Two names circle the same work and mean noticeably different things once a firm is running at volume. Case intake software is about opening the matter properly. New business intake software is about deciding whether the firm should open it at all. Buying one when you needed the other is a common and expensive mistake, and the difference is worth being explicit about before a demo.
New business intake is a decision, case intake is a construction
New business intake asks whether this work belongs in this firm: is there a conflict, is it within the practice areas, is the fee basis workable, is the counterparty someone the firm can act against. Case intake takes an affirmative answer and builds the matter: parties in their roles, scope, responsible fee earner, the documents the engagement needs. Larger firms separate the two with an approval step between them, and small firms usually run them as one motion without noticing they are two.
What the intake record has to carry
Whichever half you are buying, the record has to hold the parties in structured fields rather than prose, the matter as its own object rather than an attribute of a person, and a status that can sit at pending without being mistaken for either accepted or lost. Everything useful downstream reads those three. A tool that stores an intake as a submitted form and a PDF attachment has stored the paperwork and thrown away the data.
Where volume changes the answer
A firm opening five matters a month can run intake on a shared inbox and a spreadsheet, and the honest advice is that it should. The economics change when the same enquiry arrives through three channels, when several people can start a matter, or when the conflict check stops being something one person holds in their head. That is the point at which case intake software stops being administrative tidiness and starts being the thing that prevents a matter being opened that should not have been.
Questions people ask about case intake software
Is case intake software the same as case management software?
No. Case management runs the matter after it is open: deadlines, documents, time. Case intake is the gate before that, and the two are often sold together but solve different problems. Check which half a product is actually strong at.
Do we need new business intake software separately?
Only if the decision is genuinely separate at your firm, which usually means an approval step and someone other than the originating fee earner signing off. If one person both takes and approves the work, one tool covering both halves is the simpler answer.
What breaks first when intake is run on email?
The conflict check, because it depends on knowing every party across every open and closed matter, and an inbox cannot be searched that way reliably. The second thing to break is knowing what was declined and why.