Legal operations, explained
What should a law firm client intake process flow chart include?
A law firm client intake process flow chart should show seven stages: response, screening, conflicts information collection, fact and document gathering, consultation scheduling, attorney review, and the recorded engagement decision. Each stage should also name its required input, owner, system of record, exception path, and exit state. The flow chart and workshop checklist below are free to use and adapt.
Market exploration · Updated
Canonical flow
A complete client-intake path has seven owned stages
Each stage should name its required information, decision owner, system of record, and exit condition.
- 01signal
Respond
Answer the inquiry against an explicit response target, with source, time, and owner recorded.
- 02decision
Screen
Identify requested service, jurisdiction, timing, and the firm's administrative fit criteria.
- 03system
Conflicts information
Collect party names and related entities for the firm's authorized conflicts process.
- 04system
Facts and documents
Gather approved facts and documents in the prospective client's own words.
- 05system
Schedule
Book the consultation under firm rules, or record who owns the next scheduling action.
- 06human
Attorney review
Conflicts clearance, assessment, advice, and risk judgment happen with an authorized professional.
- 07record
Decide and record
Engage, decline and refer, or request more, with the disposition and next owner recorded.
The flow chart
The chart below shows the full path from first contact to engagement decision, including a fast, courteous decline with a referral and an abandoned-inquiry follow-up. A downloadable version is linked underneath; use it in your own firm's documentation with or without attribution.
- 1 · RespondAnswer the call, or follow up the form or referral, against an explicit response target the firm can measure.
- 2 · ScreenIdentify the requested service and check it against practice areas, jurisdictions, and acceptance criteria. Poor fit exits here with a referral, quickly and politely.
- 3 · Conflicts infoCollect party names, opposing parties, and related entities before any substantive discussion, so the firm can run its conflicts check.
- 4 · Facts and documentsGather the who, what, when, and where in administrative terms, plus the documents the attorney needs for the first meeting.
- 5 · ScheduleBook the consultation against the right attorney's availability, with confirmation and reminders, or record who owns the next scheduling action.
- 6 · Attorney reviewThe prepared matter, structured facts, documents, and conversation record move to the reviewing attorney. Conflicts clearance and any view on merits happen here.
- 7 · Decide and recordEngage, decline with referral, or request more information. Whatever the outcome, it is written down, and abandoned or declined inquiries feed the follow-up and referral lists.
Download the printable flow chart (PDF)
The PDF and editable workshop checklist are free to reuse and adapt in your firm's own documentation, with or without attribution. The original SVG remains available at /downloads/client-intake-process-flow-chart.svg.
Define the five fields behind every box
A diagram becomes an operating procedure only when every stage specifies what must arrive, who owns the work, where the authoritative state lives, which exceptions interrupt the path, and what proves the stage ended. Without those fields, the arrows describe intention rather than an operation.
| Field | Question the firm must answer | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Required input | What must be known before this stage may begin? | Party names present before a conflicts search is submitted |
| Owner | Which person, team, service, or system is responsible now? | Intake team owns missing information; attorney owns professional review |
| System of record | Where must the authoritative state be written? | Intake CRM, conflicts system, calendar, or matter system |
| Exception path | What condition stops or diverts the normal path? | Possible conflict, urgent circumstance, missing consent, or out-of-scope request |
| Exit state | What observable event proves this stage ended? | Consultation booked, review accepted, more information requested, or declined and referred |
Use declared exit states instead of 'done'
A single completed status hides the difference between administrative progress and a professional decision. Define the permitted outcomes before automating the path, and keep the person or queue that owns the next action visible in each one.
- Consultation booked. The correct attorney, time, required information, confirmation, and calendar record agree.
- More information required. The missing fields or documents, request sent, response target, and follow-up owner are recorded.
- Professional review accepted. An authorized person or queue accepted the complete intake and owns the remaining judgment.
- Declined and referred. The firm-owned disposition, permitted communication, referral if any, and record of delivery are complete.
- Follow-up owned. The inquiry has not advanced, but a named owner, next attempt, and deadline make the open state inspectable.
- Unresolved. No authoritative outcome or accepted owner can be proved. This state must never be reported as completion.
Where intake leaks, stage by stage
- Before stage 1. The inquiry nobody answers: evenings, weekends, lunchtime peaks. It never appears in any report because it never becomes a record.
- At screening. Matters the firm should decline consume consultation slots because nobody wrote acceptance criteria down; matters it wanted leak out because the screener was improvising.
- At conflicts collection. Party names captured incompletely force a second call before the check can run, adding a day exactly where speed mattered.
- Between facts and scheduling. The prospect who was told someone will call to schedule. Measure how often those inquiries reach a booked consultation and how long the handoff takes.
- At handoff. The attorney receives a name and a phone number, re-asks everything, and the prospect experiences the firm as disorganized before engagement.
What can be automated, per stage
The pattern in the table is the point: stages 1 through 5 are structured, repeatable work that several options can carry, and stages 6 and 7 are attorney work under every option. A firm choosing tooling is really choosing who carries the structured stages, at what hour, at what cost, and with what record.
| Stage | Staff | Intake service | Software | AI intake |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Respond | Business hours | Yes, staffed hours | Forms only | Any hour, in parallel |
| Screen | Yes | Yes, per script | Form logic only | Yes, exact script fidelity |
| Conflicts info | Yes | Yes, per script | Form fields | Yes, structured every time |
| Facts and documents | Yes | Partially | Forms and uploads | Yes, plus document chasing |
| Schedule | Yes | Often | Booking links | Yes, against real calendars |
| Attorney review | Attorneys only | Never | Never | Never |
| Decide and record | Attorneys decide; anyone records | Records only | Records only | Records only |
Measuring the process
Five numbers describe intake health: time to first response, screen-to-consultation conversion, consultation show rate, inquiry-to-engagement conversion, and where abandoned inquiries dropped off. Firms that track these per inquiry can see which stage leaks; firms that track monthly totals can only see that something does.
Add two operating measures to those funnel numbers: the share of handoffs a named person or queue actually accepted, and the share of inquiries whose terminal state can be proved from the system of record. Those expose work that was routed but never owned.
If the firm measures nothing today, start with time to first response and terminal-state coverage. One shows whether the inquiry got a chance to advance; the other shows whether the firm can prove where it ended.
Branch demo
A check interrupts the happy path
A useful flowchart shows what happens when the request cannot simply continue.
CollectThe minimum record is complete
Required identity, contact, request, location, timing, and consent fields are present, so the appropriate check can run.
Output: check-ready intake
InterruptA possible conflict or mismatch appears
Automation marks the conflicting facts and pauses any scheduling or acceptance action. It does not resolve the issue itself.
Output: declared exception
ResolveAn authorized person chooses the branch
The owner clears, requests more information, declines, or routes elsewhere. The reason and next action return to the intake record.
Output: owned disposition
What to inspect: Design the exception branches first. They reveal whether the chart represents a real operation or only its happy path.
Use the method
Operating concepts used in this answer
Operation contract
The declared agreement for one operating job: what starts it, which context and actions are permitted, where human authority begins, and what counts as done.
Open the concept →Run record
The attributable evidence one execution leaves behind, including the request, context, actions, handoffs, failures, outcome, latency, and cost.
Open the concept →Human boundary
The declared point where software authority ends and accountable human judgment, approval, or intervention begins.
Open the concept →Accepted handoff
A transfer of active work to a named person or queue with enough context to continue, completed only when the receiver accepts ownership.
Open the concept →Terminal state
The finite, evidence-backed ending assigned to an operation: completed, human owned, blocked safe, failed contained, or unresolved.
Open the concept →Questions people ask
When should the conflicts check happen?
Collect conflicts information, party names, opposing parties, related entities, before any substantive discussion of the matter, typically in the first conversation. The check itself, and the decision on it, belong to the firm's attorneys and run before the consultation goes deep.
How fast should a firm respond to a new inquiry?
Set an explicit response target in minutes or hours, not days, and measure actual first-response time. Coverage design matters because an after-hours message is not a completed intake until someone owns it, responds, and records the next step.
What information should intake collect first?
Contact details, the requested service in the prospect's words, and the party names needed for conflicts. Facts and documents come after screening confirms the matter fits: collecting a full history for a matter the firm will decline wastes the prospect's trust and the firm's time.
Can I use this flow chart in my own firm's documentation?
Yes. The printable PDF, original SVG, and editable workshop checklist are free to use and adapt, with or without attribution. They describe the process generically and contain no Koltra product claims.
What should the flow chart show when an intake cannot continue?
Show the reason the normal path stopped, the information already collected, the authorized owner of the exception, the next action and deadline, and the state written to the system of record. Possible conflicts, missing consent, urgent circumstances, policy exceptions, and incomplete information should be explicit branches rather than notes outside the chart.
Related answers
Legal intake evidence
Keep administrative intake and legal judgment visibly separate.
The record shows which intake facts were permitted, which firm rule applied, what entered the matter system, and whether an authorized person accepted the work that required judgment.
Public draft · v0.4.0 · CC BY 4.0
