The first call is where most cases are decided, long before you ever hear the details.
Someone dials your office after an accident. They’re rattled, unsure what happens next, and may call two or three firms in the same afternoon to see who picks up and how. Whoever answers that call sets the tone for whether this person becomes your client or chooses to go with another firm.
Most firms just have whoever’s around take care of intake. That means one call could be answered by a busy receptionist and another by a paralegal who’s on deadline. The phone gets answered, but the call itself often gets less attention than it deserves given how much rides on it.
Intake often ends up being the least staffed position for the most meaningful job in the building.
What Gets Missed
A caller who only speaks Spanish gets handed off, put on hold, or handled by whoever happens to know enough to get by. Questions that should get answered during the first call turn into a callback the next day, and by then the caller has already talked to someone else.
This becomes a slow leak in law firms.
What a Good Intake Call Actually Does
A good intake call handles a few things well, and they all happen in the same few minutes. The person answering needs to understand quickly what kind of call this is and what the caller needs. Capture the right details while the caller is still on the line, not later with a callback that gives them time to call someone else. The caller needs to leave that conversation clear on what happens next, whether that’s a scheduled consult or a defined next step.
It’s a simple enough standard to check your own process against. A good call sorts quickly, captures what’s needed the first time, and doesn’t leave the caller guessing about what happens next.
Building Intake Like the Revenue Function It Is
Intake is the front end of your case volume, and treating it that way changes who you put in the role and what you expect.
People with strong professional backgrounds do better at intake because they can learn quickly and stay calm when things get busy. I’ve seen firms put someone with a completely different background in intake, and they still do great because the skill set carries over. If that person also speaks Spanish, your Spanish-speaking callers get the same quality experience. Both of these things lead to more calls turning into clients.
Where Regents Came From
Firms need intake handled by someone credentialed and bilingual, available during their hours and that’s what we provide.
When you hire one of our professionals to join your firm as an intake specialist, they work only for you, full-time, with nothing else pulling their attention. Every call gets the same care, whether it comes in at the start of the day or the end.
Heading Into Year-End
Case volume tends to climb as the year winds down, and the firms that handle it best are the ones who’ve refined their intake process and placed the right person in the role to handle it.
About the Author
Jason M. Melton, Esq.
President of Regents Remote Services
With over two decades of legal experience, Jason Melton co-founded Regents Remote Services in 2020. Built on his success near-shoring assistants for his law firm, Regents provides virtual employment solutions for American corporations by connecting them to college-educated workers in Mexico. Melton is co-founder of the Florida law firm Whittel & Melton and past president of the National Academy of Motorcycle Injury Lawyers.
