{
    "question": "How quickly do law firms respond to new clients, and how do clients choose?",
    "answer": "Only 40% of law firms answered a phone call from a would-be client in Clio's 2024 secret-shopper test of 500 firms, down from 56% in 2019, and 33% replied to an email. Counting call-backs, 52% were reachable by phone. Clio's surveys also find 71% of clients prefer a flat fee for their whole case.",
    "period": "2024",
    "key_numbers": [
        {
            "value": "40%",
            "label": "Law firms that answered a secret-shopper phone call",
            "note": "Clio, 2024; 56% in 2019",
            "stat": "law-firm-marketing/law-firms-answer-phone"
        },
        {
            "value": "33%",
            "label": "Law firms that replied to a secret-shopper email",
            "note": "Clio, 2024; 40% in 2019",
            "stat": "law-firm-marketing/law-firms-reply-email"
        },
        {
            "value": "59%",
            "label": "Solo and small firms whose top lead source is referrals",
            "note": "Clio survey, June 2024; 27% of larger firms",
            "stat": "law-firm-marketing/solo-small-referrals-top-lead-source"
        },
        {
            "value": "71%",
            "label": "Legal clients who prefer fixed or flat fees",
            "note": "Clio, May 2026",
            "stat": "law-firm-marketing/clients-prefer-flat-fees"
        }
    ],
    "tables": [
        {
            "id": "secret-shopper",
            "title": "Law firms that responded to a secret-shopper client inquiry",
            "columns": [
                "Response",
                "2019",
                "2024"
            ],
            "rows": [
                [
                    "Answered the phone",
                    "56%",
                    "40%"
                ],
                [
                    "Answered or called back",
                    "Not published",
                    "52%"
                ],
                [
                    "Unreachable by phone",
                    "Not published",
                    "48%"
                ],
                [
                    "Replied to the email",
                    "40%",
                    "33%"
                ]
            ],
            "row_ids": [
                "shop-phone",
                "shop-phone-or-callback",
                "shop-unreachable",
                "shop-email"
            ],
            "note": "Clio hired a third-party research company (Lux) to email and phone 500 law firms with a client inquiry between 20 June and 5 July 2024, following a similar study in 2019. Clio does not publish response times or a breakdown by practice area on its highlights page. Vendor research.",
            "source": "clio"
        },
        {
            "id": "clients-and-leads",
            "title": "What clients want and where firms get leads",
            "columns": [
                "Finding",
                "Share",
                "Clio source"
            ],
            "rows": [
                [
                    "Clients who would prefer a flat fee for their entire case",
                    "71%",
                    "Legal Trends Report 2024"
                ],
                [
                    "Clients who would prefer a flat fee for individual activities",
                    "51%",
                    "Legal Trends Report 2024"
                ],
                [
                    "Clients who prefer fixed or flat fees",
                    "71%",
                    "Solo and small firm report, May 2026"
                ],
                [
                    "Consumers who used AI for a legal question and were told to contact a lawyer",
                    "28%",
                    "Legal Trends Report 2025"
                ],
                [
                    "Solo and small firms whose highest source of leads is referrals",
                    "59%",
                    "Solo and small firm report 2025 (June 2024 survey)"
                ],
                [
                    "Larger firms whose highest source of leads is referrals",
                    "27%",
                    "Solo and small firm report 2025 (June 2024 survey)"
                ]
            ],
            "row_ids": [
                "client-flat-fee-case",
                "client-flat-fee-activity",
                "client-flat-fee-2026",
                "ai-told-contact-lawyer",
                "leads-referrals-solo-small",
                "leads-referrals-larger"
            ],
            "note": "Clio vendor surveys. The June 2024 survey covered 1,028 US legal professionals. The 2026 release gives no sample size or field dates.",
            "source": "clio"
        },
        {
            "id": "websites-marketing",
            "title": "How law firms make themselves findable online: websites and social media, ABA survey",
            "columns": [
                "Measure",
                "Share of respondents"
            ],
            "rows": [
                [
                    "Firm has a website, 2024",
                    "90%"
                ],
                [
                    "Firm has a website, 2022",
                    "94%"
                ],
                [
                    "Solo practitioners with a website, 2024",
                    "70%"
                ],
                [
                    "Solo practitioners with a website, 2022",
                    "61%"
                ],
                [
                    "Firms of 100+ attorneys with a website, 2024",
                    "100%"
                ],
                [
                    "Use social media as a marketing tool, 2024",
                    "80%"
                ],
                [
                    "Use social media as a marketing tool, 2022",
                    "89%"
                ]
            ],
            "row_ids": [
                "web-all-2024",
                "web-all-2022",
                "web-solo-2024",
                "web-solo-2022",
                "web-100-plus-2024",
                "social-2024",
                "social-2022"
            ],
            "note": "ABA Legal Technology Survey, 2024 Websites and Marketing TechReport: lawyers describing their own firms. These rows show the channels firms use to reach would-be clients; the ABA did not measure how quickly firms answer inquiries or how clients choose a firm. LinkedIn was the main social platform (76%), followed by Facebook (53%).",
            "source": "aba"
        }
    ],
    "sources": [
        {
            "name": "Legal Trends Report and Legal Trends for Solo, Small and Mid-Sized Law Firms",
            "publisher": "Clio (Themis Solutions Inc.)",
            "type": "vendor",
            "url": "https://www.clio.com/"
        },
        {
            "name": "Legal Technology Survey (TechReport) and Profile of the Legal Profession",
            "publisher": "American Bar Association",
            "type": "industry",
            "url": "https://www.americanbar.org/"
        }
    ],
    "content_changed_on": "2026-10-31",
    "page_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/law-firm-marketing/law-firm-client-intake",
    "csv_url": "https://digitaltreed.com/statistics/law-firm-marketing/law-firm-client-intake.csv"
}