A plaintiff law firm’s KPI dashboard should answer four core questions partners ask every Monday morning: what cases are worth, where they came from, how many are open in each stage, and how long they’ve been waiting. The dashboard’s test is simple — a partner should glance at it for 30 seconds and know who to call.
The Six Numbers That Matter
Signed contingency agreements by lead source reveal which marketing channels and referrals actually convert to paying clients. Clio Grow’s Lead Source revenue report tracks intake matters, hired matters, and conversion rates directly from the central dashboard. The Referral report lists contacts sending cases based on the “Referred by” field, but only works when that field is consistently populated. Firms should make the source a required step at intake and look at the blanks every week.
Intake conversion rate measures signed clients against qualified inquiries – not every call or wrong number. Counting unqualified leads makes the rate look artificially low. The Matters Added report gives you a rough rate by lead source and matter type. It counts every matter added, so you want to close out junk inquiries first, or the number will look worse than it is. On MyCase, the Leads dashboard charts conversion by referral source, while Smokeball’s Prospects+ plan offers similar pipeline tracking.
Cases by stage with days in stage show workflow balance across intake, treating, demand, negotiation, and litigation phases. A pile of cases stuck in treatment with nothing moving to demand signals thin fees for the next quarter. Clio Manage displays matter stages as a Kanban-style board per practice area, with day counters already visible on each card. The system also allows exporting stage data for custom reporting.
Days in stage and time to settlement highlight stragglers needing immediate attention. One case lingering in demand three times longer than others warrants a phone call this week, not next month. Clio’s custom reports on Signature and Elite plans pull open dates, close dates, and stage transitions. The unified AI platform lets users prompt the assistant to find resolution times across active matters without manual spreadsheet work.
Costs advanced per case track money the firm lends to its own files for filing fees, records, and experts. For many plaintiff firms, this figure determines whether they can take the next big case. Recording expenses on each matter in Clio’s Personal Injury Add-On feeds directly into the Settlement tab’s recovery calculator. Firms without built-in totals can export monthly costs and share the number with partners.
Average fee per resolved case — after referral and co-counsel splits — should be tracked by case type and source to guide marketing budgets. While real fees are still pending, Clio Grow’s Lead Source revenue report provides estimated values by source. The new unified Clio platform allows natural-language queries to evaluate estimated values without exporting spreadsheets.
Intake and Stage Tracking Features in Clio Manage
Clio Manage includes matter stages on select plans, presented as a Kanban-style board for each practice area under Matters > Stages. Each card on the board displays the number of days a matter has spent in its current stage. Users can enable the Matter stage column in their matters list and export the data for further analysis.
Platform Options Beyond Clio
MyCase users can access the Case List Report under Reports > Case & Contact Reports. This report filters and groups matters by case stage, displaying custom fields as columns. Firms should configure settlement amount and costs advanced as currency custom fields to enable reporting. The Leads dashboard charts conversion rates by referral source, while the Leads Forecasted Pipeline Value report shows current intake pipeline status.
Smokeball’s Prosper+ plan includes Firm Insights, featuring a Personal Injury Settlement Insights dashboard. This dashboard displays average days open, average settlement per client, average proceeds per client after referral splits, costs recovered and lost, and settlements per referrer. The Projected Settlements dashboard breaks expected settlements down by stage, providing forward-looking visibility into case progression.
Firms using other platforms can achieve all six KPIs through monthly exports and simple spreadsheet analysis. Any system capable of saving filtered reports and exporting data can generate the required metrics. The same six numbers apply across platforms that include stage fields, source fields, and custom field capabilities.
Dashboard Validation and Critical Oversight
Make sure every open case has its statute of limitations date in a field a report can read, so everyone can see it. This date often exists only as a task or calendar entry, making it invisible to dashboard reporting. Unlike the six KPIs, this date can directly impact case outcomes if missed. Partners should ensure this field is populated consistently during intake.
