Questions Every Attorney Should Ask Before Buying MVA Leads

The personal injury market generated $61.7 billion in 2025 (IBISWorld, 2025). Despite that, only 7% of PI leads ever set a consultation appointment (MyCase 2024 Benchmark Report, 2024). The gap between spending on leads and actually signing cases usually comes down to one thing: the questions you did or didn't ask your vendor before writing the first check.

We route MVA leads daily through Claim Supply and talk to dozens of law firms every month. The firms that struggle almost always skipped the vetting process. They signed up, started buying, and figured they'd "evaluate as they go." That approach costs $10,000 or more in wasted spend before the first real data point shows up.

This guide groups the 15 questions that matter most into five categories. Ask all of them. If your vendor can't answer clearly, walk away. For the full vendor evaluation framework, see our complete vendor evaluation guide.

TL;DR: Before buying MVA leads, interrogate your vendor on five fronts: lead source and quality (where do the leads come from?), pricing and terms (what exactly am I paying for?), compliance and consent (do you provide TrustedForm certificates?), delivery and integration (can you push leads via webhook?), and performance and reporting (what are your aggregate conversion benchmarks?). Vendors who dodge specifics on any of these are not worth your budget.

Lead Source and Quality: Where Do These Leads Actually Come From?

This is where most attorneys fail to dig deep enough. "We generate leads online" is not an answer. Here are the questions that separate transparent vendors from black boxes.

"Which advertising platforms generate your leads, and what percentage comes from each?" You want to know if the vendor runs their own Google Ads, Facebook campaigns, and programmatic display, or if they're aggregating from third-party publishers. Google search leads tend to convert 2-3x higher than Facebook leads because the intent is stronger. Someone Googling "car accident lawyer near me" is further along than someone who clicked a sponsored post in their feed. A vendor that can't break down their traffic sources by channel is likely buying from unknown sub-affiliates.

"Are any leads recycled, aged, or resold from other vendors?" Some vendors buy leads in bulk from aggregators, mark them up, and resell them as "fresh." Ask for the average time between lead creation and delivery. Anything over 60 seconds for a "real-time" lead is suspicious. If they're reselling aged inventory as new, you'll discover it in your contact rates. But by then you've already paid.

"What's your duplicate detection process?" Quality vendors deduplicate against their own database before delivery. They should be able to tell you their duplicate rate (anything under 3% is good) and their policy for crediting duplicates. If they don't have a dedup system, you'll end up paying twice for the same prospect. For a broader look at quality problems, read our guide on red flags that your lead vendor is wasting your money.

Pricing and Terms: What Exactly Am I Paying For?

Lead pricing is straightforward on paper. Exclusive MVA web leads run $200-$500, shared leads $50-$150, and live transfers $500-$1,500. But the terms around that pricing matter just as much as the per-lead number.

"Is this truly exclusive, or do you sell the same lead to multiple buyers?" "Exclusive" should mean one buyer, period. Some vendors define exclusive as "one buyer per metro area" or "one buyer per practice area." That is not exclusivity. If two PI firms in Houston both receive the same lead, neither firm has an exclusive. Get the definition in writing. Your pillar guide on buying MVA leads covers the full exclusive vs. shared breakdown.

"What's your return policy for bad leads?" Quality vendors offer 24-48 hour dispute windows for leads with wrong phone numbers, disconnected lines, wrong case type, or out-of-jurisdiction contacts. Elite vendors credit you automatically when leads don't answer after three call attempts within 24 hours. A "no refunds" policy is the clearest signal that a vendor already knows their leads have problems.

"Are there volume commitments, minimums, or long-term contracts?" When you're testing a new vendor, you want per-lead pricing with no monthly minimum and no contract longer than 30 days. Lock-in contracts protect the vendor, not you. Once you've validated conversion rates over 60-90 days, committing to volume for a discount makes sense. Before that, flexibility is more valuable than a lower CPL.

Compliance and Consent: Can You Prove TCPA Documentation?

TCPA lawsuits surged to 2,788 cases in 2024, with average class action settlements hitting $6.6 million (LeadGen Economy TCPA Analysis, 2025). You bear the liability, not your vendor. That means your vendor's consent documentation is your defense. For the full compliance breakdown, see our TCPA compliance survival guide for lead buyers.

"Do you provide a TrustedForm certificate for every lead?" Not "most leads." Not "upon request." Every lead. TrustedForm certificates capture a timestamped snapshot of the form the prospect filled out, including the consent language they agreed to. Certificates cost $0.15-$0.50 per lead (ActiveProspect TrustedForm, 2026). If your vendor doesn't include them, you're flying blind on consent. Ask for a sample certificate URL and verify it resolves before signing any agreement.

"Can I see the exact consent language on your lead capture forms?" Prior express written consent under TCPA requires clear, conspicuous language near the submit button. The consent must name the specific entity that will contact the consumer. Vague language like "our partners may contact you" has been challenged successfully in court. Your vendor should be able to screenshot every active landing page and share the consent text. If they won't, they're hiding something.

"How do you handle DNC (Do Not Call) scrubbing?" Federal and state DNC lists get updated regularly. Your vendor should scrub leads against both the National DNC Registry and state-level lists before delivery. Ask how frequently they update their DNC database. Monthly is minimum. Weekly is better. If they don't scrub at all, every lead they send you is a potential $500-$1,500 per-violation liability.

Delivery and Integration: How Will Leads Reach My Team?

Speed-to-contact is the single biggest conversion factor. Contacting a lead within 60 seconds increases conversion by 391% compared to waiting longer (Velocify, 2015). Your delivery method determines whether your intake team gets the lead in 5 seconds or 5 minutes. That difference alone can double your signed cases.

"Can you deliver leads via webhook or API to my CRM in real time?" Real-time webhook delivery pushes JSON data to your CRM the moment the lead is generated. Latency should be under 5 seconds. This triggers instant SMS alerts to your intake staff, auto-assigns the lead, and kicks off your follow-up sequence. If a vendor only offers email delivery, you're adding 2-10 minutes of latency before anyone even sees the lead. That delay will cost you cases every single week.

"What CRM integrations do you support natively?" Native integrations with platforms like Clio, Filevine, MyCase, or Litify eliminate the need for custom development. Ask which CRMs the vendor has pre-built connectors for and whether setup requires a developer on your end. The faster you can go from contract signing to live lead delivery, the sooner you start seeing ROI.

"What happens when my CRM endpoint goes down?" Webhooks fail sometimes. A good vendor queues undelivered leads and retries automatically. A bad vendor drops them, and you never know the lead existed. Ask about retry logic, failure notifications, and whether they have a backup delivery channel (email or dashboard) for failed webhooks. You want zero lost leads, not "we'll look into it."

Performance and Reporting: What Results Should I Expect?

Transparent vendors share data. Opaque vendors share excuses. The questions below help you separate the two before your money is on the line.

"What are your aggregate conversion benchmarks across all buyers?" A vendor selling exclusive MVA web leads should be able to tell you their average contact rate (60-70% is solid), lead-to-consultation rate (20-30% for exclusives), and lead-to-signed-case rate (10-15% for exclusives at firms with good intake). If they can't quote these numbers, they either don't track them or don't want you to know. Both are disqualifying.

"Will you provide a real-time reporting dashboard?" You need to see lead volume, delivery status, contact rates, and dispute status in real time. Vendors who send a monthly PDF summary are hiding the day-to-day variance that tells you whether quality is slipping. Ask for dashboard access before you commit. If they don't offer one, factor in the manual tracking time as a hidden cost. At Claim Supply, we expose delivery and performance data to every buyer in real time because it builds trust faster than any sales pitch.

"Can we schedule a 30-day performance review?" Put this in writing. At the 30-day mark, you should review cost per signed case (not just cost per lead), contact rate, conversion rate, duplicate rate, and dispute resolution rate together. If the vendor isn't willing to commit to a performance review cadence, they're not confident in their product. Walk away.

For a deeper look at the metrics that actually predict vendor quality, read our full vendor evaluation framework. For a cost-focused analysis, check the ROI section of our complete guide to buying MVA leads. For a future deep-dive into third-party verification options, watch for our upcoming consent verification tools compared article.

Conclusion

Here's the bottom line: 15 questions across five categories will tell you everything you need to know about a vendor before you spend a dollar.

• Lead Source and Quality tells you whether the leads are genuine and fresh. Demand traffic source breakdowns, average delivery latency, and duplicate detection details.
• Pricing and Terms tells you what you're actually committing to. Start with per-lead pricing, no minimums, and strong return policies.
• Compliance and Consent protects you from TCPA exposure. TrustedForm certificates cost $0.15-$0.50 per lead. TCPA defense costs run $40,000-$750,000+. The math is obvious.
• Delivery and Integration determines your speed-to-contact, which drives a 391% conversion boost at 60 seconds vs. longer wait times. Webhook delivery is non-negotiable.
• Performance and Reporting keeps vendors accountable. Real-time dashboards and scheduled reviews prevent slow quality decay from eating your budget.

If a vendor gives clear, specific answers to all 15 questions, they're worth testing. If they dodge even one category, move on. The PI market is too competitive and the margins too thin to spend $200-$500 per lead without full transparency on what you're getting.

Ready to work with a vendor who answers every one of these questions upfront? See how Claim Supply works. Or keep reading with our complete guide to buying MVA leads and our guide on red flags that your lead vendor is wasting your money.