Inside the Counselcraft diagnostic: what we look for in the first two weeks.

One of the most common questions we get from prospective clients is some version of "what does the diagnostic actually do?" It's a fair question. Most agencies sell "discovery calls" or "free audits" that are really sales calls in disguise, and the prospect is rightly skeptical that a paid engagement is going to be different. So this post is the actual playbook — what we audit, the order we audit it in, what we typically find, and what ends up in the document at the end. No mystery, no methodology jargon.

The diagnostic is fixed-fee, runs 2–3 weeks, and credits toward implementation if the firm decides to move forward. Both founders are on every diagnostic personally. Below is the structure.

Week 1 — Discovery and data pull.

The first week is mostly listening and gathering. We start with a 90-minute kickoff call with the managing partner and any other operational stakeholders, where we walk through the firm's current state across five domains: demand generation, intake, operations, attribution, and AI readiness. The conversation is structured but conversational; the goal is to understand what the partners think is broken, what they think is working, and where the priorities are.

In parallel, we request access to (or read-only views of) the systems we'll need to look at: the CRM, the case management platform, Google Analytics or whatever's in place for web analytics, the Google Ads account if the firm runs paid, the call tracking system, the billing system at a summary level, and any internal documents the firm has about processes (SOPs, org charts, marketing playbooks). We don't need everything at once; we need enough to start triangulating what the data actually says against what the partners say.

What we typically find in week 1: the gap between what partners think is happening and what the data shows is happening. Almost every firm has at least one significant misalignment here — a marketing channel the firm thinks is working that isn't, an intake yield the firm assumes is fine that's actually 40%, a major source of inquiries that nobody at the firm has formally measured. The first week's job is to identify those gaps cleanly so the second week can investigate them.

Week 2 — The five-domain audit.

Week 2 is structured analysis across each of the five domains. We split the work — Bob runs the demand and attribution sides, Jim runs the operations and intake sides, AI readiness is co-owned — but every finding is reviewed jointly so the deliverable speaks with one voice.

Demand generation audit.

We look at every channel currently driving inquiries: organic search, paid search, paid social, Local Services Ads, content/blog traffic, referral, and direct. For each channel, we measure: actual current volume, conversion rate to qualified inquiry, conversion rate to signed retainer, and per-channel cost per signed case. We compare against what good looks like for the firm's practice area and geography. Then we audit the firm's visibility in AI answer engines — running 8–12 representative prospect queries across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Google AI Overviews to see whether the firm shows up at all.

Intake audit.

We trace the path of a new inquiry from first touch to signed retainer, end-to-end. The mechanism is what I described in the 24-hour intake gap post: the seven discrete handoffs from capture through retainer. For each handoff, we measure the median time elapsed, the leak rate (percentage that don't make it to the next step), and where the bottleneck lives. We also send 4–6 mystery-shopper inquiries to the firm at different times of day, including evenings and weekends, to see what actually happens in real time.

Operations audit.

The operations side is broader. We look at the firm's current cadence (weekly/monthly/quarterly meetings, what gets reviewed in each), the documented SOPs (or the lack of them), the KPI dashboards in use (or the lack of them), the decision rights structure beneath the partners, the team org chart, and the workflow automation currently in place across CRM, billing, and case management. The output is a map of where operations are running well, where they're running on partner attention, and where they're not running at all.

Attribution audit.

Following the framework from the attribution post: tracked entry points, identity stitching, stage transitions, financial reconciliation. For each layer we score the firm's current state against an audit-ready baseline. Most firms come in scoring 1 or 2 out of 4 layers; very few are at 4. The score determines how much of the implementation phase will be attribution rebuild versus other priorities.

AI readiness audit.

What AI tools is the firm currently using, formally or informally? What's the data flow for each? Who has approved them? What governance is in writing? Is there a vendor whitelist? An audit log? A response plan if the bar asks questions? We map the firm's current AI surface area and score it against the five-layer governance framework. This audit alone often surfaces things the partners didn't know were happening — paralegals using free LLMs for client work, intake using ChatGPT for voicemail summaries, etc.

Week 3 — Synthesis and deliverable.

The third week is synthesis. We take everything from weeks 1 and 2 and produce a single document — typically 12 to 20 pages — with a specific structure:

• Executive summary. One page. Top three findings, top three recommendations, quantified revenue impact range.
• Domain-by-domain findings. For each of the five domains, what we found, with specific data and examples. No vague language. Real numbers from your firm.
• Prioritized 90-day fix list. 5–8 specific changes ranked by revenue impact divided by implementation effort. Each item includes the work involved, the expected timeline, and the expected revenue or efficiency impact.
• The seam map. A visualization of where demand and operations fail to hand off cleanly in your firm specifically. This is usually the most-shared page of the document because it's the most concrete.
• Optional: the implementation proposal. If we believe Counselcraft is the right team to execute the fixes, we include a proposal with scope, timeline, and pricing. If we don't believe we're the right fit, we say so and recommend who is.

We deliver the document in person (or over video) in a 60–90 minute walkthrough with the partners. Every finding is discussed; every recommendation is justified. If the partners want to push back on something, we'd rather have that conversation in the room than discover it after the document has been quietly shelved.

The diagnostic's job is not to sell implementation. It's to give the firm an honest map of its own operations — even if the right next step is for someone else to do the work, or for nobody to do the work right now.

What we typically find.

Patterns we see in nearly every firm we diagnose:

• A marketing channel that's eating 15–25% of paid budget without producing signed cases (the firm doesn't realize it because the conversion event being measured is too shallow)
• An intake yield somewhere between 50% and 70%, where best-in-class is 80%+ — usually 5–7 figure annual revenue on the floor
• An undocumented intake or matter-opening process that depends on one specific staff member, who is a flight risk because she's overloaded
• Three to five AI tools in active use that nobody has formally approved or documented
• Attribution at layers 1–2 of 4, with no reconciliation against billing — meaning the firm cannot confidently say which marketing dollar produced which signed case
• A Google Ads account running broad-match against terms that match informational queries, not commercial-intent ones (see the paid media post)
• A managing partner whose calendar is at 90%+ utilization on tactical work, with no recurring strategic time blocked off

In a typical 30–50 attorney firm, the conservative revenue impact of fixing the top three findings tends to land between $400K and $1.2M annually. That's the math we present. The firm decides whether the math is worth the implementation cost.

Why we charge for this.

Two reasons. First, because the diagnostic produces real work product the firm keeps regardless of whether they hire us — the document, the data, the prioritized list, the seam map. That has standalone value. Second, because charging filters for firms that are serious. We've found that prospects who pay for diagnostic engage with the findings; prospects who get a free audit shelve it. If we're going to spend three weeks of two founders' time on a firm, we want the firm to be invested in the outcome.

The fee credits toward implementation if the firm moves forward, so for serious prospects the diagnostic is functionally free if the work continues. For prospects who decide not to continue, the document is theirs to keep. We're not in the business of holding deliverables hostage.

What happens after.

Three paths from the diagnostic, in roughly equal proportions across the firms we've worked with:

1. Implementation with Counselcraft. The firm decides the fix list is real and we're the right team to execute. We move into a 6–8 week build phase, then optional fractional support beyond that.
2. Implementation internally. The firm decides the fix list is real, but they want to execute internally with their team. We hand off the document and any supporting data and stay available for questions. We don't take it personally.
3. No immediate action. The firm decides the timing isn't right or the priorities aren't aligned. They keep the document for later. We typically check in 6 months later. About 30% of these firms come back and engage when the timing changes.

All three are valid outcomes. The diagnostic itself was the deliverable; what the firm does with it is the firm's call. That structure — doing real work upfront, charging for it, and being transparent about the outcomes — is what the rest of the engagement model is built on.

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If this is the level of clarity you'd want about your firm's growth and operations, that's the diagnostic. Book one →