One result. Every step documented.
A contract resolution firm doubled its annual revenue from clients we introduced. The firm's name is not on this page. They have not given permission to publish it. What follows is our account of exactly what we did.
We do not publish client names. We do not describe their matters. We do not use their results as marketing without permission. This client has not given that permission, and we have not asked twice.
What follows is our account of the program — the steps we took, the list we built, the letter we wrote, the results it produced. The client can confirm or dispute any of it. If you want to speak with them directly, ask us. We will try to arrange it.
Discovery
The firm had been in contract resolution for eleven years. Referral-fed, well-regarded, and growing only as fast as the network allowed. A single closed engagement was worth $200,000 to $400,000 in fees over the resolution timeline. They had never done outbound. They were skeptical.
The discovery call covered four things: what a typical matter looked like, who signed the engagement letter, what triggered the decision to bring in outside resolution specialists, and what objections they heard from buyers who ultimately did not engage. That last question produced the most useful information of the call. The most common objection was not price or timeline. It was that the buyer did not believe resolution was possible without escalating the dispute. The letter had to address that before anything else.
List Build
Built from court filings, bar association directories, and commercial litigation databases. Target: general counsel and outside counsel at companies with active or probable commercial disputes above a threshold value. Filtered by dispute type — contract breach, vendor disputes, supplier claims — and by company revenue above $50M.
Final list: 340 companies. A representative sample was reviewed and approved by the client before any letter was sent. Twelve companies were removed on client instruction — existing relationships and potential conflicts they identified in the review. The remaining 328 were cleared.
Copy Development
The letter named a specific dispute scenario: a vendor contract dispute where the counterparty's legal position was stronger on paper than the client's initial read suggested. It described the resolution mechanism in two sentences. It asked one question the recipient could answer in one sentence. It was signed by the firm's managing partner by name.
The client reviewed two drafts. The first draft was returned with one structural change — the opening scenario was too narrow and excluded a category of disputes the firm regularly handled. The second draft was approved without revision.
Launch
Physical mail. 328 letters, first-class, sent over three days. No email component in cycle one. General counsel at the target company size were unlikely to respond to unsolicited email from an unknown firm. A letter addressed to them by name, in an envelope, from a managing partner, was a different communication — one that matched the formality of the work they did.
First Cycle Results and Monthly Call
328 letters. 9 responses. 5 converted to conversations. The monthly coordination call covered what each response said, which conversations were progressing, and what the non-responses implied about the list. Two companies were flagged for follow-through in cycle two. One conversation was paused — the buyer's dispute had settled before a meeting could be arranged.
One engagement signed in month seven. Engagement value over the resolution timeline: $280,000.
Cycle Two
Non-responders refreshed. Fourteen companies replaced based on better match criteria identified from the first round's conversations — the disputes that produced the best meetings shared a profile the original list had only partially captured. The letter was revised: the opening scenario updated, the question at the end sharpened based on what had worked in the conversations.
310 letters. 12 responses. 6 conversations. Two additional engagements signed by month eleven.
2×
Three engagements introduced through the program. Combined first-year fees from those engagements: slightly more than the firm's full annual fee base before the program started.
The referral base was still producing throughout. The program ran alongside it — not instead of it.
The firm has continued the program. We do not publish current results.
This is the one case we are permitted to describe. Others exist in healthcare recovery, expense audit, and tax credit capture. The clients who produced them have asked that we not go further than confirming the vertical and the general outcome.
If you want to speak with a client in your practice area before making a decision, ask us. We will try to arrange it. They decline occasionally. We respect that.
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