Legal intake services: a guide for small and solo law firms

What is legal intake?

Legal intake covers everything between a prospective client's first contact and a signed engagement: the call or web form, the first questions, the firm's decision to take the matter and the agreement that makes the person a client. It is often the caller's first impression of the firm.

A legal intake service is an outside company that does part of this work. Live intake services use trained agents who follow the firm's script and usually bill by the minute or by the call. AI receptionists answer with software on a monthly plan. Neither replaces the attorney's judgment about which matters to take.

What are the steps of legal intake, and who should do each?

Legal intake has seven steps. The first two can be delegated; the middle steps need the firm's records and judgment; the last is the attorney's.

Name the person who owns the callback after the first call, and how quickly they make it.

Why does speed matter in legal intake?

Speed matters because many law firms are hard to reach and callers have other firms to try. In the 2024 secret-shopper study in Clio's Legal Trends Report, only 40% of firms answered calls, compared to 56% in 2019, and Clio reported that "48% of law firms were essentially unreachable by phone."

Email didn't make up for it: of the 500 law firms the shoppers emailed, only 33% responded, down from 40% in 2019, according to the same Clio release of October 7, 2024. Clio also reported that only 41% of firms offered rate information on the phone, and that 73% of the secret shoppers were unlikely to recommend the firms they contacted.

Callers don't wait long. In a September 2025 CallRail survey of 1,000 US consumers, 21% said they immediately call another business when nobody answers.

What questions should a legal intake form ask?

A first-call intake form should collect only what the firm needs to run a conflict check and decide whether to book a consultation. The story of what happened belongs in the consultation. Ask these on every call:

• Full name, best phone number (read back to confirm) and email address.
• What they need help with, in a sentence.
• The names of the other people or companies involved, for the firm's conflict check.
• Any court date, hearing or filing deadline, and its date.
• How they heard about the firm, and which language they prefer.

Each practice area adds a few questions. These are general first-call questions, not legal advice; the attorney decides what else to ask, whether the firm can help and which deadlines apply.

A short legal intake call script

A good intake script is short: greet, keep it to the basics, check for deadlines, collect the details and book. Have an attorney approve your final wording.

1. Opening. "Thank you for calling (firm name). Are you calling about a new matter or a case the firm is already handling?"
2. Confidentiality caution. "Please share only the basics for now, like who is involved and any dates. The attorney will go over the details with you."
3. Deadline check. "Do you have a court date, a hearing or a filing deadline coming up? What's the date?" If it falls in the next day or two, get it to an attorney now.
4. The basics. Name, number (read back), email, what they need help with in a sentence, the other parties' names and how they heard about the firm.
5. Advice requests. "I can't give legal advice, but that's a good question for the attorney in your consultation."
6. Booking. "I have Tuesday at 10 a.m. or Wednesday at 2 p.m. Which works better? The firm will confirm the time with you."
7. Close. Say what happens next and when. If you add a sentence that the call doesn't mean the firm has taken the matter, have the attorney write it.

Who should run the conflict check?

The firm should. A conflict check depends on the firm's own records and on an attorney's judgment about whether a conflict exists, so an answering service, intake service or AI receptionist should not decide it.

An outside service can collect the names a check needs, if your script asks for them, and keep the caller to the basics until the check is done; that is the reason for the confidentiality caution in the script. Check your state bar's rules on non-lawyer intake and advertising before you script calls or hand intake to an outside service.

Julius Answer by DealsFlow, an AI receptionist, doesn't run conflict checks or evaluate cases. Because it books each consultation as a request that waits for your one-tap confirmation, your team can run the check before confirming the time.

Legal intake options compared: staff, live intake services and AI

Small firms can cover the phone side of intake with their own staff, a live legal intake service or an AI receptionist. The three differ in hours, cost and how much of the intake they take on.

Live services do things software doesn't: a person can calm a frightened caller and adapt the next question to the last answer. Ruby lists legal among the industries it serves and client intake as an optional feature.

What does an AI receptionist do in legal intake?

An AI receptionist takes the answering, the basics and the consultation booking off the attorney's plate, around the clock. On a law firm's line, Julius Answer:

• Answers 24/7 with the firm's name, and says it is an AI assistant and that the call is recorded.
• Asks the basics: what the caller needs help with, in a sentence, and how they heard about the firm. It reads the number back to confirm it.
• Books consultations as requests into open times, offering up to three; your team confirms with one tap. With Google Calendar connected, it never offers a time you're busy.
• Flags a deadline in the next day or two, such as a court date or a filing deadline, as urgent, with alerts by email and Slack.
• Never gives legal advice, and offers a consultation or a message for an attorney instead.
• Keeps caller details out of email summaries by default; your team reads them in the console.
• Replies in Spanish when the caller speaks it, and writes the notes in English. See our bilingual answering service page for firms with Spanish-speaking callers.

It doesn't screen conflicts, give case evaluations, send engagement letters or place follow-up calls; a call-back request is saved with a due time on your team's list. It has no native Clio integration: each call can send a signed webhook to Zapier or Make, which can pass new consultation requests to Clio or other practice-management software. For existing clients and an example call, see Julius Answer for law firms.

When is a live legal intake service the better fit?

A live legal intake service is the better fit when the intake call itself needs a person.

• Complex intake. A matter with several parties, a long questionnaire, or a script that collects conflict information from every caller.
• Emotional calls. A parent calling after a child's arrest, or someone leaving an abusive relationship. A person can slow down and listen; an AI receptionist takes the basics and gets the call to your team.
• Judgment calls. When the right next question depends on what the caller just said, or deciding whether to interrupt an attorney takes judgment.
• A built-in Clio connection. If you want intake to land in Clio without Zapier or Make, Smith.ai lists Clio among its native integrations.

You can also combine them: staff or a live service in office hours, an AI receptionist for evenings, weekends and overflow. Our guide to AI receptionists vs answering services compares costs in more detail.