Law firm client intake form template: what to ask

A good law firm client intake form asks for information in three tiers, each at the moment it is needed: enough to call the person back and route the enquiry on first contact; the other party's details before the conflict check; and identity, funding and matter detail before terms go out. One long form asked all at once loses callers and gathers worse answers.

This post gives a field-by-field template for each tier, with suggested wording, and explains why each field is there. It is an operations checklist, not legal advice. What your firm must collect for anti-money laundering, conflicts or data protection purposes is set by your own policies and your COLP, MLCO and data protection lead. Use this as a starting draft for them to adapt. It sits within our wider guide to the law firm client intake process.

Why does a law firm need a client intake form?

Because without one, every person who takes an enquiry asks different questions, writes the answers in a different place, and forgets different things. The fee-earner then rings the client back to ask what should have been captured, the client repeats themselves, and the firm looks disorganised before it has done any work.

A single form, used on the phone, on the website and in the office, gives three things: a consistent record, a conflict check that can actually be run, and a handover a fee-earner can act on. It also gives the firm data. If every enquiry has a "how did you hear about us" field and an outcome, the partners can see which sources produce instructions and which produce time-wasters.

What should a law firm client intake form include?

Here is the full template. Each tier is a separate step, and the form should allow each step to be completed by a different person at a different time.

Tier 1: what should you ask on the first call?

The first-contact tier has one job: make sure the firm can call back, check conflicts in a basic way, and send the enquiry to the right person. Keep it to a couple of minutes.

• Full name. Ask how they spell it. A misspelt name defeats the conflict search.
• Best phone number and email. Ask which they prefer and when they can talk.
• Is this about you, or someone else? A child, a parent, a company. This matters later for identifying the client.
• What is it about, in your own words? Write it down as said. Do not translate it into a practice area on the call.
• Other party's name, and business name if any. Explain simply: "We ask so we can check we are free to help."
• Any dates? A hearing, a completion, a deadline, a letter with a date on it.
• Have you spoken to another solicitor about this? Useful context, and relevant if the matter is being transferred.
• How did you hear about us? A fixed list plus "other".
• Consent and privacy. A line confirming the caller has been told how their information will be used, in wording your data protection lead has approved.

Two things are deliberately missing from tier 1: detailed facts and money. Detailed facts belong with the fee-earner, who can ask the right follow-up questions after the conflict check has been run. Money belongs in a proper cost conversation, not a guess on the first call. Our post on the SRA transparency rules and enquiries covers how firms handle price questions at first contact.

Tier 2: what do you need for the conflict check?

Before anyone at the firm hears the substance of the problem in detail, the firm needs enough information to run a conflict search. For most matters that means:

• All other parties, including former names, trading names, and connected companies.
• Related people, for example the other parent in a children matter, a co-owner in a property matter, or a director in a company dispute.
• Addresses, where the matter is about property.
• The client's own former names, if any.

The SRA Code of Conduct sets out the conflict rules at paragraphs 6.1 and 6.2, and paragraph 8.1 says a solicitor identifies who they are acting for. How the search is run, and who clears a possible match, is for your firm's own procedure. Our post on conflict checks at intake describes a two-pass method that keeps the first call short.

Tier 3: what do you collect before sending terms?

This tier is completed once a fee-earner has spoken to the client and the firm has decided, in principle, to act.

• Client identity as your AML policy requires for this type of matter.
• Correspondence address and any accessibility or communication needs.
• Who gives instructions, if the client is a company or is represented by someone else.
• Funding. Private, legal aid, insurance, third-party funding, or a mix.
• Scope agreed on the call, in a sentence or two, so the client care letter matches what was said.
• Key dates confirmed by the fee-earner.
• Documents the client already holds, listed, not collected yet.

The SRA's guidance on client care letters asks firms to consider whether they need to tailor information for vulnerable clients. A simple "is there anything that would make it easier for us to communicate with you?" at this tier gives the fee-earner the chance to do that.

What should you leave off a legal intake form?

Four things, for four reasons.

• Anything you will not use. The ICO's guidance on the right to be informed requires privacy information when you collect personal data; the less you collect, the less you have to explain, store and protect.
• Special category data at first contact. Health, ethnicity, religion and similar details may matter to some matters, but they belong in a fee-earner conversation with a clear purpose, not a reception form.
• A free-text "tell us everything" box on the website. It invites long narratives before any conflict check, and some of what arrives may be confidential information about somebody the firm already acts for.
• "How much can you afford?" It reads badly and produces unreliable answers. Talk about the firm's pricing instead.

How do you adapt the form for each practice area?

Keep tiers 1 and 3 almost identical across the firm, and put the practice-specific questions in a short fourth block that the fee-earner or a trained intake person completes. Examples of what that block might hold:

• Family: children and their ages, whether there are current court proceedings, any safety concerns. We cover this in detail in family law intake questions.
• Conveyancing: property address, price, tenure, whether there is a mortgage, target dates.
• Employment: employer's name, whether still employed, the key date of the event, and any early conciliation step already taken.
• Private client: whose will or estate, rough nature of assets, any existing documents.
• Immigration: current status and expiry dates, which drive urgency.

Each firm's list will differ. Have the head of each team write theirs, and review it after a month of real calls.

A worked example: one enquiry through the form

Here is a hypothetical enquiry, with invented details, to show how the tiers work in practice.

At 6.40pm on a Thursday, a caller named Sam rings about a dispute with a builder. Tier 1 captures Sam's name and spelling, mobile and email, "the builder left the job half done and wants more money", the builder's name and trading name, a date (the builder has said they will issue a claim "within two weeks"), no other solicitor, and "found you on Google". That took three minutes.

Friday morning, the intake owner runs a name search on the builder's two names and finds no match. The enquiry goes to the litigation team with a summary. A fee-earner calls Sam at 11am, asks about the contract, the payments and the work done, and decides the firm can help. Tier 3 is completed on that call: identity documents requested in one email, private funding, scope agreed as "advice on the builder's claim and a response letter". Terms go out that afternoon.

Nothing about that is remarkable. The point is that each question was asked once, by the right person, at the right time, and Sam never had to repeat themselves.

Should the intake form be paper, PDF or online?

Online, if you can, and in the same system that holds the rest of the enquiry. A PDF intake form feels professional but has to be retyped, and retyping is where names get misspelt and dates get lost. Paper has the same problem, plus it can be left on a desk.

Whatever the medium, the form should create one record per enquiry that everybody updates, rather than a new record at each stage. Our guide to client intake software for law firms covers what to look for in a system that does this, and our post on law firm website enquiries covers the web form end.

How often should the form be reviewed?

Monthly for the first quarter, then quarterly. At each review look at three things: which fields are most often left blank (either the question is unclear or it is being asked at the wrong tier), which questions fee-earners are still asking on their first call (those should probably move onto the form), and whether the "how did you hear about us" field still matches where enquiries actually come from.

Where WasilX fits

Tier 1 is the part that has to happen at 6.40pm on a Thursday. Cam, our AI Engagement Coordinator, takes calls on the firm's line at any hour, says it is AI, asks the firm's own qualifying questions, books the call back and sends the firm a summary, so the first tier of the form is done before anybody is back at their desk. Tiers 2 and 3 stay with the firm. If you would like to see how your own form would work on the phone, start a conversation.

Frequently asked questions

What is a client intake form for a law firm? It is a standard set of questions used to record a new enquiry: who the person is, how to contact them, what the problem is, who the other party is, and any key dates. It gives the firm a consistent record, a basis for a conflict check and a handover a fee-earner can act on.

What questions should be on a law firm intake form? On first contact: name, contact details, whether it is about the caller or someone else, the problem in their own words, the other party's name, any dates, and how they found the firm. Identity, funding and scope come later, once the firm has decided in principle to act.

Should an intake form ask for the details of the case? Only a short description at first contact. Detailed facts are better taken by the fee-earner, after a conflict check, when they can ask the right follow-up questions.

Is there a legal requirement to use an intake form? We are not aware of a rule requiring a particular form. The SRA Code does require solicitors to identify who they act for and to avoid conflicts, and data protection law requires privacy information at the point of collection. Ask your COLP and data protection lead how your form should meet those duties.

Should the intake form be a PDF? It can be, but an online form feeding the same record everyone uses avoids retyping, which is where names get misspelt and dates get lost.