Law firm client intake looks like a process diagram from above and like a relay race from the desk. The front desk captures the enquiry and keeps the queue moving. A paralegal reviews the questionnaire and preps the conflict search. A lawyer makes the decisions that are ethically theirs alone: whether a conflict exists, whether to take the matter, on what terms. Most intake failures at small firms are handoff failures between those three, an enquiry captured but never queued, a questionnaire returned but never reviewed, and tightening the handoffs does more than any new form.
The front desk owns capture and the queue
Every enquiry, by phone, form or referral, lands in the same structured capture within minutes: parties, matter in a sentence, referral source, urgency. The desk also owns the queue's hygiene, chasing unanswered questionnaires once and flagging anything urgent upward the same day. What the desk does not do is evaluate the matter; its job is that nothing arrives without a record and nothing sits without a status.
The paralegal turns answers into a decision-ready file
When the questionnaire returns, the paralegal checks completeness, normalises the parties' names, runs the conflict search across the firm's records, and summarises the matter in the form the deciding lawyer prefers. This is the stage that converts raw answers into something a five-minute review can act on, and it is where intake quality is mostly made or lost at a small firm.
The lawyer decides, and only the lawyer
Conflict judgement, the take-or-decline call, and the engagement's terms sit with the lawyer under the profession's rules, whatever the software or the staffing. The well-run desk delivers those decisions as tight questions with the file attached: parties checked with these results, matter summarised, proposed fee basis. The lawyer's minutes go to judging, not assembling, which is the entire point of running intake as a relay.
Questions people ask about law firm client intake
Can one person run law firm client intake alone?
At a solo firm one person wears all three hats; the stages still apply in order. The discipline that matters solo is the same one that matters staffed: capture everything, keep a visible queue, decide on the record.
Where do most enquiries get lost?
At the handoffs: the phone note that never became a captured enquiry, the returned questionnaire nobody was assigned to review. A single queue with named owners at each status closes both gaps without adding headcount.
Should intake calls be scripted?
Lightly: a structured capture form is the script. It guarantees the parties, the matter and the referral source get asked for, while leaving the conversation human. Word-for-word scripts fail the moment a caller is distressed.