How Can Legal Intake Solutions Help Your Firm?

Legal intakes are the foundation of a lawyer's relationship with a client. They can set the tone for the rest of a working relationship. That's why it's so important to get it right. Yet, not every firm does.

Ahead, learn more about the challenges law firms face and what legal intake solutions are available.

How Do Legal Intakes Challenge Law Firms?

Clients look for legal help at all hours of the day—but law firms are not always available to help them when they're ready to reach out. This might be why so many firms don't answer voice mails. Law firms don't respond to about 64% of voice mails that clients leave. And they only pick up about 33% of calls in the moment.

Worse yet, it can take about eight emails for clients to set up appointments with lawyers. This can all affect the client experience. Even if you end up working with them, they may worry that you won't be responsive.

What Is Legal Intake Software?

During initial meetings, client intake software collects important information that can help you determine whether you can offer someone legal services. Software can also help you with case management, organizing client information and intake forms.

Glade, for example, is an end-to-end legal solution that can handle legal intakes. It can send a client intake form to help you qualify leads. Often these tools use automation, artificial intelligence or a combination of both to simplify the client intake process.

What Should You Look For in Legal Intake Solutions?

Legal intake solutions should make intake specialists' work easier. Here are a few things to look for:

Doesn't Offer Advice

Your legal intake solutions should not offer advice to clients. Since only lawyers should give their clients advice, your legal intake solution should not tell clients whether they have a good chance with their case or if you can work with them.

Integrates With Other Systems

Your intake solution should work with your other systems. Avoid bogging down legal teams and clients with extra steps. For example, Glade lets you e-file on PACER, and you can easily embed it on your website so your clients don't need to visit another page.

Automates

Your legal solution should automate simple tasks. For example, it might sort legal documents for you or send retainer agreements when you're ready to work with someone.

Nurtures Client Relationships

Your intake system should help with client relationships, whether that's lead generation or lead conversion. It should make it easy to collect the contact information of potential clients so you can reach out to them and engage them. It should also offer top-notch service that clients want to work with you.

Having client relationship management capabilities (for example storing information about each of their cases) can also help you provide individualized support.

Glade's legal solution lets clients reach out to you at all hours and has a CRM where you can keep tabs on each person.

Protects Client Data

Clients send sensitive information during the legal intake process, so any software that you use should ensure their information is not at risk. If their infomration is compromised, this can erode trust with your client base.

Other Legal Intake Tips For Your Law Firm

Whether or not you use legal client intake software, here are a few tips that can help you improve your legal intakes:

Create a System

Having a system that outlines how much time you'll take to write back to leads will help you routinely respond to inquiries. You might assign this task to an intake professional that can dedicate focus on this task.

Make it Easy to Schedule Appointments

Avoid going back and forth by using an appointment scheduling app. You provide your availability and clients can choose a time that works for them. Glade has appointment booking capabilities, making it one less thing for which you have to account.

Offer Multiple Ways to Reach You

Not every client will want to make a phone call. Give clients several ways to reach out to you, so they can find the method that best suits their preferences. For example, with Glade, clients can reach out to your chatbot to receive answers for their basic questions.