The first ten minutes decide the matter. Most firms cannot see them.
Intake is the highest-leverage process in a firm and the least instrumented. A prospective client calls once, is qualified by whoever answers, and either becomes a matter or disappears — and the firm rarely knows which, or why.
Thirty minutes · no predetermined package
What ungoverned intake feels like in a firm.
Conflict checking happens after the conversation, or not until engagement — by which point privileged information has been heard.
Intake quality varies by who answers, so the same enquiry converts or does not depending on the hour it arrives.
Referral sources are tracked by who referred, never by which referrals became fee-generating matters.
Practice management starts at the matter. Everything before it lives in an inbox or on a legal pad.
After-hours enquiries go to voicemail, in a market where the first responder usually wins.
Nobody can say what an enquiry from paid search costs against one from a referral partner.
What you are probably running, and what constrains it.
The typical stack
What the rules require
Six questions before changing anything.
How a matter actually arrives.
The enquiry
call, form or referralA meaningful share arrive outside business hours, and paid search in this vertical is among the most expensive in any industry.
Conflict and jurisdiction
before anything substantiveParties defaultChecked, venue and limitation screened. This has to happen before the facts are heard, not after.
Qualification
against case criteriaLegal rather than commercial criteria — and a wrong answer creates liability rather than a lost deal.
Attorney review
for anything borderlineWith everything captured so far attached, so the review is a decision rather than a re-interview.
Engagement
letter, retainer, matterSigned and opened in the practice system, with the intake record carried across rather than retyped.
What firms ask.
What is legal intake software?
It captures a prospective client enquiry, qualifies it against case criteria, checks for conflicts and routes it to the right attorney. The value is consistency and speed at the point of first contact.
Why isn't Clio or MyCase enough on its own?
Both are strong practice management and both begin at the matter. Intake happens before that — the enquiry, the conflict check, the qualification and the follow-up — and most firms run it in an inbox.
Can conflict checking be automated?
The search can be. The judgement cannot. What a system does well is force the check to happen before the conversation and record that it did.
How do you handle after-hours enquiries?
Capture, screen and acknowledge automatically, then route to whoever is on call with everything gathered so far. The failure mode is voicemail.
Should an AI assistant handle first contact?
It can capture the facts that are not privileged and stop the moment the conversation turns substantive. Anything more is a risk nobody should take for a faster response time.
What should a CRM for law firms do that practice management does not?
Hold the enquiry before it is a matter, track referral sources to fees earned, and make intake quality visible by handler and by hour.
How do you measure intake performance?
Enquiry to consultation to signed matter, by source and by handler, plus speed to first contact split by hour of day. Most firms have none of these.
Does this integrate with our practice management system?
Yes, and it should. The matter belongs in Clio or Filevine. What sits in front of it is what most firms are missing.
What about privilege and retention?
Decided at the start, in writing. Notes on a prospective client who never engages still carry duties, and where they live is a decision rather than a default.