Client intake for law firms

The first reassuring reply often wins

A person with a legal problem rarely contacts only one firm. If your reply comes the next day, the client may already have instructed someone who answered in the evening. Intake is where many firms lose work they never knew they had.

How the intake system works

1. Every channel captured: web forms, calls, email, chat and WhatsApp land in one place, with the source recorded.
2. Acknowledged in minutes: the client receives a clear, human-sounding reply confirming what happens next and when.
3. Triaged: practice area, urgency and key facts are captured with a short set of questions. Out-of-scope enquiries get a polite referral rather than silence.
4. Routed: the right fee earner or team is alerted, with escalation if no one picks it up.
5. Your checks stay yours: conflict checks, identity checks and the decision to act stay with your team. The system prepares them; it does not make them.
6. Tracked to instruction: every enquiry is followed to instructed, declined or lost, with the reason.

Where AI fits

AI is useful for reading an enquiry, summarising it for the fee earner and drafting the acknowledgement. It must not give legal advice. Every automated reply says so clearly and offers a person. Client data is handled under UK GDPR, with access limited to the people who need it.

What you see after a month

• Enquiries by practice area and source.
• Average time to first reply, in and out of office hours.
• Enquiry to instruction rate, by practice area.
• Which marketing produces instructions, not just enquiries.

Next step

Book a free audit and we will measure how fast your firm replies today, including evenings and weekends.