Legal intake fundamentals
What is legal intake?
Legal intake starts when a prospective client reaches the firm. It ends when an authorized person opens, refers, holds, or declines the matter. Between those points, the team collects facts, checks conflicts and eligibility, gathers records, follows up, and prepares the file for review.
First contact starts the clock
A call, form, email, referral, or portal visit creates the first record.
A decision closes the loop
Every lead should reach a recorded outcome with an accountable owner.
Evidence belongs here
Documents and interviews should be organized before lawyer review.
I · Plain meaning
Intake turns interest into a file the firm can judge.
Marketing brings in an inquiry. Intake asks whether the firm has enough reliable information to act. Case management begins after opening, but the records and decisions gathered earlier should travel with the matter.
A useful process leaves a trail: who asked the question, where the answer came from, what is missing, who reviewed it, and what happened next.
II · Six stages
Most firms need the same basic sequence.
Practice areas change the questions and evidence. The operating stages stay familiar.
Capture
Create the lead and record identity, contact details, consent, matter type, and the first account.
Conflict and eligibility work
Run the firm's authorized checks and route uncertain results to a person.
Evidence collection
Request case-type records and preserve how each item entered the file.
Follow-up
Assign missing answers, documents, calls, emails, and reviewer tasks.
Disposition
Authorized staff record the outcome and the reasons allowed by policy.
Matter creation
Move approved leads forward with their facts, documents, notes, and history.
III · Quality
Count reviewable files, not completed forms.
Track time to first useful response, time to a reviewable file, missing-evidence age, staff touches, attorney corrections, and conversion by source. A busy form can still feed a broken process.
IV · Software
Every important field needs a reason.
Evidence-heavy intake should distinguish a prospect's answer, a fact extracted from a record, a staff edit, a calculated value, and the value approved for use. That source history lets reviewers work quickly without guessing.
Before you book
Questions worth settling first.
01What is the purpose of legal intake?
The purpose is to give the firm enough organized and reviewable information to decide what should happen to a prospective matter.
02Who performs legal intake?
Intake specialists, paralegals, case managers, lawyers, and authorized vendors may own different stages. The firm should assign each responsibility and escalation.
03Is legal intake the same as case management?
Intake covers the prospective-client stage. Case management covers an opened matter. The evidence and history should move between them without a reset.
04Can legal intake be automated?
Collection, document processing, reminders, and routing can run automatically. Conflicts, engagement, qualification standards, legal conclusions, and client advice stay under authorized human control.
Related reading
Keep working through the intake problem.
Keep reading
The legal intake library.
Pick the question on your desk. The library covers workflow design, staffing, software, recorded calls, and mass-tort volume.
Product and operations descriptions are reviewed by Tim Ottowitz, Founder and CEO, OBE. This byline does not provide jurisdiction-specific counsel review. ArbitrationIntel and OBE provide software and operations information. Attorneys and authorized firm staff remain responsible for conflicts, engagement, qualification, legal judgment, filing, and client advice. The signed agreement sets product terms and operating limits.
Bring one case type
See where the file slows down.
Bring the questions, records, decisions, and handoffs your team uses today. We will map the intake path, find the repair work, and show how OBE keeps the source record under firm control.
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