Law firm client intake procedures, written down
A written intake procedure is the document that makes two people handle the same call the same way. It has to name 7 things: who owns it, what is said first, which decisions are made alone, which are passed on, what is recorded, what is promised, and what to do with the exceptions.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What must a written intake procedure specify?
Seven clauses. A document missing any of them leaves a decision to whoever happens to pick up.
| Clause | What it has to name | What happens without it |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | One person, by name, who may change the document | Six versions in six inboxes, none of them current |
| Opening words | The first sentence said or written, verbatim | Every first contact starts from a different place |
| Decisions owned | What the first responder settles alone | Everything waits for approval, and callbacks slip a day |
| Decisions passed on | Which questions go to a fee earner, and which one | The first responder answers something they should not have |
| The record | Which fields are completed, and at which moment | The firm cannot say afterwards what happened or where it came from |
| The promise | What the person is told will happen next, in the firm's words | Two callers are promised two different things |
| The exception | What to do with a contact that fits nothing above | Improvisation, unrecorded, by whoever is least busy |
We do not write these documents, audit them, or advise on what belongs in them. A marketing supplier's version of a firm's intake procedure would be worth exactly nothing, because the decisions in it are the firm's own and several of them are professional judgements. What follows is about the document as a document — what a written one contains that an unwritten one cannot.
Why does the same call get handled two different ways?
Because two people are answering two different questions, and nothing on paper tells them they are the same call.
One takes a name and a number and promises a callback. The other asks four questions, forms a view about whether the matter is worth taking, and says so. Both are behaving reasonably. Neither has been told which is correct, so the outcome depends on who was nearest the telephone.
The cost of that variance is not only the matter. It is that the firm loses the ability to diagnose anything. A quiet month is either weak demand or weak handling, and without a written procedure there is nothing that was supposed to happen against which to compare what did.
Some grounding for the scale. In New York, 7,300 people a month search for an estate planning attorney and Google charges around $19.25 for one of those clicks; in Denver, 1,070 a month search for a probate attorney at $33.55; in Houston, 2,900 at $25.74. Measured 3 August 2026 across 20 US cities. Fifty New York estate planning clicks at $19.25 is $962.50 of attention at Google's listed price — arithmetic on a measured figure, not a forecast. Where those fifty land is decided by whoever picks up.
What happens when the procedure is not written down?
Four things, and none of them announce themselves.
- It leaves with the person who holds it. The firm discovers on their second day of absence that the procedure was never a procedure. It was one person's habits, and they were good ones.
- The next hire learns by copying whoever sits nearest. Including the parts that person got wrong, which now propagate with the authority of being how it is done here.
- A partner who wants a change has nothing to change. They can ask for something different, and the request lands as an opinion rather than an amendment. Two weeks later the old behavior is back.
- A complaint about handling cannot be checked against anything. Whether the contact was handled as intended becomes a question about memory rather than a question about a document.
The fourth turns an operational annoyance into an exposure. The other three cost matters. That one costs the ability to answer a question about the firm's own conduct.
Which parts should be scripted word for word, and which must be left to judgement?
Script what the firm is promising. Never script the assessment of the matter.
| Script it exactly | Leave it to the person |
|---|---|
| The opening sentence and the identification of the firm | How much to let somebody talk before steering |
| What happens next, and by when | Whether this caller needs the answer today |
| The words used when a question cannot be answered yet | Which fee earner is the right one |
| The wording of anything about cost | What tone the conversation needs |
| The closing sentence, including what the person should expect | Whether to write four lines in the record or twelve |
The distinction is not seniority. It is exposure. A promise made in the first minute binds the firm and has to be identical every time; a firm that states three different response windows has three standards and no way to meet any of them. An assessment of what somebody actually needs cannot be scripted at all, and a document that tries produces people reading sentences at a distressed caller.
The line worth writing into the document itself: the words about what the firm will do are fixed; the words about what the person is going through are not.
How does the document stay true after it is written?
By carrying three things most versions do not: a named owner, a date it was last changed, and a test.
The owner is one person, not a committee. The date matters because a procedure describing a system the firm stopped using two years ago is worse than none: people follow some of it and improvise the rest, and nobody can say which parts are live.
The test is the useful part. Can somebody in their first week handle a first contact from this document alone, without asking anybody? Hand it to the newest person in the building and watch. Every question they have to ask is a missing clause, and the list of questions is the next version. It costs one afternoon and it does not depend on the author agreeing the document is clear.
Record the date of every change on the document itself rather than in an email, and keep the previous version, so that when a partner asks why something is done this way there is an answer with a date on it.
What does this cost, and what will it not do?
Nothing from us, because we do not sell it. Our own work is $1,450 for the Practice Sprint and $2,900 for the build, fixed, published, no minimum term.
Of the 40 legal-marketing suppliers we read in full on 3 August 2026, twelve published a price, five showed only a "from" range, eight claimed a guarantee, and one offered work with no minimum term. Several of them sell software that stores what an intake procedure records. None of them can write the procedure, because the decisions inside it are the firm's own, and a document handed over by a supplier is a document nobody in the building has agreed to follow.
Never per inquiry, per matter or per client. We charge for the work, by scope and time. Referral fees are restricted in prescribed legal business, which includes personal injury, and the restriction binds the paying firm as well as the recipient. US lawyer advertising runs through ABA Model Rule 7.2(b), adopted differently by state, and how it applies to a particular firm is for that firm and its own advisers.
What this is worth where you are
In New York, 7,300 people a month search for an estate planning attorney, and Google charges around $19.25 for one of those clicks. We hold the same figures for 52 cities.
The free report gives you yours, plus which of the pages a prospective client looks for are missing from your site, and which of 40 suppliers publish a price.
Where should I read next?
On what the procedure is receiving, and where it comes from: marketing a law firm strategies.
On the impression a first contact is measured against: law firm branding.
On what may be sent to somebody after they made contact, and what they agreed to: lawyer email marketing.
Two practice areas where first contact volume outruns an unwritten procedure quickest: immigration lawyer marketing and lawyer social media marketing.
Frequently asked questions
What should a law firm's client intake procedure include?
Seven clauses: who owns the document, the opening words, the decisions the first responder makes alone, the ones passed on and to whom, what is recorded and when, what the person is promised, and what to do when the contact fits none of it.
Why does an intake procedure need to be written down at all?
Because an unwritten one leaves with the person who holds it, propagates to new hires by imitation, gives a partner nothing to amend, and cannot be checked afterwards if somebody complains about how a contact was handled.
Which parts of an intake procedure should be scripted?
Everything the firm is promising — the opening, what happens next and by when, the wording about cost, and the close. The assessment of what somebody needs cannot be scripted, and a document that tries produces people reading sentences at a distressed caller.
How do you tell whether an intake procedure is any good?
Hand it to the newest person in the building and ask them to handle a first contact from the document alone. Every question they have to ask is a missing clause, and their list is the next version.
Who should own the intake procedure?
One named person, not a committee, with the date of the last change written on the document itself and the previous version kept. A procedure describing a system the firm abandoned two years ago is worse than none.
Do you write intake procedures for law firms?
No. We do not write them, audit them or advise on what belongs in them. The decisions inside are the firm's own, several are professional judgements, and a document supplied from outside is one nobody in the building has agreed to follow.