Questions to ask a signed MVA retainer vendor
Vetting a signed-case supplier is not the same job as vetting a lead supplier. Somebody has already spoken to your future client about representation, and the questions that matter are about that conversation.
Origin — where the signature came from
Start here, not with price. Everything expensive about this model traces back to how the claimant was reached and what they were told.
Do you run the campaigns that produce these cases, or do you buy the inquiry from someone else?
If you buy it, from whom, and can you produce that supplier's consent artifacts?
How was this claimant first contacted — inbound form, inbound call, or outbound dial?
Who spoke to them about representation, and what were they told about which firm would represent them?
Will you send me the intake call recording for a case I pick at random?
Has any part of your supply chain ever paid a tow operator, body shop, clinic, or chiropractor for a name?
Signed MVA retainers come from four kinds of supplier: ad operators who run their own campaigns and sign in-house, intake shops applying a call centre to leads bought wholesale, aggregators brokering signed files between originators and firms, and full-service agencies bundling retainers inside a monthly marketing fee. Aggregators carry the highest reassignment and duplicate-signature risk; bundled agency pricing makes a true cost per case hardest to compute.
- Ad operators who sign in-house. Can name the campaigns, show the landing pages, and produce consent artifacts for a lead you pick at random. Capacity-bound. When their media costs spike, quality drops before price does.
- Intake shops signing on someone else's supply. Fluent about intake scripts and sign rates, vague about where the inquiry originated. You inherit a consent record they did not create and often cannot produce.
- Aggregators reselling signed files. Breadth across every case type and state, with no owned channel behind any of it. The highest reassignment and duplicate-signature risk in the category. Verify the retainer names your firm.
- Full-service agencies bundling retainers. Retainer pricing is quoted inside a monthly fee rather than per case. Hard to compute a true cost per case, which is usually the point. Insist on a per-case number.
Packet — what physically arrives
A complete signed MVA retainer packet contains nine items: the executed agreement naming your firm, an e-signature audit trail, a recording of the intake call, a HIPAA-compliant medical authorisation, the crash report or a retrievable report number, at-fault carrier and coverage detail, treatment status and provider, TCPA consent artifacts from the original inquiry, and a confirmed callback number. The three most often missing are the audit trail, the call recording, and the crash report.
Ask for a redacted sample packet before you agree a price. A vendor that will not show you one has told you what is in it.
The engagement agreement itself, with your firm as the named party — not assigned, novated, or substituted from another firm's paper. A reassigned retainer is a client who chose someone else.
Signer IP, timestamp, device, and the document version presented. DocuSign, Dropbox Sign, or equivalent. Without it you cannot prove the claimant signed what you are holding.
The single most useful artifact in the packet and the one most often withheld. It tells you what the claimant was actually told about who would represent them.
Signed release broad enough to order records from every provider named, plus any pre-existing treaters the carrier will inevitably subpoena.
The police report itself, an exchange-of-information form, or a retrievable report number and agency. Absent one, liability is only what the claimant said on a phone call.
Carrier name, claim number if opened, and whatever is known about limits. Reported-by-claimant and verified-from-declarations are different products at the same price.
Where the claimant has been seen, when, and what is scheduled. Damages are documented by records, not by pain described on a call.
Disclosure text, host URL, timestamp, IP, and a TrustedForm or Jornaya certificate for the original inquiry. The signature does not retroactively cure a defective consent record.
A callback number the claimant answers, confirmed after signing. The gap between signing and your first call is where purchased retainers die.
Commercial — the terms that cost money later
Is the fee fixed at delivery, or can it change once the case is valued?
What percentage of your delivered cases discharge within 90 days? How do you know?
Is exclusivity per case, per territory, or both — and what is the territory?
What is the monthly volume cap, and can I pause without penalty?
Replacement or credit on a failed case, and who decides it failed?
How long is the chargeback window, and what action on my part voids it?
Will you indemnify my firm if the acquisition method is later found improper?
The second question in that list is the one that matters most and the one you are least likely to get answered. Purchased signed retainers discharge at a higher rate than cases a firm signs itself, because the client chose the intake agent rather than the firm. The gap between signing and your first call is where they are lost. No vendor in this category publishes a cancellation rate, so ask for it in writing before you ask for price — and treat cost per surviving case, not cost per delivered case, as the number that matters.
A replacement obliges you to accept another case; a credit returns your capital. Credits are strictly better and vendors resist them. Get the criteria for a failed case written down before delivery, not after a dispute.
Published windows run 7 to 30 days. The trap is what starts the clock — delivery date or first contact — and whether opening a claim, ordering records, or sending a letter of representation voids your right to reject.
The number nobody in this category publishes. A vendor that tracks it and will tell you is a materially different counterparty from one that has never measured it. Ask for it in writing before price.
Per-case exclusivity means the file goes to you alone, which is table stakes. Territory exclusivity means the vendor will not also supply the firm across town. These are different promises at very different prices.
Signed cases arrive lumpier than leads. A month with three times your expected volume is a cash-flow event. Agree a cap and a no-penalty pause clause.
If a vendor's sub-source paid a tow operator or a clinic for the name, the grievance lands on your bar licence, not theirs. An indemnification clause does not fix that — but a vendor unwilling to sign one has told you something.
Compliance — three questions for your own file
ABA Model Rule 5.4 prohibits sharing legal fees with a non-lawyer, which is what separates a lawful signed-case purchase from an unlawful one. A flat fee per delivered retainer is an advertising expense. A fee calculated as a percentage of recovery, contingent on settlement, or adjusted for case value is fee-splitting and is prohibited in every U.S. jurisdiction regardless of what the agreement calls it. Ask how the price was set, not just what it is.
You still owe a conflict check on a purchased retainer, and you owe it before you act on the file. The vendor's intake team ran no conflicts search against your client list, adverse parties, or referral relationships. Run the check on receipt, and negotiate the right to reject a conflicted case for credit rather than replacement — a conflicted file is worth nothing to you at any price.
Keep the answers. If a bar inquiry ever arrives, the file showing you asked these questions before buying is worth more than any clause in the vendor’s agreement. Background on bar rules and the model itself on pay-per-signed-case.
Related
The full comparison against buying leads is on signed MVA retainers. The equivalent script for lead suppliers is questions to ask an MVA lead vendor, and the metric that settles the choice is cost per signed case.