WH Law

What Happened When a Law Firm Decided to Stop Talking About the Law

Brandon Haubert knew he had a problem before he knew how to solve it.

He’d been running his law firm for years. He’d hired good attorneys. People who knew the law, argued well, and diagnosed problems fast. The issue was that speed. The instinct to diagnose is exactly what gets trained into attorneys from day one. It’s also the instinct that was keeping WH Law’s close rate stuck at 18%.

Brandon had figured part of that out on his own. He already knew the less they talked about the law on a consultation call, the higher the likelihood someone hired them. He already knew that if a prospect liked you, they’d hire you. If they were confused by you, they wouldn’t.

What he didn’t have was a system for fixing it. Previous training hadn’t moved the number.

“I’m not a salesperson by trade,” he said. “I’d never been trained on sales. I knew the problems existed, but I didn’t know how to solve them.”

A colleague pointed him toward Adam Boyd. He made the call.

The Real Problem

Here’s what was happening on consultations at Brandon’s firm.

Someone would call to discuss a legal matter. They’d say something like: “My dad passed away.” And a lawyer, trained to diagnose, would respond: “Did he have a will? Did he have a trust?” Straight to the legal issue. Zero acknowledgment of the person on the other end.

What should a lawyer say? “I’m sorry to hear that.”

That’s it. Two seconds of empathy. It wasn’t happening.

The attorneys weren’t bad people. They’d been trained to solve problems. The reflex ran deep. And it was costing the firm clients on nearly every consultation.

What We Did

We worked with six to eight attorneys running consultations. We met twice a week over five months.

We took their consultation from “let me tell you about our firm” to a structured, six-step process. We built in the language to acknowledge what the prospect was going through before ever getting to the legal issue. We taught them how to discuss fees in a way that didn’t end in “here are some options.” We moved the conversation from talking about law to talking about why people actually wanted help. We analyzed calls, identified skill gaps, and built structured scripts around what was actually working.

Brandon and his team co-developed a playbook through the process. We didn’t hand them one. They built it, with guidance, so it would actually stick.

We also applied these techniques beyond consultations. Brandon’s attorneys started using them at mediations to get better settlements. The skills transferred.

The Results

Close rates increased 72%. Cash flow doubled. And after the engagement, the firm raised prices by 15% with no drop in close rates.

Brandon has brought NWG back multiple times since. That should tell you something.

If your firm’s close rate on consultations isn’t where it should be, it may not be a legal problem.

It may be a conversation problem.

The Four Pillars of Your Sales Engine covers the frameworks we use with professional services firms to find and fix those gaps. Download it free at thenorthwoodgrp.com/four-pillars-sales-engine/

What Brandon’s Doing Now

Brandon learned enough through that process that he’s now building an intake product to help other law firms improve how they handle new client conversations. The skills, the language, the structure. The process he improved at his own firm is now something he’s taking to market.

He didn’t plan that going in. That’s just where the work led.