Chintan Zalani
How Do You Measure Success? 6 Personal Injury Lawyers Share Their Top KPIs
As a full-service marketing agency, we love KPIs.
They help underline what works, what doesn’t, and where we need changes.
However, our KPIs tend to look very different from our clients’ KPIs.
In this post, we asked six personal injury lawyers about the KPIs they use to gauge their success.
Here are their answers:
Financial Health KPIs
How do personal injury lawyers track their firm’s financial health?
Here are personal injury lawyers Alan Adhoot, Riley Beam, and Mark Hirsch chipping in their answers:
1. Win Rate
For personal injury attorney Alan Adhoot, tracking their firm’s financial performance starts with the win rate KPI.
We strive for a win rate of 75% or higher in cases that go to trial. This, combined with monitoring settlement amounts, helps us assess the financial health of the firm and our ability to secure favorable outcomes for our clients.
Bear in mind that a target win rate varies from firm to firm.
Some have it at over 90%, while the majority aims to maintain a minimum of 70% on average per year.
To paint a more accurate picture of financial stability, law firms supplement their win rate KPI with other metrics like total compensation recovery and settlement values.
2. Total Compensation & Settlement Values
Riley Beam, managing attorney at Douglas R. Beam, P.A., aligns their financial health with total compensation recovery.
After all, personal injury victims need as much financial support as they can get in turbulent times.
The first thing we look at is the total compensation we’re able to recover for people who’ve been injured. That’s a big part of what we do—making sure they get the financial support they need to cover medical bills, lost wages, and other costs.
Most law firms also track other KPIs that directly impact revenue.
Here’s Mark Hirsch, co-founder of Templer & Hirsch, elaborating the KPIs they measure alongside settlement values:
I remember a case where we achieved a $500,000 settlement in six months, demonstrating our dedication to quick outcomes. Weekly, we monitor the number of new cases initiated and customer satisfaction ratings to ensure we’re addressing our clients’ requirements. We evaluate our monthly cost per new client to refine our marketing tactics.
Operational Efficiency KPIs
Operational efficiency is all about maximizing returns while minimizing costs, be it in legal marketing, case management, or any other crucial internal process.
3. Settlement-to-Verdict Ratio
Seasoned personal injury attorney Ramzy Ladah pays close attention to their ability to negotiate fair settlements while avoiding stressful, lengthy, and costly court battles.
One key metric I focus on is the settlement-to-verdict ratio, which helps gauge how effectively we negotiate versus taking cases to trial. This reflects our ability to secure fair compensation without the lengthy process of a court battle, a crucial factor in client satisfaction.
Alex Freeburg, owner and managing attorney at Freeburg Law, also prioritizes higher settlement rates to achieve faster resolution times.
“We aim for a high settlement rate because it usually means we’re negotiating effectively and getting favorable outcomes without the need for a lengthy trial,” says Alex.
This leads to the next KPI.
4. Case Resolution Time
According to Alex:
We pay a lot of attention to resolution times. How long does it take to settle cases from start to finish? The quicker we can resolve a case, the better it is for our clients, who are often dealing with a lot of stress and uncertainty.
Of course, there are plenty of ways lawyers can speed up case resolution times outside of pursuing settlements.
This includes investing in streamlined document management systems, expand their support staff through outsourcing, and even using AI tools for routine tasks (e.g., writing contracts, summarizing documents, and conducting legal research).
5. Conversion Rate
Another way to improve efficiency is to maximize your website’s lead generation and conversion potential.
Attorneys like Mark Hirsch recommend looking into industry benchmarks to identify important and realistic goals.
Our company’s achievement is gauged by various important performance benchmarks (KPIs), specifically designed to address personal injury law. Our emphasis is placed on key figures like the conversion rate of prospective clients, which hovers around 5.45% in our area, and our success rate in cases, which we aim to maintain at or above 90%.
By tracking conversion rate, you can evaluate the performance of individual website elements.
One particular example is the utilization of calls-to-action (CTAs).
Dan Christensen, CEO and founder of DJC Law, explains the role of CTAs in their conversion rate optimization efforts and their go-to strategies:
Every page needs a prominent phone number, contact form, or other CTA so visitors can easily reach out for a free consultation. This removes friction from the lead generation process.
Client Satisfaction
Happy clients bring a lot of value to law firms.
That’s why most personal injury attorneys put a lot of emphasis on client satisfaction KPIs when measuring their firm’s success.
6. Mobile-Friendliness
Dan Christensen talked about the importance of mobile-friendliness for law firm websites:
Over 60% of my traffic comes from smartphones. If a site isn’t mobile-friendly, those visitors will click away. I optimize for mobile to improve conversions.
There are plenty of tools that can help you analyze your website’s mobile-friendliness, including Mobile Friendly Site Test by SE Ranking and Mobile Friendly Test browser extension.
Apart from mobile-friendliness, high-quality website content can also improve client satisfaction.
“My sites feature extensive legal resources, like blogs, FAQs, and guides,” says Dan. “This positions my firm as a thought leader and gives visitors a reason to keep returning.”
7. Client Referrals
The more satisfied your clients are, the more willing they are to refer leads to your firm.
Client referrals are among the high-priority KPIs tracked by Ramzy Ladah:
Every week, I monitor the number of client referrals we receive. Referrals are a direct reflection of our reputation and the trust our clients have in us.
Referral marketing, especially when your own clients are involved, are among the most impactful ways to grow your firm. And it works hand in hand with client reviews when it comes to boosting your firm’s authority.
8. Client Reviews & Feedback
Positive client reviews and testimonials are among the most effective tools in terms of lead generation.
For lawyers like Riley Beam, any sort of client feedback also ensures they’re making the right strategic decisions.
We also track client satisfaction because we need to know that the people we work with feel supported and heard, and that we’ve made a real difference in their lives. So, we monitor things like referrals and online reviews.
If we’re consistently getting positive feedback and referrals from past clients, that tells us we’re on the right track.
Not getting enough feedback from clients?
Feel free to read our guide on generating more Google Business Profile reviews.
Final Thoughts
Without KPIs, it’s nigh impossible to make solid decisions that get positive results.
KPIs tell the story of how your law firm is performing in terms of marketing, service quality, case outcomes, and overall growth.
In the words of Alex Freeburg, “we keep an eye on these numbers every month to see if there are trends we need to address.”
Of course, it always helps to work with a partner if you’d rather spend your time and energy on improving case outcomes. For other tasks like digital marketing and SEO, contact us and let us do the heavy lifting (that includes tracking KPIS).
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