Most intake scorecards grade politeness and data entry. This one scores the behaviors that sign or lose the case, stage by stage, per person, per week. It is the review criteria used in the audit and the reassessment, and the firm keeps it.
A scorecard is not a grade. It is a way of finding, on each recorded call, the line that was skipped, and across a person's week, the one behavior that is costing the most, so that the weekly conversation is about that behavior and the following week counts whether it changed. Courtesy rubrics cannot do this because the case is rarely lost on courtesy; it is lost at the fee and at the ask, by people who were polite throughout. The scorecard below is built on the five stages used across the legal intake and sales training and is the review criteria the legal intake call audit applies before training and the reassessment applies after. Scope, plainly: everything on this page concerns the conversation that turns an inquiry into an engagement. Nothing here is legal advice, nothing touches the legal work or the attorney's judgment, and any wording a firm adopts is reviewed by the firm against its jurisdiction's rules on attorney advertising, solicitation and fee communication before it is used.
| Stage | Item (yes or no) | What it catches |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Rapport | Caller's name asked for and used | Call-center opening; caller treated as a ticket |
| 1. Rapport | Expectations set: listen, questions, how the meeting works, fee, next step | Fee and ask arriving as surprises |
| 2. Questions | Frame sentence used ("so the attorney has what she needs") | Interrogation feel; specialist softening the questions |
| 2. Questions | Why now asked | The deadline the call should be built around never surfaces |
| 2. Questions | Who else is involved asked | The spouse or sibling appearing as the objection at the end |
| 2. Questions | Desired outcome asked in the caller's words | Value explained in the firm's terms instead of the caller's |
| 3. Value | Value stated using the caller's own reasons | Generic firm description; features and price |
| 3. Value | Fee stated once, without softening, in the context of what the meeting accomplishes | Discount or apology before the caller spoke |
| 3. Value | No legal evaluation or outcome language used | Reassurance that is actually an opinion on the merits |
| 4. Next step | Next step recommended with a specific time | "Would you like to schedule something?" |
| 4. Next step | Confirmation covered: how it arrives, what to bring, who to call | No-show; caller unsure what happens next |
| 4. Next step | Information offered only after a time was recommended | "Let me send you some information" as the exit |
| 5. Concerns | Concern explored with a question before it was answered | Rebuttal to the wrong objection; "of course, take your time" |
| 5. Concerns | Caller who did not book has a held slot and a same-day follow-up logged | The unsigned list that nobody calls |
Score each call in under five minutes from the recording. Per call, the result is the skipped items. Per person per week, the result is the item skipped most often, which becomes the one behavior for that week's coaching conversation and the number counted the week after. Across the desk, the stage with the most skipped items is where the law firm intake sales process is leaking.
Five stages, fourteen yes-or-no behaviors, five calls across, one box for this week's one behavior. Letter landscape, prints on one page. Enter your email and the sheet comes right over, along with four short notes on how I use it when I score a firm's recorded calls.
No sales pitch inside the sheet. Unsubscribe any time.
The intake manager scores three to five recordings per person each week, including at least one call that did not book, and opens the weekly one to one with the scorecard: here is the item you skipped on three of five calls, here is the line, let us say it twice now, and next week I will count it. Nothing else is on the agenda until that item moves. The R2R sales reluctance assessment for legal intake shows which items a given person will tend to skip before the first recording is scored, which is why the assessment comes first in the law firm intake training program. The scripts behind each item are on the legal intake scripts page and the responses behind the concern items on the legal intake objection handling page.
The hubs: legal intake and sales training and lawyer intake sales training. The working pages: legal intake scripts, legal intake dialogues, legal intake objection handling, law firm value proposition for intake, law firm intake sales process, legal intake follow-up, the fee conversation by fee model, the call-review scorecard and the R2R for intake teams. The engagement: the call audit and the twelve-step program.
For intake managers and managing partners: a conversation about adapting the scorecard to your fee policy and practice areas, or the audit, where I score the calls first.
Behaviors, not impressions. For each of the five stages (build rapport, ask questions, identify the need and establish value, ask for the next step, respond to concerns) two or three observable items: was the caller's name used, was why-now asked, was the value stated in the caller's words, was the fee stated without softening, was the next step recommended with a time, was the concern explored before it was answered. Each is yes or no on a recording.
A QA form scores the whole call on a scale and produces a number nobody can coach from. This scorecard produces, per call, the specific line that was skipped, and per person per week, the one behavior that is costing the most. The intake manager coaches that one behavior and counts it the following week.
The intake manager or a managing partner, on a sample of recordings each week (three to five per person), in the ten minutes before the weekly one to one. Self-scoring is useful as a second view but is not the record, because the behaviors most often skipped are the ones the person does not notice skipping.
Yes. The printable version, letter landscape with five calls across and a box for the week's one behavior, is sent by email from the form on this page. The version built in an engagement is adapted to the firm's fee policy, practice areas and the concerns its callers raise, and becomes the agreed review criteria for the reassessment.
Dr. Jeffrey Scott Stanton, DCH is the former EVP of Learning & Development at Douglas Elliman Real Estate and the founder and Chief Learning Officer of R2R Diagnostic Group, where he helps real estate organizations and agents diagnose and fix the behavioral patterns behind inconsistent performance.