A Client Intake Process That Screens, Not Just Collects

Most firms lose more money to matters they should have declined than to matters they lost. The decision point is intake, and in a lot of practices intake is a form that captures a name, a phone number and a one-line description of the problem — which is collection, not screening.

What a screen has to establish

• Is this within the firm's competence and current capacity?

• Is there a conflict — party, adverse party, or related matter?

• Are there deadlines already running that the firm must meet?

• Can the client fund the matter as scoped?

• Is the outcome the client expects achievable?

The last is the one most often skipped and the most reliable predictor of a difficult engagement. A client whose expectation is unreachable will be dissatisfied even with an excellent result.

Capture the deadline first

Anything with a limitation period, a filing date or a statutory response window should be identified at the first contact and recorded in a calendar the whole firm can see, before the engagement question is even settled. A missed deadline on a matter you had not yet decided to take is still a missed deadline in practice, and the intake note is the only record of when the firm learned of it.

Record the date you were told about the deadline, not just the deadline.

Decline in writing, promptly and plainly

A non-engagement letter that states the firm is not acting, gives no advice on the merits, and notes that time limits may apply and independent advice should be sought promptly, is a short document that prevents a specific and common dispute — the prospective client who believed the firm had taken the matter on. Send it the same day and keep a copy on file.

Score, don't just record

Give the intake form a small number of scored fields — practice fit, funding, expectation realism, urgency — and a threshold at which the matter goes to a partner rather than straight to opening. This turns intake from a clerical task into a triage function that a trained non-lawyer can run reliably.

Close the loop on the ones you take

Review declined and accepted matters together every quarter, and specifically the accepted matters that went badly. The pattern is usually visible in the original intake note — the funding question that was answered vaguely, the expectation that was noted and not challenged. Feeding that back into the screening criteria is what makes the process improve rather than merely exist.

Professional conduct obligations on intake, conflicts and non-engagement vary by jurisdiction and bar; treat this as an operational starting point and check it against the rules that bind your practice.