How to build a law firm client intake process
Most firms lose more revenue at intake than anywhere else in the matter, and almost none of them can say where. Here is the sequence, what to capture, and the two places every leak happens.
Intake is the only part of a matter where money is lost before any work is done. A caller who does not get through, a promising inquiry that sits for two days, a consultation booked and never confirmed: each one is a case that never existed, which is why almost no firm can tell you how many they had. The work you did not take leaves no trace in the system that tracks the work you did.
The sequence below is the same in every practice. What changes is what you capture at step two and how fast step three has to happen.
Seven steps, first contact to open matter.
Capture the inquiry wherever it lands
Phone, web form, referral email, the contact form nobody checks. Every route has to end in the same place, because a pipeline that only covers the web form measures the channel you already understand and misses the referrals that pay better.
Take the facts that decide the case
This is practice-specific and it is the step firms get wrong by asking too little. Injury work needs the incident date, injuries, treatment so far and available coverage. Criminal needs the charge, the court and the next appearance. Immigration needs the case type, entry date and history. Ask them on the first call and you can decline in ten minutes rather than three weeks.
Run the conflict check before anything else
Before the consultation, not before the engagement letter. A prospective client who tells you confidential information can disqualify you from acting against them even though you never took the matter, so the check has to run ahead of the conversation that creates the problem.
Qualify against what you actually want
Write down the criteria: case types you take, minimum value, jurisdictions you are admitted in, conflicts of interest with existing clients. A documented standard is how intake staff decline without checking with you, and how you find out later that your rule was wrong.
Quote the fee while they are still on the phone
The gap between the consultation and the quote is where firms lose signed cases to whoever answered second. If the fee is a range at this stage, say the range.
Send the engagement letter the same day
Momentum is the whole game. Send it for electronic signature while the conversation is fresh, with the scope, the fee, and what you are not doing spelled out. A letter that waits for someone to draft it from a template on Monday loses cases that were won on Friday.
Convert without retyping anything
Everything captured at intake becomes the matter: parties, dates, the facts, the fee arrangement. If somebody rekeys it, two things happen. It gets typed wrong, and the intake data stops being worth analysing because nobody trusts it.
Intake pipeline
2 stalledTwo places, and they are always the same two.
The first is the gap between inquiry and first human contact. A lead that waits two days has usually called somebody else, and nobody at the firm experiences this as a loss because the caller simply never rings back. The second is the gap between consultation and signature, where a case you have already won sits waiting for a letter.
- Every lead needs one named owner. Round-robin or assigned, but never "the team", because the inquiry everyone can see is the one nobody calls.
- Put a clock on each stage. An inquiry with no contact in 48 hours should surface on its own rather than waiting to be noticed.
- Track the source, not just the count. Which referrer, which campaign, which former client. It is the only way to know which relationships are worth your time.
Turn the first call into an open matter before lunch.
Capture the inquiry from any channel, run the conflict check while they are still talking, quote the fee, send the engagement letter for signature, and open the matter with every answer already in it. No rekeying, no per-lead fee, and a report at the end of the month that finally tells you where your cases come from. $49 per user per month.
Common questions about law firm intake.
How fast do I actually have to respond?
Should a lawyer or a paralegal do intake?
What do I do with the inquiries I decline?
Do I need a separate CRM for this?
How do I measure whether intake is working?
The software that does this for you.
CaseFuze handles the ledger, the statement, and the checks. $49 per user per month.