Client intake software for business, estate, family and injury lawyers
Know the issues before the first call
Tellbrief is software: one link in your booking confirmation. Before a free consultation, your prospective client answers 20 to 30 questions written for your practice, mostly with a tap. You clear their names for conflicts, then read a short brief: the issues to raise and the documents to ask for.
$75 a brief, never more than $199 a month per lawyer. Set up before April 1, 2027: $40 a brief, at most $99 a month, for a year. Your first three briefs are free.
No card. We set it up with you on a 15-minute call.
Conflict check before the brief
No AI
Never recorded
Briefs deleted after 14 days
Names clearedMade-up example · Example Co, a sauce maker with its first big retail deal
The recipe may not be fully theirs
“Our recipes were developed with a contract manufacturer in Ohio, and I’m not sure who owns them.”
Ask on the call
Did they develop the recipe before working with the manufacturer, or together?
What did they sign with the manufacturer: a supply agreement, an NDA, a quote, or nothing?
Can the manufacturer make the same product for anyone else, and what happens if the relationship ends?
What settles it
The manufacturing, co-packing or supply agreement, and any NDA with the manufacturer.
Work you could offer
Review and negotiate the retailer’s vendor agreement, which is what they asked about. Before that: confirm who owns the recipe, and put the founders’ ownership in writing.
Send your link. Add it to your booking confirmation once, and every new client gets it.
Your client answers before the call. There’s no account to make, and they keep a copy of their brief, with no legal advice or conclusions in it.
You run the conflict check first. You see names only. Clear them, and the brief opens.
You read the brief and take the call. It’s on your dashboard.
What it gets you
Quote the whole job on the first call. Each brief lays out what they asked for, what to check first and what can wait, so you can offer the rest of the work too.
Your client arrives ready. They tell their story at their own pace, before the call, and bring their questions and the records you’re likely to ask for. The call can go straight to their problem.
Two-minute video
What you’ll know before the first call
Your return
One $2,500 engagement pays for a year
One new engagement$2,500
A year for one lawyer, at most$2,388
Quote on the first call. You go in knowing the issues and the documents, so you can propose the work and a fee before you hang up.
Scope the whole job. Each brief sorts the work into what they asked for, what to check first and what can wait. Copy your picks as a draft email or engagement-letter scope.
Be there for the next matter. Save a 60-day calendar reminder with a check-in email listing the work you didn’t offer. Your client can save a 3-month reminder linking back to you.
Skip calls you can’t take. If the names show a conflict, you decline before you meet, and the brief costs nothing.
Rule 1.18’s comment says a lawyer considering a new matter “should limit the initial consultation to only such information as reasonably appears necessary for that purpose.”1 So the brief stays locked until you’ve run your conflict check. Security details
Names reach you first. The email says names are waiting, with no client details.
You clear or decline. If you decline, the brief is deleted unread.
Names to checkWaiting on you
Company
Example Co
Founder
Pat Example
Other side
Example Grocer, Example Manufacturer
Answers locked until you decide
ClearDeclineCopy names
No AINo AI model reads your client’s answers. The brief pairs their answers with notes we wrote ahead of time for each kind of matter.
It comes from you after they book, with your firm’s name on it. Every answer a brief needs is a tap, and they type only the names for your conflict check and an email address. If they skip it, the call goes ahead as usual. Answer it as your client and time it yourself.
You could build a form in an afternoon, but it would only collect answers. You’d give up five things:
A quote on the first call. Tellbrief checks the answers against notes we wrote on the issues each practice raises: 23 for business law, 18 for estate planning, 14 for family law and 17 for injury. For each one that applies, you get the questions to ask and the documents that settle it, so you can name the work and the fee before you hang up.
The work they didn’t ask about. For a business client, the questions also cover who owns what, what it has signed and what data it holds, and the brief lists other work they may need, with an email offering it, ready to copy.
Names before the story. A form sends you everything at once, so you learn the facts before you know you can take the matter. Tellbrief shows you the names first, and the answers open only after you clear them. If you decline, they’re deleted unread and we tell the client you can’t take it on.
A client who arrives prepared. They get their own copy, with a list of documents to bring.
Nothing to maintain. Encryption, deletion, client emails and the PDF are ours to run, not your staff’s.
Keep your form for booking, and put the Tellbrief link in the confirmation it already sends. Open the demo brief and compare it with what your form sends you today.
Is it worth $75 a brief?
Three briefs are free. After that, clients you decline cost nothing, and one lawyer never pays more than $199 a month. Firms set up before April 1, 2027 get the founding price for a year.
Does it give my client legal advice?
No. Their copy says it isn’t legal advice and doesn’t create an attorney-client relationship, and it holds no legal conclusions. The advice is yours to give, once you take them on.
Starting a pilot
Tell us about your firmWe reply by email.
We set up your link with youOn a 15-minute call. You paste one line into your booking confirmation. No confirmation email yet? Start from our consultation email template.
You decide after three briefsYour pilot report shows how many clients sent a brief, how many hired you, and how many hired you for more than they asked.
You can try it without changing your website. Before your first real client, we agree in writing on the price and how client information is handled. If someone at your firm approves new tools, send them the firm packet.