How many leads can your intake team actually work? A capacity-planning worksheet
Buying more leads than your team can call is the most expensive mistake in case acquisition. A worksheet for sizing volume to the people you have.
By Case Leads Pro4 min read
A firm adds a second lead source on a Monday. By Thursday, the queue holds dozens of leads nobody has called twice, the reps are working the newest ones first, and a source that looked promising in week one now looks expensive. Nothing was wrong with the leads. The firm bought more than its people could work.
Why over-buying costs more than under-buying
Exclusive leads decay. A claimant who filled out a form an hour ago is reachable and motivated. A few days and one missed call later, they may have hired someone else or decided to wait. When volume outruns capacity, leads go uncalled or get a single attempt. You still pay for them. Cost per signed case rises, and the source takes the blame for what is really a staffing problem.
The fix is to size volume to the people you have. Fill in the worksheet below with your intake lead, using real numbers from your team rather than targets.
The capacity worksheet
- 01
Real intake hours
Start with scheduled hours per day and week, then subtract meetings, calls on existing cases, callbacks, and admin. What’s left is the time available for new leads. Expect it to be smaller than the schedule suggests.
- 02
Minutes per first contact
Include prep: reading the lead record, checking for duplicates, the call itself, and notes afterward. Time a handful of real calls rather than guessing.
- 03
Follow-up cadence
How many attempts each uncontacted lead gets, over how many days, and the minutes per attempt including a voicemail and a text. Multiply it out. Follow-up is where capacity quietly goes.
- 04
Full intake conversation
The qualifying conversation once you reach the claimant: the injury, the employer or accident facts, treatment, prior representation. Measure workers’ comp and PI separately if they run differently.
- 05
Handoff and sign-up
Sending e-sign documents, chasing signatures, scheduling with an attorney. It happens only for some leads, but it lands on the same people.
- 06
Coverage hours
Compare when leads arrive with when people are staffed. Leads that land in the evening or on a weekend wait until someone is on, and that backlog eats the next morning’s capacity.
- 07
Buffer for spikes and PTO
Hold back part of your time for sick days, vacations, and heavy weeks on existing cases, so an ordinary bad week doesn’t create a backlog.
- 08
Sustainable new-lead capacity
Available minutes after the buffer, divided by minutes per lead lifecycle. That’s how many new leads per day or week your team can work fully. Buy to that number, not past it.
A worked example
Signals you’re over capacity
- Time to first call creeps up week over week.
- Leads close out with fewer attempts than your cadence calls for.
- A backlog of uncontacted leads carries over from one day to the next.
- Reps cherry-pick: they work the fresh or easy-looking leads and skip the rest.
Any one of these means you’re buying past what your team can work, whatever the invoice says. Track them weekly, by source.
How to scale without breaking intake
- Ramp in steps. Raise volume by a fixed amount, hold it for a couple of weeks, check the signals above, then decide on the next step.
- Add coverage hours before volume. Extending into evenings or weekends lets the same leads get worked while they’re fresh instead of waiting overnight.
- Route by office or case type. Spread the load across locations or attorneys so one queue doesn’t carry everything.
- Separate workers’ comp and PI queues. The conversations differ, and specialists get faster when they handle one type.
Sizing volume with Case Leads Pro
We size campaign volume to what your intake team can absorb, and we’ll tell you if a market can’t support the volume you want or your criteria are too narrow to fill it. Leads arrive in real time through LeadDocket, Litify, GoHighLevel, a CRM webhook, email, or SMS alerts, with routing rules by office, attorney, or case type. Every phone number is SMS-verified before delivery, so dial time goes to reachable people. You can start with our workers’ compensation program or our personal injury program and add the other once the first is running smoothly.
Bring your worksheet numbers and schedule a 20-minute call. We’ll start from the capacity you actually have.
General information for law firm intake and marketing teams, not legal advice. Rules vary by state and by case.