Legal intake decides which enquiries become clients, how fast you respond, and whether you can decline cleanly. What to capture, what to check before advising, and why speed beats polish.
Legal intake is the process between somebody asking for help and a matter being opened. It carries two risks at once, pulling against each other: move too slowly and the enquiry goes to whoever answered first, move too quickly and you have given advice to a person you cannot act for, or taken work the firm is not competent to do. The firms that handle this well are not the ones with the longest forms.
Response time is the single largest determinant of conversion in most practices, and the gap between an hour and a day is enormous. But the order matters: acknowledge quickly, run the conflicts and scope checks, and only then advise. An acknowledgement that confirms receipt, sets out when somebody will call and asks for the party names is fast and safe. A substantive answer written before the conflict check is neither, and no amount of later care undoes it.
Record declines as carefully as instructions. A non-engagement letter sent promptly is cheap; a prospective client who believed you were acting, and missed a deadline accordingly, is the kind of claim that does not need a signed agreement to be argued.
Ettex Forms covers the front door: one intake form capturing enquirer, parties, matter type, dates and source, landing as a structured record rather than an email. The enquiry log then sits alongside the matter record, which is what lets a firm answer where its work comes from and what it turned away.
Within the hour where practical, and within the working day as a floor. Conversion falls sharply with delay, and most enquirers contact more than one firm.
Capture can and usually should be. Assessment of conflicts, competence and merit cannot, and the handover point between the two needs to be explicit.
A short written confirmation that you are not acting, sent to anyone whose enquiry you decline. It removes the ambiguity that otherwise supports a claim that the firm had assumed responsibility.
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