How To Develop A Script For Your Legal Intake Process

Have you ever looked at a new client’s file when starting to plan your follow up and wished you had more information? Or have you called a new client back when you couldn’t take their call immediately and had them tell you they’ve already hired other legal counsel? If you have, you’ve felt the lack of a good legal intake process. Whether you’ve been around the block or are just setting out in the legal world, we hope you already understand that legal intake is an essential process for your firm.

In case you need a refresher, here’s why legal intake is so important: it captures leads. New clients are much more likely to stay with your firm once they’ve undergone a legal intake, since they will feel that they’ve already begun resolving their legal issues by describing them to your receptionist. In addition, a legal intake is how you gather all the information you need before speaking with a new client so that you can follow up as effectively as possible.

Something this important shouldn’t be improvised. It should be carefully crafted, developed, and rehearsed so much that callers don’t ever suspect the person they’re speaking to is reading from a script. If you’re looking to script your legal intake but don’t know where to start, look no further. We’ve got a guide below to help you develop a script for your legal intake process.

Step One: Comfort The Caller In Your Greeting

You want to craft your legal intake to make it secure as many new leads as possible, and those callers are usually anxious, nervous, scared, or some combination of those three. Therefore, your greeting should be built to immediately put the client at ease.

It’s important that your receptionists have a friendly and professional tone when answering the phone. A caller wants to know they’ve reached someone excited and ready to help them, so if your receptionist sounds bored or tired, they may not be convinced that your firm is the one they're looking for. Your greeting is your firm’s first impression, and an enthusiastic and capable receptionist will reassure callers that they’ve called the right firm, one that will be able to help them with their legal issues.

Here’s a sample greeting for a made-up firm: “Hello. You’ve reached the John Smith Law Office. How may I assist you today?”

Reading it back, it sounds simple — and that’s because it is! But there’s plenty of room to make the greeting do work for your firm.

If you’ve invested in marketing, for example, you may also want to include your branding in your greeting. This helps create a throughline from the way the client found out about you to that first phone call, and reassures the caller that they’ve reached the office they wanted, instead of one of your many competitors.

Step Two: Gather All The Information You Need

The bulk of the legal intake process depends on your legal specialty, but there are a few must-ask questions for every firm besides the three or four case-specific questions. For example, you should make sure to get the caller’s contact information as soon as possible, so that you can call them back in case the call drops.

Next, of course, is asking the reason for their call, which will prompt the caller to begin describing their legal issue. This can also weed out callers that may not be the right fit for your firm by ensuring that they’re actually looking to hire you for your specialty. Spending less time on calls that won’t lead to a client means your receptionist has more time for the calls that will.

The final general question you want to ask, later in the call, is how the caller heard of your firm. This information can be very useful for fine-tuning your marketing strategy, and in aggregate can give you a good picture of what’s working and what isn’t.

But How Do I Know What Information I Need?

This is the part that’s up to your legal discipline. We’ll provide an example, but we’ll establish some general tips first.

Even within legal disciplines, every firm and attorney is different, so your own habits and tendencies will be the best indicator of what information you need to capture during the legal intake. When you’re reviewing a new client’s file for the first time, what information do you look for first? What information is often missing that you wish you had? That’s the best way to figure out what to ask in this part of the legal intake process.

Here’s an example of what a legal intake questionnaire might look like for a criminal defense attorney who specializes in OVI or DWIs:

• Caller’s name, phone number, and email address
• Reason for calling
• Charges and the date of the incident
• Their next court date, and which county or municipality the incident occurred in
• Did they consent to a field sobriety test? If so, what was the result?
• How did they hear about your firm?

If you’re a criminal defense attorney and you’re thinking, “Well, I would also ask for something else,” well, you’re well on your way to scripting your legal intake process.

Step Three: Make Sure Your Receptionists Know The Script

If you have a receptionist, you need to go over this script with them until you’re sure they know it well enough that they don’t sound like they’re reading from a script when they’re speaking to callers.

For example, they should recognize when a caller has given them an answer to a question later on in the script beforehand, so that when they get to that part of the script, they don’t ask again. Every caller wants to feel like they have your firm’s complete attention, and therefore doesn’t want to know that you’re using a script to speak with them.

As part of your legal intake script, you should create a form your receptionist can fill out as the call goes on. A simple webform using Google Forms or any other webform service will do the job just fine. This way you can access the information collected on the call as simply as scanning a shopping list.

But What If I Don’t Have A Receptionist?

If you don’t have a receptionist or don’t have time to train yours to learn your script, you should hire Answering Legal. Our virtual receptionists specialize in answering for lawyers, and undergo months of training before ever answering the phone for a law firm, meaning you won’t have to worry about the time-consuming process of vetting, hiring, and training a receptionist.

During our free trial, we’ll work with you on your legal intake script, either using one you developed yourself or working from one of the many example scripts we have already. Our service is totally customizable, so if you ever decide to iterate on your legal intake, you can let us know and we’ll make your change right away. In addition, our virtual receptionists can handle your calls 24/7, and can answer calls in Spanish too.

Here at Answering Legal, we recommend to all attorneys that they speak to new client callers as soon as possible, so as to make sure to capture their business. But we also recognize that speaking to every new client caller is impossible, as attorneys have busy personal and professional lives. That’s why you should hire Answering Legal to handle your legal intake process.

Ready to skip the training and let our virtual receptionists handle your legal intake? Click here or call 631-686-9700 to sign up for our free trial. For a limited time, we’re offering firms that sign up with our service their first 400 minutes free.