Mass Tort Lead Vendor Evaluation: 6 Questions That Reveal Whether a Vendor Qualifies to the Docket or Just the Category
The vendor had a professional website. A sales rep who knew the MDL names. A pitch deck with contact rates, conversion benchmarks, and testimonials from “satisfied clients.” They talked about docket-specific qualification. They used the words “TrustedForm” and “Jornaya.” They mentioned OTP verification.
Four months later: $340,000 spent. 680 leads delivered. 31 signed retainers. Cost per signed retainer: $10,968.
The firm had been targeting AFFF and Depo-Provera. Both active dockets. Strong case values. The problem wasn’t the dockets. It was that the vendor was using one funnel for both — a six-question form that confirmed “cancer diagnosis” without specifying PFAS-linked cancer for AFFF or meningioma for Depo-Provera. Their “OTP verification” was a checkbox in their CRM, not an actual SMS verification session. Their “TrustedForm” was installed on their landing page but not configured to capture the session data correctly.
They knew the vocabulary. They didn’t know the practice.
This page gives you the six questions that separate vendors who know the vocabulary from vendors who do the work. Ask all six before you spend a dollar.
Why Vendor Evaluation Is Different in Mass Tort
In MVA, a bad vendor is expensive. Shared leads, weak qualification, unverified phones — you burn intake capacity and overpay per case. Painful. Recoverable.
In mass tort, a bad vendor is a different category of problem.
You’re paying $475–$650 per lead. Case values are $100,000–$1,000,000+. The window to acquire plaintiffs in each docket is time-bounded — six months of bad leads in an active docket is six months of plaintiff acquisition you’ll never recover. And the compliance exposure from improperly consented mass tort leads — TCPA violations in a category where contact is aggressive and plaintiff memories of “how they got involved” are scrutinized — creates legal risk that lives in your firm long after the campaign ends.
The stakes in mass tort vendor evaluation are higher than anywhere else in PI. The questions have to be harder.
The Six Questions
“Show me the qualification form for each docket I’m buying.”
Not a description of the form. Not a summary of what they ask. The actual form — every question, in order, with the specific answer options that trigger disqualification.
This is the single most revealing question you can ask. A vendor who built a real docket-specific qualification form will show it without hesitation. They’re proud of it. It’s the evidence that their work is real.
A vendor running generic mass tort will do one of three things: stall, send you a document that describes the form without showing the form, or show you a form that asks “have you been diagnosed with cancer?” rather than “have you been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma specifically?”
What a real AFFF form looks like:
If the form you see doesn’t look like this — if it asks categories instead of specific diagnoses, products instead of brand names, general exposure instead of occupational context — you’re looking at a generic form with a docket label on it.
Don’t buy from that vendor.
“What is your intake disqualification rate on leads you’ve delivered to other buyers?”
This number tells you everything the sales pitch won’t.
| Rate | What It Means |
|---|---|
| Under 10% | Pre-screen working correctly |
| 10–20% | Acceptable — complex docket criteria |
| Above 20% | Pre-screen not doing its job |
| Above 35% | Collection operation, not qualification — find a new vendor |
Ask for this number in writing. Ask for it by docket if they’re running multiple. A vendor who doesn’t track intake disqualification rate by docket doesn’t have docket-specific visibility into their own product quality.
“Walk me through how you verify SOL — specifically for [docket name].”
The answer tells you immediately whether they understand mass tort SOL mechanics or are applying standard PI logic.
If they cannot name the specific awareness event they use as the discovery date for each docket you’re buying — they’re not doing docket-specific SOL verification. They’re running a date filter.
A date filter will reject viable claimants whose exposure was decades ago but whose discovery clock is recent. It will also deliver claimants who appear SOL-viable under state law but are foreclosed by federal MDL deadlines.
Ask this question per docket. The Depo-Provera answer should be different from the AFFF answer. If they give you the same answer for both, they don’t understand what they’re selling.
“Show me the OTP verification session log for a sample lead.”
OTP verification is either real or it’s a checkbox. The log tells you which one you’re dealing with.
The difference matters because OTP verification is the mechanism that produces your 85–90% contact rate. A vendor claiming 85% contact rate without real OTP verification is making a number up. Their actual contact rate on unverified phones in mass tort — where claimants have often submitted multiple inquiry forms, have inconsistent phone hygiene, and may have used temporary numbers — is closer to 35–45%.
That contact rate difference, compounded across 50 leads per month, is the difference between 45 connected calls and 17. Both cost the same per lead.
“Show me the TrustedForm certificate and Jornaya lead ID on a sample lead.”
Compliance documentation in mass tort is not optional. It’s not a premium feature. It’s the infrastructure that protects the firm from TCPA exposure and that sophisticated buyers increasingly require as a contract condition.
A TrustedForm certificate is a cryptographic record of the claimant’s journey through the qualification form — which pages they visited, how long they spent, what consent language they saw and acknowledged, and when. It’s generated independently of the vendor’s systems and stored at TrustedForm. It cannot be retroactively created. Either it exists for each lead or it doesn’t.
A Jornaya lead ID is a parallel, independent verification of the submission event, generated by a separate system.
Ask to see both on a sample lead. The certificate should include a URL you can independently verify at TrustedForm’s portal. The Jornaya ID should be a string attached to the lead record.
If the vendor says “we have TrustedForm” but can’t show you a certificate for a specific lead — the script is installed but not functioning correctly, or they’ve set it up incorrectly and it’s not capturing the data it needs to capture. The installation is not the documentation. The certificate is the documentation.
If they say “we’re working on Jornaya integration” — they don’t have it yet. That’s not a criticism if they’re building toward it, but it means you’re accepting a gap in the compliance stack that you’ll need to disclose to your liability counsel.
“What qualifies a lead for a credit, and what does the resolution process look like?”
This question isn’t about credits. It’s about whether the vendor’s incentives are aligned with your outcome.
A vendor with a vague credit policy — “we work through issues on a case-by-case basis” or “we evaluate returns individually” — is telling you that credit disputes will cost you time you don’t have. When a lead fails at intake, you’ll have to make a case for why it qualifies for credit, document it, submit it, wait for review, and accept whatever they decide.
A vendor with a written credit policy — specific qualifying conditions, specific documentation requirements, specific resolution timelines, written into the client agreement — is telling you that the process is defined and the outcome is predictable.
The qualifying conditions should map directly to the docket qualification criteria. An AFFF lead that doesn’t confirm a PFAS-linked qualifying cancer should be creditable. A lead with a disconnected phone number should be creditable. A lead with a claimant who was already represented should be creditable. The credit conditions should be the same gates as the qualification criteria — if a lead fails the standards the vendor promised to apply, it qualifies for credit.
Ask for the credit policy in writing before you sign. If they can’t provide it in writing before the relationship starts, it will not be enforced consistently once you’re inside it.
| Question | Real Vendor | Red Flag |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 — Qualification form | Shows full form with specific diagnoses | Describes form, won’t show it, or uses categories |
| Q2 — Disqualification rate | <10% tracked by docket | Rate unknown or >20% |
| Q3 — SOL verification | Explains discovery rule + awareness dates per docket | “We check the 2-year window” |
| Q4 — OTP session log | Timestamp + carrier data + session record | CRM field saying “Verified: Yes” |
| Q5 — TrustedForm/Jornaya | Shows certificate URL + Jornaya ID per lead | “We have it installed” with no proof |
| Q6 — Credit policy | Written terms, specific conditions, defined timeline | “Case by case basis” |
How to Run a Pilot Before Committing to Volume
Every serious mass tort vendor will structure a pilot. If they won’t, that’s answer enough.
A real pilot has four components:
Those are different things.
Frequently Asked Questions
Every vendor sounds good on the phone. The six questions reveal whether the work is real.
Ask all six. Require documentation on all six. Run a structured pilot before committing to volume.
The firms paying $2,100 per signed retainer asked these questions before they started. The firms paying $10,000 didn’t.
Six Questions. Documentation on All Six.
We answer every question on this page — with documentation — before you spend a dollar. Ask us.