Client Intake Strategies for High-Volume Law Firms

Steps in the Client Intake Process 

To understand how to streamline the client intake process, you must first understand its basic steps. These include: 

Attracting Potential Clients 

Someone must be attracted to your firm first. For tort cases, this is often through mailers or social media cases, but it could also be through word-of-mouth referrals, online searches, or even paper or billboard advertising. 

Collecting Contact Information 

You need to get your potential client’s contact information, including email, address, and phone number, in order to feed them into your marketing funnel and get them the information they need to decide if they will work with you. You need accuracy in this step. 

Pre-Screening 

Now, you are ready to pre-screen your client to ensure there are no conflicts, their issue lines up with the cases you want to handle, and the client is a good fit for your firm and its focus. 

Initial Consultation 

The clients who get past your pre-screening are ready to move to an initial consultation. Here, you can present a client intake questionnaire that offers more information about the client’s needs and your ability to help them. 

Fee Agreement 

Before officially onboarding your client, they should understand what it will cost to work with you. This is typically done through a fee agreement, which they can read and sign. 

Official Onboarding 

At this point, you are ready to bring the new client on board with your firm. Several steps happen with onboarding, including more information about payments, what your client’s expectations should be, and how you will handle their case. 

How to Onboard More Quickly Without Making Mistakes 

As you can see, that process can be quite time-consuming, and it’s not something you can charge for, especially since some clients will not make it all the way through to signing a contract with your firm. Organization and efficiency are essential to ensure you aren’t spending too much time here. However, you also need the process to be simple for potential clients, personalized enough to make them feel connected to your firm, and accurate to avoid costly mistakes. These best processes will help. 

Create Workflows That Are the Same for All Employees 

First, create onboarding workflows that are the same for all employees. If you use a client intake tool that can automate many of these steps, you can easily set up a workflow that employees can follow the same way every time. 

With automated workflows, your team can spend less time on tracking and chasing leads and more time on the legal work that pays the bills. You also limit human error mistakes due to tedious intake processes. 

Make the Pre-Screening Count 

Pre-screening is an essential step in high-volume cases. You need to know if you can help a person before moving them to the next process. Create scripts and questionnaires that you can use every time to ensure that you have a good candidate before moving them to the next step. Train your people to be friendly and helpful in these initial contacts to improve your overall customer service and to build trust with potential clients early in the process. 

With Law Ruler, you can create pre-screening tools that integrate with your practice and its onboarding process. If a client checks all the right boxes, the system will automatically move them down the funnel. If they don’t, you can save their contact information for potential future contact but move them out of the funnel. 

Prevent Duplicate Data Entry 

When managing a large number of potential new clients, every step in the process matters. Every time someone enters data into a form, not only does it take time, but it also creates room for error. Find areas in your workflow where the same information is getting entered multiple times and eliminate those. 

This is where your legal CRM, like Law Ruler, can help. You have one client intake form, and the information from that form is automatically inputted to the next step as the client moves through the process. As long as the initial information is accurate, you don’t generate errors down the line. You also save time, allowing you to process more potential clients. 

Automate Documents and Agreements 

In large-volume tort cases, most clients sign similar documents. The fee structure, agreements, and contracts do not vary significantly from one client to the next, as they are all part of the same lawsuit. Use your legal CRM to automate these agreements and forms. 

For example, with Law Ruler, your firm can set up standardized templates that apply to the entire lawsuit. Then, when a client is ready for that document, the system can automatically populate their data into the template, send it to them, and collect signatures electronically. All your team has to do is move the client to the appropriate step in your workflow, and the system does all of the documentation and tracking for you. 

Collect Signatures Digitally 

Waiting for a paper signature creates delays that you cannot afford in large-volume cases. Digital signatures, which are legally binding, eliminate this and keep the people moving through the process. You can quickly gather and track all signed documents to ensure your clients keep moving toward a successful resolution. 

Keep It Personal 

One challenge with high-volume cases is the need to keep the process as personalized as possible while processing hundreds or thousands of intakes. Legal CRM software allows you to build personalization into the experience without sacrificing automation. People feel as though their needs are heard and met as individuals, even while you are processing many clients at the same time. 

Improve Client Experience 

In large-volume cases, your goal is to reach as many people as possible with your message. A positive client experience can help. When people feel like they are individuals who are being heard, rather than just another number in a large volume case, they are likely to tell others about your case and services. A better client experience will lead to more word-of-mouth referrals. 

Automate and Improve Your Workflow with Law Ruler 

Large-volume tort cases must be processed quickly in order to effectively reach a high volume of clients with the help you are providing. Law Ruler makes that easier. Our automated workflows, easy-to-read client dashboard, one-click eSignature process, and streamlined marketing campaigns allow you to process more potential clients in less time and with greater accuracy. If you are curious to see how Law Rule can help you make your law firm more successful and reach more people with the legal assistance you provide, reach out to schedule a demo today.