Guides for business lawyers: intake and first calls
Setting up the first call, from the booking confirmation to the conflict check. General information for your firm’s review, not legal advice.
Templates you can fill in and copy: the consultation email template and the non-engagement letter template. By practice: startup lawyers · small business · contracts · estate planning.
All 8 guides
How to review your firm’s intake questions
A practical way for business lawyers to review intake questions: check what helps prepare the first call, what gets repeated and what can wait.
Read →Consultation confirmation email template
For business lawyers: what the email confirming a first call should say, what it should ask for and what it can leave out, with a template to copy.
Read →A first-call checklist for business lawyers
For business lawyers: what to check before, during and after a first call with a business client, from cleared names to scope, fee and the recap.
Read →Law firm intake form template for business clients
What a business law firm’s intake form should ask before the first call, in what order, and what to leave for later, with a template you can copy.
Read →How to run a conflict check at a small law firm
A conflict check procedure for small business law firms: whose names to collect, where to search, what to do with a match and how to record it.
Read →Prospective client intake: a Rule 1.18 checklist
What Rule 1.18 says about prospective clients, and a checklist for booking pages, intake forms and first calls that keeps what your firm hears small.
Read →Engagement letter template for business clients
What an engagement letter for a business client should cover, from who the client is to scope, fees and when it ends, with a template to copy.
Read →Conflict waiver letter template for small firms
When a conflict check finds a match you may still take on: what Rule 1.7 asks for, what “confirmed in writing” means, and a waiver letter to copy.
Read →Questions these guides answer
- Should we remove every repeated question?
- What should a trial measure?
- Should the conflict check come before the intake form?
- What should the follow-up email after a consultation say?
- Should the confirmation ask for documents?
- How long should it be?
- What if the client sent nothing before the call?
- How long should the recap be?
- What if they want work I don’t do?
- How long should an intake form be?
- Should the form ask about a dispute?
- Can we use a general form builder?
- When should the conflict check happen?
- Whose names should we search?
- Is a spreadsheet enough?
- Does a website contact form create a prospective client?
- What should a booking page ask for?
- Can a firm ask a prospective client to agree in advance that what they share won’t disqualify the firm?
- Does an engagement letter have to be in writing?
- Should the client sign it?
- Can we represent the company and its founders at the same time?
- Can every conflict be waived?
- Does the other client have to consent too?
- Is an email enough?
Try it on your next three first calls
Your first three briefs are free. Setup is one short call: you paste one line into your booking confirmation, and you see each client’s names before anything else.