all get defensive after a negative experience, but it’s unfair to treat all providers as if they’re cut from the same cloth. There are a couple of questions you can use to check in with yourself and reset your ability to see beyond past experiences.

• Am I giving this enough time?

We see attorneys who are so defensive, they’re ready to cry foul after the first lead is delivered. You need and actually deserve a decent sample set of a provider’s leads to be able to make a fair assessment of quality.

There’s really no shortcut for this process as your local market is unique. We recommend attorneys try at least 8-10 leads before making an initial assessment, but even that’s very limiting in what it can indicate.

• Am I looking for a product or a partnership?

It’s natural to want legal leads to function like an “off-the-shelf” product that either works or doesn’t, but the truth is, it’s not that binary or objective. Leads are about communication, and you’ve just entered the world of the organic. There’s a massive, complicated network of ads, ever-changing search behavior, online bidding, and fallible humans behind your leads.

You get the best results when you see the relationship with your provider as a partnership. You’re working together to optimize this complex system that provides your leads. This at least means that your provider needs to know:

• What isn’t
• And what is.

When your provider gets consistent, constructive feedback, they get the data they need to use their expertise to track down problems in the system or to turn up the heat on the things that are working.

• Have I established a strong intake process on my end?

Part of your success with leads hangs on the strength of your provider’s service, but a great deal of your success rate hangs on how the lead is processed once received.

Your law firm needs an intake process that responds to a lead immediately when they submit a request and continues to help them feel cared for and supported. Attorneys who are attentive to this need find much greater success with leads.

Trustworthy lead providers are out there.

There’s so much to be gained in a positive relationship with a legal lead provider. You can build a partnership that drives growth for your firm for years.

Even if you feel like your marketing program is successful, the truth is that there are lead providers out there who are connecting with potential clients in your region that you aren’t. A partnership with a lead provider who has the right experience and resources can expand your reach into your local market.

We’d be grateful for the opportunity to earn your business and your trust. There are no contracts, just an experienced provider with a team that’s dedicated to quality and excellent customer service.

It only takes a few moments to visit 4LegalLeads.com/lawyers and create your account, or you can speak to our team directly at (866) 473-0005. After you create your account, our support team (support@4legalleads.com) will customize and optimize it for you.

When the relationship works, leads work like nothing else to give you an affordable, scalable way to grow your practice. It’s worth working through a few trust issues to get there.