New client intake form for a law firm: the fourth question
A new inquirer has no relationship with your firm and no reason to trust its form. They will give 3 things: a name, one way to be reached, and one sentence about what happened. Ask for a fourth and you are trading the matter for data that can wait a week.
Last updated: 5 August 2026
What will a stranger actually type into a form?
Three things, and the third only if the box looks survivable.
They have not decided to instruct anybody. They are deciding whether the firm is worth a telephone call, and a browser tab is the cheapest thing in the world to close. The form is read as evidence of what the firm will be like to deal with, and fourteen questions answer that before anybody at the firm does.
We build the page the form sits on, and we do not staff the reply. We hold no measurement of how many people leave a legal form or at which field, and will not publish one, because nothing circulating on that subject traces to a source we can check. What follows is about what a stranger can and will answer, which is a design question rather than a statistical one.
What will a new inquirer not tell you yet?
Three categories, and only one of them is reluctance.
The first is what they do not know. A person eleven days after an incident often cannot name the date, the insurer, or the correct term for the thing that happened to them. A required field with a date picker does not extract that information. It stops the submission.
The second is what they are not ready to say. Typing the other side's name makes it real, and reads as a step they have not agreed to take. So does a question about money, which arrives as a means test from a firm that has not said what anything costs.
The third is the one nobody designs for: what would identify them to somebody else. That is not shyness. It is a person calculating who can see the screen, the browser history, or the confirmation email.
| What the form asks | Why the answer does not arrive | What to ask instead |
|---|---|---|
| Exact date of the incident, required | They are unsure, and a required date field blocks the submission | Nothing. The call establishes it in four seconds |
| The other side's name | Naming them is a commitment the person has not made | Nothing at first contact |
| Budget, or what they hope to recover | They do not know, and it reads as a means test | Publish what an initial conversation costs |
| Employer's name | On a workplace matter they may be typing this at work | One contact route, chosen by them |
| Attach your documents | They are on a telephone and the paperwork is in a drawer | Send a link after somebody has spoken to them |
Where is the person sitting when they fill this in?
Somewhere that decides what they are willing to type, and it varies by practice area.
| Practice area | A city, and monthly demand | Cost of one click | What first contact has to allow for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment | Philadelphia, 1,300 | $53.33 | Often typed on an employer's device or network |
| Family and divorce | Chicago, 11,000 | $34.89 | Shared devices, shared inboxes, a second adult in the house |
| Criminal defense | Phoenix, 8,100 | $86.12 | Urgency, and somebody else may be holding the telephone |
| Business | Miami, 590 | $37.61 | The inquirer already has advisers and is comparing quietly |
Measured 3 August 2026 across 20 US cities. The dataset treats family and divorce as one category, so that row covers both.
Three cheap consequences follow. Do not compel both a telephone number and an email address; let the person choose. Do not send a confirmation whose subject line names the practice area. Do not require an account or a verification step, because each one is another surface where the visit is recorded.
What must the form give back before it can ask?
Four things, and one of them is a price.
- What happens next, and when. A window in the firm's own words that the firm actually meets. A shorter promise the firm misses is worse than a longer one it keeps.
- Who reads it. A role at minimum, a name if the firm can carry it. A message dropped into an unattributed inbox reads as a message dropped into a void.
- What finding out costs. Of 62 questions buyers ask across these searches, 15 are price questions — measured 3 August 2026. A firm asking a stranger to describe the worst month of their year, on a site that will not say what an initial conversation costs, has asked for a one-sided disclosure and will sometimes get one-sided silence.
- What happens to what they wrote if they never become a client. A short form is the cheapest answer, because the firm ends up holding less.
A form is an exchange, and most legal forms are written as though only one party has something to lose.
What does asking too much at first contact actually cost?
The matter, and the arithmetic runs on the firm's own click price.
In Chicago, 11,000 people a month search for a family or divorce lawyer, and Google charges around $34.89 for one of those clicks, measured 3 August 2026. Twenty of those clicks is $697.80 of purchased attention — that is arithmetic on a measured price, not a forecast and not an abandonment rate. How many of the twenty leave is the firm's own number to measure.
There is a quieter second cost. A person compelled to answer answers anyway. A guessed date, a rounded description entered to get past a required field — it arrives looking like information and routes the matter to the wrong desk. A short form produces less data and more accurate data.
Why is "new client" the wrong name for the person filling this in?
Because they are not a client, and the document is usually named after the firm's filing system rather than the person's situation.
A firm that publishes a "new client intake form" on its contact page has, in most cases, published the file-opening sheet it already had — date of birth, address, identification, referral source, the fee agreement fields. That document is correct and necessary, and it belongs to somebody who has already decided to go ahead. On the public page it asks a stranger to complete the paperwork of a decision they have not made.
Two documents, then. The public one asks to be called. The private one opens a matter, and it can be as long as it needs to be.
What does this cost, and what will it not do?
$1,450 for the Practice Sprint, $2,900 for the build. Fixed, published, no minimum term. The form is part of the build rather than a line of its own.
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.
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. We do not answer the telephone, we do not supply the case-management system the submission should land in, and we do not train the person who replies.
What this is worth where you are
In Chicago, 11,000 people a month search for a family or divorce lawyer, and Google charges around $34.89 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?
The form field by field, from the firm's side of the desk: law firm client intake forms. Where the contact came from before it arrived: digital marketing lawyer.
Three practice areas whose first contact is unusually sensitive: family lawyer marketing, criminal lawyer marketing and criminal defense lawyer marketing. The most expensive first contacts in legal search: marketing for personal injury lawyer.
Frequently asked questions
What should a new client intake form ask for?
A name, one way to be reached, one line on what happened, and how soon it matters. Everything else is a file-opening question that belongs to somebody who has already spoken to a person at the firm.
Why do people abandon a law firm's intake form?
We hold no measurement of that and will not publish one, because nothing circulating on the subject traces to a checkable source. A stranger answers what they know and stops at the first field they cannot answer honestly.
Should the form require both a phone number and an email address?
No. Let the person choose which one they hand over. On employment and family matters that choice is often about which device or inbox somebody else can see.
Is a new client intake form the same as a client intake sheet?
No. The public form asks to be called. The intake sheet opens a matter and collects identification, address and fee-agreement details, and it belongs to somebody who has already decided to go ahead.
What should a firm publish beside the form?
What happens next and when, who reads it, what an initial conversation costs, and what happens to the information if the person never becomes a client.
Do you fix what happens after somebody presses send?
No. We build the page the form sits on. Answering it is operational, and any marketing supplier claiming otherwise is describing software or a call center.