A legal intake and matter tracking workflow for small firms

For a small law firm, the first hour of a new matter decides a lot: whether the inquiry gets a call back before the prospective client calls another firm, whether a conflict is caught before someone shares confidential details, whether the engagement letter goes out and comes back signed, and whether the first deadline lands on anyone's calendar. In many firms, that first hour runs on a phone message slip, an email forwarded to a partner, a spreadsheet of past clients and someone's memory of who represented whom.

An intake and matter tracking workflow gives that first hour, and every stage after it, a clear structure. This guide covers what the current way costs, what the workflow should contain, a plain-words request you can hand to FORGE, how to roll it out, the mistakes to avoid and how to measure the result. It is written for managing partners, firm administrators and office managers.

What the current way costs you

• Slow responses lose clients. People with a legal problem often contact more than one firm. An inquiry that sits in a voicemail box overnight may already be gone.
• Conflict checks depend on memory. Searching a spreadsheet of client names misses opposing parties, related companies and people who consulted but were never engaged.
• No view of the pipeline. Partners cannot see how many inquiries came in, how many were qualified, how many became matters and where they came from.
• Engagement letters go missing. Work starts before the agreement is signed, and nobody notices until a billing question comes up.
• Deadlines live in personal calendars. When someone is out, nobody else knows what is due.
• Matter status is a hallway question. Staff interrupt lawyers to ask where a matter stands, because nothing shows it.
• Practice software can feel rigid. Full practice management suites cover a lot, but their intake forms and stages often reflect a generic firm rather than how your practice areas actually run, and customizing them can take more time than a small firm has.

What the workflow should contain

Roles

• Intake coordinator or receptionist: records inquiries, runs the first conflict search, schedules consultations.
• Attorney: reviews inquiries, clears conflicts, decides on engagement, owns matters.
• Paralegal or legal assistant: manages tasks, documents checklist and deadlines on assigned matters.
• Managing partner or administrator: sees everything, approves conflict waivers according to firm policy, reviews reports.
• Admin: manages people, practice areas and settings.

Access to matter details should follow need. Many firms limit sensitive matters to the assigned team, and roles in the app should make that the default.

Intake record

• Prospective client name, company if any, contact details, preferred contact method.
• How they heard about the firm (referral source, website, existing client, other).
• Practice area and matter type.
• A short description of the issue, written to collect only what is needed to check conflicts and route the inquiry, not the full story.
• All other parties: opposing parties, related companies, spouses or co-owners, insurers, opposing counsel.
• Key dates mentioned, such as a hearing, a filing deadline or a date the problem began.
• Urgency, assigned attorney, date and time received.
• Statuses: New, Conflict check, Conflict review, Consultation scheduled, Consulted, Engagement offered, Engaged, Declined, No response.

Conflict check

• Searches every name on the intake against all past and current clients, parties and prospective clients, including spelling variants and company names.
• Shows possible matches for an attorney to review and record a decision: Clear, Potential conflict, Conflict. Each decision records who made it, when and why.
• Waivers, if your firm allows them, are recorded with the approval and the date the consent was obtained, according to firm policy.

Engagement

• Fee arrangement type, engagement letter sent date, signed date, retainer received if applicable.
• Non-engagement letter sent date for declined inquiries.
• A matter is not marked Open until the signed agreement is recorded, unless an attorney records an exception.

Matter record

• Matter number, client, practice area, responsible attorney, team, opened date, stage, key dates, related parties, notes and a task list.
• Stages that fit each practice area. For example, for a general litigation matter: Opened, Investigation, Pleadings, Discovery, Motions, Settlement, Trial preparation, Trial, Post-trial, Closed. For a business transaction: Opened, Term sheet, Due diligence, Drafting, Negotiation, Signing, Closing, Post-closing, Closed.
• Deadlines: date, description, source, responsible person, backup reviewer, reminder schedule, status.
• Closing: closing letter sent, file retention date, and the matter remains searchable for conflicts.

Screens

1. New inquiry form: fast for a receptionist on the phone.
2. Intake queue: every open inquiry by status and age, newest urgent items at the top.
3. Conflict review: possible matches side by side with the inquiry.
4. My matters: each attorney's and paralegal's open matters with next deadline and next task.
5. Deadline calendar: firm-wide, filterable by person and practice area.
6. Partner dashboard: inquiries by source and practice area, conversion, open matters by stage, upcoming deadlines.

Notifications

• The assigned attorney is told about a new inquiry immediately, and again if it is not acted on within a time you set.
• Potential conflicts go to the responsible attorney for review.
• Engagement letters not signed after a set number of days prompt a follow-up.
• Deadline reminders at the intervals the firm sets, to both the responsible person and the backup.
• A weekly summary for the managing partner.

Example request

Example request: "Build an intake and matter tracker for our eight-person firm. Our receptionist records each inquiry with the person's name, contact details, how they found us, practice area (family, estate planning, business, real estate), a short description and every other party involved, including opposing parties and their lawyers. When an inquiry is saved, search all names against every past and current client, party and prior inquiry, including close spellings, and show possible matches to the assigned attorney, who records Clear, Potential conflict or Conflict with a reason. Notify the assigned attorney right away and again if nothing happens in four business hours. Track the consultation date, the engagement decision and the date the engagement letter is sent and signed; a matter cannot open until it is signed unless a partner records an exception. Declined inquiries record the reason and the date a non-engagement letter was sent. Each matter has stages that depend on its practice area, a task list, and deadlines with a responsible person, a backup and reminders at 14, 7 and 2 days. Paralegals and attorneys only see matters they are assigned to, partners see all. Give partners a dashboard of inquiries by source, conversion rate, open matters by stage and deadlines in the next 30 days."

Comparing the options

Rollout plan

1. Agree on the intake fields with the partners. Keep the description short so intake collects only what is needed.
2. Load your conflict data. Export clients, parties and past matters from your current systems and spreadsheets. Clean obvious duplicates.
3. Write the stages for each practice area with the attorneys who run them.
4. Write your deadline procedure: who calculates, who verifies, the reminder intervals.
5. Run intake only for two weeks. Every new inquiry goes through the form, no exceptions.
6. Add matters and deadlines for new matters next, then bring in open matters practice area by practice area.
7. Train in short sessions by role. Receptionists, paralegals and attorneys each need different screens.
8. Review the partner dashboard monthly and adjust stages and fields.

Mistakes to avoid

• Collecting the whole story at intake. Gather enough to run conflicts and route the matter, and save the details for after the conflict check.
• Searching only client names. Opposing parties, related businesses and prior inquiries matter just as much.
• Letting matters open without a signed agreement. Make the exception visible and rare.
• One person owning every deadline. Every deadline needs a backup who gets the same reminders.
• Open access to every matter. Limit by assignment and widen only where needed.
• Moving everything at once. Start with new inquiries, then new matters, then old matters.

How to measure that it works

• Time from inquiry to first response.
• Conversion rate from inquiry to consultation to engagement, by source and practice area.
• Share of matters opened with a signed agreement on record.
• Conflict checks completed before consultation: aim for all of them.
• Missed or near-missed deadlines.
• Staff questions to lawyers about matter status, which should drop.

Checklist before you build

1. List intake fields and keep the description short.
2. Gather all client, party and prior inquiry names for conflict searches.
3. Define conflict decisions and who may make them.
4. Write stages for each practice area.
5. Write the deadline procedure and reminder intervals.
6. Decide who sees which matters.
7. Decide which system is the record for documents, calendars and billing.
8. Confirm your conflict, confidentiality and file retention obligations with your bar or ethics counsel.

How FORGE handles it

With FORGE, your managing partner or firm administrator describes the workflow in plain words, like the example above. A panel of top AI models plans it, a dedicated AI crew builds it, and every piece is checked for quality and security before it is saved. Most teams have their first real tool the same day, on desktops in the office and phones in court.

Every app lives inside your firm, and only the people you invite can get in. Roles decide who builds and who uses, the tool itself can limit each person to their assigned matters, and FORGE keeps a complete record of who did what. Staff who only use the app are free. When a practice area adds a stage, describe the change; a change costs a small fraction of a build and only counts when something actually changes.

It is $49 a seat a month for each person who builds, with 3 builds included. Our team onboards every firm starting with a workflow workshop, and your IT lead or outside consultant is welcome in the room. Talk to us.

Questions people ask