Case Inquiry Intake and Conflict Check

Legal intake fails in two opposite directions at once, and most firms manage to do both. Inquiries go unanswered for days because the only people who can speak to a potential client are billing, in court, or asleep. And when someone does answer quickly, they answer too much: a receptionist tells a caller that their case sounds strong, an associate emails back an opinion on a limitation period, and the firm has just handed out advice to someone whose matter has not been conflict-checked and may be adverse to an existing client.

The intake record itself is usually the weakest document in the firm. A sticky note with a name and a phone number, or a form submission that captured an email address and the sentence need help with a contract. Nobody recorded the opposing party. Nobody recorded the jurisdiction, the key dates, or how the person found the firm. When the matter is later declined, there is no file showing why. When it is accepted, the lawyer re-asks everything the client already answered, which is the single most common complaint potential clients have about law firms.

The money leak is twofold. Good matters are lost to whichever firm answered first, and bad matters consume consultation slots that a lawyer cannot bill and cannot recover. Underneath both sits the real exposure: an unchecked conflict, an inadvertent attorney-client relationship formed in a chat window, or an unlicensed-practice problem created by an automated message that strayed from logistics into advice.

This build fixes the sequence rather than the speed alone. Every inquiry is acknowledged within a minute, captured completely, and conflict-checked before anyone from the firm says anything about the merits. The AI agent handles logistics and intake only. It never advises, and it is structurally prevented from doing so.

Pipeline and stages

One intake pipeline. The crucial design feature is that Conflict Check sits before any stage at which the firm says anything substantive, and nothing can skip it.

• Inquiry Received - captured, acknowledged, nothing assessed
• Intake In Progress - the structured questionnaire is being completed
• Intake Complete - every required field populated, including all parties
• Conflict Check Pending - queued for the conflicts clerk or responsible lawyer
• Conflict Cleared - the gate has opened, and only now may a lawyer discuss the matter
• Conflict Blocked - declined for conflict, with a non-substantive decline letter sent
• Consultation Booked
• Consultation Held
• Engagement Offered - engagement letter sent
• Engaged - signed, matter opened
• Declined by Firm - with a required reason
• Declined by Prospect - with a reason where given

Stage automation enforces the gate: any attempt to move an opportunity to Consultation Booked while conflict_status is not cleared reverts the stage and notifies the intake manager. The gate is a mechanism, not a policy note.

Calendars

• Intake Interview - 20 minutes with a trained non-lawyer intake coordinator, used only to complete the questionnaire. Never described to the prospect as legal advice.
• Attorney Consultation - 45 minutes, bookable only from a link that is generated after Conflict Cleared. The link is matter-specific and single-use, so it cannot be forwarded or reused.
• Engagement Signing - 20 minutes, optional, for matters where the firm wants the retainer explained live
• Conflicts Review Block - a short recurring internal slot so the conflicts queue is worked at predictable times rather than whenever someone remembers

Custom fields

Identity and routing:

• prospect_full_legal_name, prospect_other_names (maiden, former, trading names - the field that catches conflicts a first-name search misses)
• prospect_entity_name, entity_type, prospect_dob_or_entity_number
• inquiry_source, referral_source_name, campaign_id
• jurisdiction_state, county_or_court, language_preference

Matter capture:

• practice_area - the firm own list, used for routing
• matter_summary - the prospect own words, captured verbatim and never paraphrased by automation
• opposing_party_names - a repeating field, required, with a prompt to add every party the prospect can name
• related_party_names - insurers, co-defendants, employers, former counsel, trustees, witnesses
• prior_counsel and prior_counsel_status (none, current, terminated, unknown)
• key_dates - incident date, filing date, hearing date, contract date, deadline the prospect is aware of
• deadline_flag - yes, no, unknown; set to yes whenever any date is within the firm urgency window
• court_case_number, existing_proceedings (yes, no, unknown)

Gate and outcome:

• conflict_status - not started, pending, cleared, blocked, waiver required
• conflict_checked_by, conflict_checked_at, conflict_notes (internal only, never visible in any outbound template)
• intake_completeness - a calculated score of required fields populated; the consultation link will not generate below the threshold
• decline_reason - conflict, outside practice area, outside jurisdiction, outside firm criteria, prospect withdrew, unreachable
• engagement_letter_sent_at, engagement_signed_at, matter_number

Tags

• Gate state: conflict-pending, conflict-cleared, conflict-blocked, waiver-required
• Routing: pa-litigation, pa-family, pa-immigration, pa-estate, pa-business, pa-employment, pa-realestate - one per practice area the firm runs
• Urgency: deadline-urgent, deadline-unknown, in-custody or equivalent firm-specific urgency flag
• Operational: intake-incomplete, needs-interpreter, referred-out, do-not-contact, optout-sms, optout-email
• Never create tags that encode a view on the merits. No strong-case, no weak-case, no high-value. A tag like that is an opinion in the file, written by someone unqualified to hold it.

Forms

• Inquiry form - four fields only: name, best contact, practice area from a list, and one sentence on what is happening. Plus a prominent, unavoidable notice that submitting the form does not create an attorney-client relationship and that information submitted is not confidential until the firm confirms engagement. The notice is not a footer; it sits above the submit button.
• Structured Intake questionnaire - branching by practice_area into a set of area-specific question sets, each ending with the same mandatory block: full legal name and any other names, all opposing parties, all related parties, prior counsel, jurisdiction, and every date the prospect knows. The parties block cannot be skipped.
• Conflict Check worksheet - internal only. Lists every name captured, shows the search results against the firm client and matter database, and requires the reviewer to tick cleared, blocked or waiver required, and to initial.
• Referral Out form - internal, used when the matter is outside practice area or jurisdiction, generating a decline letter and a referral note without any comment on the merits.

BO role and guardrails

BO handles speed, capture and logistics. BO does not practice law, and the guardrails below are the most important part of this build.

• BO never gives legal advice. Not an opinion on the merits, not an assessment of strength or likely outcome, not a view on a limitation period or deadline, not a suggested course of action, not an interpretation of a document, statute or contract, and not a comparison of options. This holds even when the prospect asks directly, asks hypothetically, or supplies a document and asks what it means.
• BO never creates or implies an attorney-client relationship. BO states plainly, in the first message and again before the questionnaire, that it is an automated assistant, that it is not a lawyer, that the firm has not been retained, and that nothing in the conversation is legal advice or confidential until the firm confirms engagement in writing. BO never says we will represent you, your lawyer, our client, or we are handling this.
• The conflict check gates every substantive response. Until conflict_status is cleared, BO may do exactly four things: acknowledge receipt, collect intake information, answer logistics questions (office location, hours, parking, what documents to bring, what happens next, how long the process takes in general terms), and schedule the Intake Interview. BO may not confirm that the firm will take the matter, may not comment on the facts, may not send a consultation link, and may not discuss fees beyond pointing to where fees are discussed. No exception is coded for urgency.
• BO never discusses or quotes fees, rates or costs. Fee conversations belong to a lawyer, after the gate.
• BO never tells a prospect what to do about a deadline. If a date is near, BO does not say the deadline is soon, does not say they must file, and does not say they are out of time. It sets deadline_flag, applies deadline-urgent, escalates to a live human immediately by SMS and internal channel, and tells the prospect only: I have flagged this for the team to look at right away and someone will contact you shortly.
• BO never repeats back a prospect factual account as if confirming it, and never summarizes the matter in a way that could read as an assessment. It stores matter_summary verbatim.
• Immediate handoff triggers. Any mention of an imminent hearing or filing date, arrest, detention, custody of a child, threat of harm, a current deadline, an existing lawyer on the matter, a disciplinary or bar complaint, or a request for advice in any form hands the conversation to a named human and BO stops replying in that thread.
• BO does not accept documents before the gate clears. If a prospect tries to send one, BO declines politely and explains that documents are reviewed after the initial check, so that unsolicited confidential material from a potentially adverse party does not enter the firm systems.
• Every BO conversation is logged in full and retained as part of the intake record.

Numbers and channels

• One intake number with voice and SMS, published everywhere, separate from any direct lawyer line.
• Voice: in hours, calls ring the intake coordinator, then a second coordinator, then a voice agent that takes name, callback number, practice area and one sentence, and nothing else. The voice agent script contains the same no-advice and no-relationship disclosures, spoken, at the start of the call.
• Out of hours, the voice agent captures the same four items, states that someone will call back on the next business day, and escalates to the on-call lawyer only if the caller indicates one of the urgency triggers.
• Every missed call produces an SMS within 60 seconds with the inquiry form link.
• Website chat, email to the intake address, and social messages all route into the same conversation inbox so the sequence and the gate apply identically whatever the channel.
• An internal channel in Slack or Teams for the conflicts queue, deadline escalations and handoff alerts.

One inquiry, from a Sunday evening web form to a signed engagement letter.

1. The inquiry arrives. A prospect submits the four-field form at 8:15pm on a Sunday, selecting employment as the practice area, having first seen and scrolled past the notice that submitting the form does not create an attorney-client relationship. A contact is created and an opportunity opens in Inquiry Received with inquiry_source stamped from the campaign parameters on the landing page.
2. BO acknowledges within one minute, and says exactly what it is. Thanks for contacting [Firm]. I am an automated assistant, not a lawyer, and I cannot give legal advice. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship and nothing you tell me is confidential until the firm confirms in writing that it represents you. What I can do is take down the details so the right person can review this properly. Takes about eight minutes - shall we start? Reply STOP to opt out.
3. The structured questionnaire runs. The prospect replies yes, the opportunity moves to Intake In Progress, and BO sends the employment branch of the questionnaire. It collects the prospect full legal name and any former names, the employer legal name, the names of every individual involved, whether there was a complaint or agency filing, the relevant dates, the jurisdiction, whether any lawyer has already been consulted, and the prospect own account of what happened in their own words.
4. A question BO refuses to answer. Midway through, the prospect asks whether they have a case. BO answers: I am not able to give an opinion on that - I am not a lawyer and that assessment has to come from one of ours. What I can do is make sure they have the full picture before they look at it. Next question: who else was present at that meeting? The refusal is logged.
5. The questionnaire completes and the gate engages. intake_completeness hits the threshold, the opportunity moves to Intake Complete and immediately to Conflict Check Pending, tagged conflict-pending. No consultation link exists yet, because the automation only generates one after clearance.
6. BO sets the expectation honestly. That is everything I need. Before anyone at the firm can discuss your situation, we have to run a standard check to make sure the firm is not already acting for anyone involved. That usually takes until the end of the next business day. I will come back to you either way.
7. The conflicts queue is worked Monday morning. The conflicts clerk opens the worksheet from a link in the Slack notification. It lists every name captured - prospect, former names, employer, two individual managers, the insurer named in the prospect account - and shows the search results against the firm client and matter database for each one. One partial match on the employer name appears.
8. The partial match is resolved by a human. The clerk checks the entity number, establishes it is a different company with a similar name, sets conflict_status to cleared, initials the worksheet, and the system stamps conflict_checked_by and conflict_checked_at. The near miss is recorded in conflict_notes, which never appears in anything sent outward.
9. Clearance opens the gate. The opportunity moves to Conflict Cleared, tagged conflict-cleared, and is routed to the employment practice lawyer on rotation. A single-use Attorney Consultation link is generated and sent: Good news on the process side - the check is clear, so [Lawyer] can now speak with you about your situation. Here are their available times: [link] Note what this message does not say: nothing about the merits.
10. The consultation is booked and prepared. The prospect books Tuesday at 2pm. The opportunity moves to Consultation Booked. The lawyer receives the full intake record as a formatted brief on their calendar event - every party, every date, the verbatim account - so the consultation begins with the lawyer already informed. Reminders go at 24 hours and two hours with the office address and the document list.
11. The consultation happens. This is the first point at which anyone gives any legal view, and it is a lawyer who gives it. The lawyer marks the opportunity Consultation Held and chooses one of three outcomes from a one-tap form: offer engagement, decline, or needs further information.
12. Engagement is offered. The lawyer selects offer engagement. The engagement letter and fee agreement generate from the matter record and go out for electronic signature within the hour, with engagement_letter_sent_at stamped. BO sends a logistics-only nudge: [Lawyer] has sent the engagement letter to your email. Any questions about the terms go straight to them - I cannot help with those.
13. The letter is signed. engagement_signed_at stamps, the opportunity moves to Engaged, a matter_number is assigned, the client record is created in the firm practice management system, and the prospect names are written into the conflicts database so future inquiries check against this matter too. The intake pipeline hands off and stops.
14. The alternative ending, handled properly. Had the conflict check come back blocked, the opportunity would have moved to Conflict Blocked and the prospect would have received a decline letter that says the firm is unable to assist with this matter, suggests they seek other counsel promptly, and says nothing whatsoever about why, about the merits, or about who else is involved. No automation ever generates a reason in that letter.

1. Inquiry Acknowledgement and Disclosure

Trigger: Inquiry form submitted, inbound SMS to the intake number, website chat started, email to the intake address, social message, or inbound call completed.

Conditions and branches: Check practice_area against the firm list. If outside, branch to referral out. Check jurisdiction_state against the states the firm is licensed in. If outside, branch to referral out. Check the contact against do-not-contact and against existing client records; an existing client inquiring on a new matter routes to their relationship lawyer, not into cold intake.

1. Create or match the contact, create the opportunity in Inquiry Received, stamp inquiry_source, campaign_id and referral_source_name, and record the inquiry timestamp.
2. Within 60 seconds, send the disclosure-first acknowledgement on the inbound channel: Thanks for contacting [Firm]. I am an automated assistant, not a lawyer, and I cannot give legal advice. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship and nothing you tell me is confidential until the firm confirms in writing that it represents you. I can take down your details so the right person can review this properly - shall we start? Reply STOP to opt out.
3. Send the same disclosure by email as a permanent record, with the firm full terms-of-use link.
4. Apply the practice area tag and route ownership to the intake coordinator rota.
5. Wait 15 minutes. No reply: one follow-up on the same channel offering the self-serve questionnaire link or an Intake Interview booking link as alternatives.
6. Wait 4 hours, then 24 hours, then 72 hours: one message each, de-escalating in frequency. The final one reads Last message from me - if you still want the firm to look at this, reply or use this link: [questionnaire]. Either way, please do not rely on us having your matter in hand. That last sentence is deliberate and should be approved by counsel.
7. No response after the fourth attempt: move to Declined by Prospect with decline_reason set to unreachable. Retain the record.
8. Referral out branch: send the counsel-approved decline and referral template, which states only that the matter is outside the firm practice areas or licensed jurisdictions, recommends seeking other counsel promptly, and lists the firm standing referral resources. It contains no comment on the matter. Tag referred-out, move to Declined by Firm, set decline_reason.

Exit: prospect begins the questionnaire, is referred out, opts out, or is marked unreachable.

2. Structured Intake Capture

Trigger: Prospect agrees to start, submits the questionnaire link, or attends an Intake Interview.

Conditions: Branch by practice_area into the matching question set. Every branch terminates in the same mandatory parties block. The branch is on subject matter only; never on the prospect circumstances, means or perceived value.

1. Move to Intake In Progress, tag intake-incomplete.
2. Re-state the disclosure once more immediately before the first substantive question, because this is the point at which the prospect starts disclosing: Quick reminder before you tell me details: I am not a lawyer, this is not advice, and the firm has not agreed to represent you.
3. Collect the area-specific questions, then the mandatory block: full legal name; any other or former names; all opposing parties; all related parties including insurers, employers and co-parties; prior or current counsel on this matter; jurisdiction and court; every date they know; and their own account in their own words, stored verbatim to matter_summary.
4. Specifically prompt for completeness on parties, twice: Anyone else involved, even indirectly - companies, insurers, family members, other lawyers? An incomplete parties list is the single most common cause of a conflict check that misses.
5. Recalculate intake_completeness after every answer. Below the threshold, the opportunity cannot progress and no consultation link can be generated.
6. Abandonment branch: no activity for 2 hours mid-questionnaire sends one resume link. At 24 hours, one more. At 72 hours, offer the Intake Interview instead, since some prospects will never finish a form but will answer a human for ten minutes.
7. Advice-request branch: any question asking for an opinion, assessment, prediction, deadline interpretation or recommendation returns the fixed refusal: I am not able to give an opinion on that - I am not a lawyer and that has to come from one of ours. What I can do is make sure they have the full picture. Next question: [resume]. Log the refusal on the timeline. Three advice requests in one conversation escalates to a human, because the prospect needs a person.
8. Document branch: if the prospect attempts to send a document, BO declines: Please hold on to that for now. Documents get reviewed after the initial check, and I would rather it goes to the right person than sits with me. Note the offer on the timeline.
9. On completion: move to Intake Complete, remove intake-incomplete, and hand immediately to the conflict workflow with no pause and no intermediate message about the matter itself.

Exit: Intake Complete, escalated to a human, or abandoned past the final nudge.

3. Conflict Check Gate

Trigger: Opportunity enters Intake Complete.

Conditions: This workflow has no bypass. There is no urgency branch, no partner override path, and no after-hours exception. If the firm needs to act on an emergency before clearance, that is a human decision made outside the automation and recorded by hand.

1. Move to Conflict Check Pending, tag conflict-pending, set conflict_status to pending.
2. Generate the Conflict Check worksheet, pre-populated with every name from prospect_full_legal_name, prospect_other_names, prospect_entity_name, opposing_party_names, related_party_names and prior_counsel, and run each against the firm client and matter database by whatever integration or export the firm practice management system allows.
3. Post to the conflicts channel with a direct worksheet link and assign the task to the conflicts clerk, due within one business day. If deadline-urgent is set, due within two hours and additionally SMS the responsible lawyer.
4. Send the prospect the honest holding message: That is everything I need. Before anyone here can discuss your situation, we run a standard check to confirm the firm is not already acting for anyone involved. That normally takes until the end of the next business day, and I will come back to you either way.
5. Wait 4 business hours. Unworked: remind the clerk. Wait a further 4: escalate to the intake manager. Wait a further 8: escalate to the responsible partner. A stalled conflicts queue is a client-service failure and a risk event, so the escalation ladder is short.
6. Cleared: set conflict_status to cleared, stamp conflict_checked_by and conflict_checked_at, tag conflict-cleared, remove conflict-pending, move to Conflict Cleared, and hand to workflow 4.
7. Blocked: set conflict_status to blocked, tag conflict-blocked, move to Conflict Blocked, and send the counsel-approved decline letter which states that the firm is unable to assist with this matter, recommends seeking other counsel promptly, and gives no reason. Suppress every other sequence for that contact permanently. Never send a review request, newsletter or re-engagement campaign to a blocked contact.
8. Waiver required: set conflict_status to waiver required, tag waiver-required, hold the opportunity in Conflict Check Pending, and create a partner task. No automated message of any kind goes to the prospect on a waiver path; the responsible lawyer handles it personally.
9. Guard rule, implemented as a separate always-on automation: if any opportunity is moved to Consultation Booked, Consultation Held or Engagement Offered while conflict_status is not cleared, revert the stage, cancel any appointment created, void any link issued, and alert the intake manager and the responsible partner immediately.

Exit: conflict_status set to cleared, blocked, or waiver required with a human owner.

4. Consultation Scheduling, Post-Clearance Only

Trigger: Opportunity enters Conflict Cleared.

Conditions: Route by practice_area to the lawyer rota for that area, and by jurisdiction_state to a lawyer licensed there. If needs-interpreter is set, route only to slots where interpreter support is arranged.

1. Generate the single-use Attorney Consultation booking link bound to this opportunity. Links expire after 7 days and cannot be reused or forwarded.
2. Send it with a message that stays on process: Good news on the process side - the check is clear, so [Lawyer] can speak with you about your situation. Their available times are here: [link]. They will be the one to discuss your options and any fees; I am still not able to advise on the matter itself.
3. Wait 2 hours. Not booked: one SMS with the same link. Wait 24 hours: one more. Wait 72 hours: create a call task for the intake coordinator rather than sending a fourth message.
4. On booking: move to Consultation Booked, push the appointment to the lawyer calendar, and attach the full intake brief to the event description - every party, every date, the verbatim account, the source, and the conflict clearance stamp.
5. Reminders at 24 hours and 2 hours, with office address, parking, what to bring, and a reschedule link. Include one line of expectation setting: This is a consultation. The firm is not retained unless and until you both sign an engagement letter.
6. No-show branch: tag no-show, send one rebooking message, wait 48 hours, send one more. No response moves to Declined by Prospect with decline_reason set to unreachable.
7. Cancellation by the prospect: offer rebooking once. A second cancellation routes to the coordinator to call.

Exit: consultation held, or opportunity closed.

5. Post-Consultation Outcome and Engagement

Trigger: Attorney Consultation appointment end time reached.

Conditions: The lawyer must select one outcome from the one-tap form - offer engagement, decline, or needs further information - before the opportunity can move. No automation infers the outcome from anything.

1. At the appointment end, send the lawyer a one-tap outcome form. Unanswered after 2 hours, remind. Unanswered after 24 hours, escalate to the practice lead, because an unrecorded consultation outcome is how matters fall into limbo.
2. Offer engagement: move to Engagement Offered, generate the engagement letter and fee agreement from the matter record, send for electronic signature, stamp engagement_letter_sent_at. BO sends a logistics-only nudge: [Lawyer] has sent the engagement letter to your email. Questions about the terms go to them directly - I am not able to help with those.
3. Unsigned after 48 hours: one SMS, logistics only. Just checking the engagement letter arrived - it is in your email from [Lawyer]. Reply if it did not come through.
4. Unsigned after 5 days: task the lawyer to call. Unsigned after 10 days: move to Declined by Prospect with decline_reason set to prospect withdrew, and send a neutral close-out that again reminds them the firm is not acting and they should not delay seeking counsel.
5. Signed: stamp engagement_signed_at, move to Engaged, assign matter_number, create the client and matter in the practice management system, write all captured party names into the conflicts database so future inquiries check against this matter, and start the client onboarding sequence. Suppress every intake and marketing sequence for that contact.
6. Decline: move to Declined by Firm, require decline_reason, and send the counsel-approved decline letter. It confirms the firm will not be acting, advises them to seek other counsel promptly given that time limits may apply to their situation, and gives no assessment. The wording of that sentence should be fixed by counsel and locked in the template.
7. Needs further information: hold the opportunity at Consultation Held, create a task on the lawyer with the specific items needed, and let BO chase only for the named documents - never for substance.

Exit: Engaged, Declined by Firm, or Declined by Prospect.

6. Deadline and Urgency Escalation

Trigger: Any captured date falls within the firm urgency window, or the prospect message matches an urgency keyword list - hearing, trial, deadline, arrested, detained, served, eviction, restraining order, custody, statute of limitations, tomorrow, today.

Conditions: This workflow pre-empts every other sequence and runs regardless of stage, including before intake is complete.

1. Set deadline_flag to yes, tag deadline-urgent, and raise the opportunity to the top of the intake queue.
2. Immediately notify the duty lawyer and the intake manager by SMS and internal channel with the prospect name, number, and the verbatim message that triggered it. Out of hours, notify the on-call lawyer.
3. BO sends the prospect one message, carefully bounded: I have flagged this for the team to look at right away and someone will contact you shortly. I am not able to advise you on timing or on what to do - please do not wait on us if you have a date coming up. Nothing more. BO does not confirm that a deadline exists, does not say it is urgent in legal terms, and does not suggest an action.
4. Pause every scheduled nurture and chase message for that contact so nothing automated arrives in the middle of a live escalation.
5. If no human has made contact within 60 minutes in business hours or 3 hours out of hours, escalate to the responsible partner and keep escalating every 60 minutes until acknowledged.
6. Record the escalation, the time of first human contact, and who made it. This log is reviewed weekly.

Exit: a human acknowledges and takes over the conversation.

7. Compliance Audit Trail and Phrase Watchdog

Trigger: Every outbound message in the intake pipeline, plus a nightly scheduled audit.

1. Before sending, scan outbound AI-composed text against a blocked-phrase list: you have a case, you do not have a case, strong case, weak case, we will win, you should, you must, your deadline is, we represent you, as your attorney, our client, we are handling, you are entitled to, I recommend. A match blocks the send and queues the message for human review. Nothing is ever softened and sent automatically.
2. Log every blocked send, every logged advice refusal, and every handoff, with the trigger phrase, to a compliance record.
3. Nightly: flag any opportunity past Conflict Check Pending for more than one business day, any opportunity in Conflict Cleared for more than three days without a booking, and any consultation held without a recorded outcome.
4. Nightly: verify that no opportunity sits beyond Conflict Cleared with a conflict_status other than cleared. Any instance is a priority alert to the intake manager and the responsible partner.
5. Weekly report to the managing partner: inquiries by source and practice area, median time to first response, median time to conflict clearance, clearance versus block rate, blocked-phrase hits, advice refusals logged, urgency escalations and time to human contact, consultation to engagement rate, and the decline_reason distribution.
6. Retain the complete conversation log, every form submission, the conflict worksheet with initials and timestamps, and every decline letter sent, for the retention period the firm agrees with counsel.

Exit: none. These run continuously and are the record the firm relies on.

The sequence changes, and that is the whole point. Before, speed and caution were in tension: answering fast meant a human improvising, and being careful meant answering slowly. Afterwards, the fast part and the substantive part are separate activities done by different actors. An automated assistant handles acknowledgement, capture and logistics within a minute of the inquiry arriving, around the clock. A human handles the conflict decision. A lawyer handles everything that touches the merits. Nothing crosses those lines.

The intake record changes from the firm weakest document to one of its most complete. Every party is named, every date is captured, the prospect own account is preserved verbatim, the conflict search is evidenced with a name and a timestamp, and every automated message sent is logged. When the firm accepts a matter, the lawyer starts already briefed. When the firm declines one, there is a file showing what was asked, what was said, what was refused, and why the decision was made.

Consultation slots change character. They stop being used for triage and discovery, and become what they should be: a lawyer talking to a conflict-cleared prospect whose situation they have already read. That is the difference between a consultation calendar that converts and one that burns partner time.

Metrics to watch

• Median time to first response, by channel and by in-hours versus out-of-hours. The out-of-hours figure is the clearest measure of what the build added.
• Intake completion rate - inquiries that reach Intake Complete - and where the questionnaire is abandoned. A consistent drop-off point is a question that needs rewriting.
• Median time to conflict clearance, and the count of items breaching the one-business-day target. This is the number most likely to quietly degrade, so watch it weekly.
• Clearance versus block versus waiver rate - and separately, how many blocks were caught only because of a name in related_party_names rather than the obvious opposing party. That figure tells you whether the parties block is earning its keep.
• Gate violations - any instance of the guard rule firing. The target is zero, and any non-zero month warrants a look at who is moving stages by hand.
• Blocked-phrase hits and logged advice refusals - the volume shows how often prospects push for advice, and the pattern shows which practice areas need an earlier human handoff.
• Urgency escalations and median time to first human contact on them
• Conflict Cleared to Consultation Booked rate, and Consultation Held to Engaged rate - the latter is the true quality measure of the intake filter
• Decline reason distribution, split into conflict, out of area, out of jurisdiction and outside firm criteria. A large out-of-area share means the marketing is pointed at the wrong audience.
• Cost per engaged matter by inquiry source, where the firm supplies spend

This build is a workflow, not legal guidance

Everything below describes how to construct an intake mechanism. It is not legal advice, and it is not a compliance opinion. The professional-conduct rules that govern advertising, intake, unauthorised practice, conflicts, confidentiality of prospective-client information and client-file retention differ by jurisdiction and change. Before this build goes live, the firm own counsel, ethics counsel or risk partner must review and approve it. Treat the following as the list of things to put in front of them.

Approvals to obtain before launch

• Every outbound template, word for word. The acknowledgement, the disclosure wording, the holding message, the clearance message, the decline letters, the referral-out letter and the reminder copy. Lock the templates after approval so they cannot be edited without re-approval.
• The BO system prompt and the full guardrail list. Have it reviewed as a document, not as a feature description. Review it again after any change to the prompt.
• The blocked-phrase list in workflow 7. Counsel should add to it.
• The decline letter wording in particular. What the firm may and may not say when declining - especially whether it may mention that time limits exist without giving advice - is a jurisdiction-specific judgment call.
• The structured questionnaire, per practice area. Confirm which questions may be asked by a non-lawyer and by an automated assistant, and whether any question strays into advice or into information the firm would rather not hold before clearance.
• Confidentiality of prospective-client information. In many jurisdictions duties attach to information received from a prospective client even where no engagement follows, and receiving too much can itself disqualify the firm from acting for someone else. The no-documents-before-clearance rule and the limited questionnaire exist for that reason. Confirm the limits with counsel.
• Who is authorized to clear a conflict, whether a clerk may clear or only flag, and what evidences a clearance.

Integrations and data

• Practice management system connected, or at minimum a reliable daily export of client and matter party names into a searchable store. The conflict check is only as good as this data, and a check run against a stale list is worse than no check because it produces false confidence.
• Google Calendar or Microsoft 365 connected for every lawyer and coordinator, two-way sync on.
• Electronic signature for engagement letters - DocuSign, Dropbox Sign or the firm existing provider - with a webhook so engagement_signed_at stamps without manual entry.
• Document storage with matter-level access control for anything received after clearance. Decide before launch where documents live and who can see them.
• Slack or Teams for the conflicts queue, deadline escalations and gate-violation alerts. Use dedicated channels; a conflicts alert in a general channel will be missed.
• Zapier or Make for any practice management system without a native connection.

Numbers, messaging and recording

• Provision one intake number with voice and SMS. Never route intake to a lawyer personal mobile.
• Complete A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration before launch, using sample messages that match the real copy including the disclosure and opt-out language. Legal-sector campaigns are reviewed closely, so submit accurate samples rather than placeholders.
• Opt-out language in the first message of every sequence. Honor STOP, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END and QUIT automatically, set optout-sms, and make that a hard suppression across every workflow including reminders.
• Quiet hours against the prospect time zone. The only permitted exception is the urgency escalation in workflow 6, and only if counsel approves it.
• Call recording: confirm the consent requirements in every state the firm takes calls from, and put the required notice at the top of the voice agent script. Decide how long recordings and transcripts are kept.
• Authenticate the sending domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. A decline letter in a spam folder is a letter that was never sent.

Data protection and retention

• Intake records hold identity details, matter facts and sometimes sensitive personal information about the prospect and about third parties who never contacted the firm. Agree with counsel which data-protection regimes apply, what the lawful basis is for holding information about opposing and related parties, and what the retention period is for inquiries that never become matters.
• Restrict pipeline and conflict-note visibility by user role. conflict_notes should be visible to the conflicts team and the responsible partner only, and must never be merged into an outbound template.
• Agree a documented deletion schedule for declined and unreachable inquiries, and implement it rather than leaving records to accumulate indefinitely.
• Remove platform access for departing staff the same day, and review the access list quarterly.
• Train the intake coordinators on the gate before go-live. The most likely failure mode in practice is not the automation; it is a well-meaning human moving a stage or sending a reassuring message ahead of clearance. The guard rule catches it, and the training is what stops it happening twice.

Scope and pricing depend on the number of practice areas, the practice management system involved and the depth of the conflicts integration. Book a call at bookings.appbo.io.