Build a New Client Intake Form for Your Law Office, Free

A good legal client intake form template does three jobs at once: it builds the first record in the matter file, it feeds the conflict of interest check, and it forces the questions a firm regrets skipping. The universal layer belongs on every form regardless of practice area: the client's full legal name and every other name they have used, complete contact details, how and when they prefer to be reached and whether the firm may leave messages or speak with family members, the referral source, the names of all adverse and interested parties, any prior or current counsel, known deadlines, and an acknowledgment that fees were discussed.

Two of those items earn their place the hard way. Other names used, maiden names, prior business names, DBAs, matter because a conflict check against a single spelling of a single name is a check that can miss. And the deadline question matters because a statute of limitations does not pause while a firm decides whether to take the case; a firm that touches a matter near a deadline without flagging it invites a claim even if it never signs the client. When the date of an incident is known, a statute of limitations calculator gives intake staff a first-pass read to bring to the reviewing attorney.

The referral source question is the one firms drop first and miss most. It costs the client five seconds, and over a year it tells the firm which referral relationships, directories, and channels actually produce signed matters. The fee acknowledgment line closes the other common gap: it records that fees were discussed at intake, while the enforceable terms stay where they belong, in the signed fee agreement. Once the form is complete it also tells the firm which supporting documents to request, and our legal template library covers most of the follow-on paperwork an intake triggers.

The adverse parties section is the part of the form firms cannot improvise later. Under the professional conduct rules every state adopts in some form (Rules 1.7 and 1.9 in the ABA Model Rules numbering most states follow), a firm generally cannot take a matter directly adverse to a current client, and it cannot take a matter adverse to a former client that is substantially related to the old work. Those conflicts are imputed across the firm: one attorney's conflict is usually every attorney's conflict. The only way to catch them is to run the names, all of them, against the firm's current and former client list before the matter goes any further.

That is why a well-built intake form asks for more than the obvious opponent. It wants every adverse or opposing party, every other person or business involved (witnesses, co-owners, insurers, lenders), and the related names that make screening reliable: business names and DBAs used by any party, and spouses of parties. The page section printed on the form should tell the client why these names are being collected, because clients answer the question more completely when they understand it is what allows the firm to represent them at all.

Timing matters as much as completeness. The conflict check belongs before the substantive consultation, not after, because the duties owed to a prospective client attach to the information they share even when no engagement follows. A firm that hears the whole story and then discovers the opponent is a client has not just lost a matter; it may have taken in information that disqualifies it from the other side too. Names first, story second, is the order that protects everyone.

The universal sections are the skeleton; the practice sections are where an intake form earns its keep. A personal injury intake form is built around four question groups: the incident (date, time, place, a narrative in the client's own words, whether a police report exists, witnesses), the injuries and every treatment provider to date, the insurance picture on both sides including whether the client has already given a recorded statement, and prior claims or injuries involving the same body parts. The prior-injury question feels intrusive and is indispensable: the defense will find the history in the records, so the firm must hear it first. PI intake also pairs naturally with a signed HIPAA authorization template and a medical records request letter so treatment records can be ordered the day the matter opens.

Family law intake maps the marriage (dates of marriage and separation, prior marriages), the children and any existing custody or support orders, the assets, debts, and both incomes, and the immediate concerns such as temporary support or safety. Estate planning intake looks forward instead of back: the family tree including beneficiaries with special needs, an assets overview with how each is titled, the documents the client already has, and the fiduciary choices, executor, guardian, financial agent, healthcare agent, with alternates for each. Business and contract intake establishes the entity, who actually has authority to engage counsel for it, the counterparty, and the paper trail; employment intake pins down the employer, dates, pay and classification, and a timeline of events in date order, plus any agency filings.

Landlord-tenant intake identifies the property, which side of the dispute the client is on, the lease terms, and every notice given or received with dates, because notice sequence usually decides those cases. Criminal defense intake asks what the client is charged with, the court and case number, the next court date, and custody and bail status, and it treats the prior record question differently from every other question on the form, as the caution below explains. The generator on this page swaps these sections automatically when you change practice area, and an attorney intake questionnaire for any other matter type can start from the general form and grow custom questions section by section.

Intake is the first step of a sequence, and the documents should match the step. The form gathers information. The conflict check clears the names. The consultation lets the attorney evaluate the matter and the client. Then the firm decides: declinations go out in writing, and acceptances move to the engagement itself, a signed retainer or engagement agreement that sets the scope, the fee, and the terms. That document, not the intake form, creates the attorney-client relationship, which is exactly why the intake form should carry the non-engagement footer. When you reach that step, our retainer agreement generator builds the engagement document the same way this tool builds the intake form.

Once the matter opens, the intake form keeps working: it is the source record for the file, the calendar entries come from its deadline answers, and the billing setup comes from its fee section, which a billable hours calculator turns into realistic time budgets. Firms that standardize this packet, intake form, conflict procedure, engagement agreement, first-day document requests, onboard new matters in a fraction of the time and with far fewer of the disputes that start with "I thought you were already my lawyer."

And when intake volume outgrows the team, the drafting that follows intake does not have to stay in-house. We provide law firm support services for exactly this handoff: your firm signs the client, and our drafters produce the pleadings, discovery, and transactional documents under your review. Firms that want the work product delivered under their own brand use our white label legal drafting service, and practices offloading whole workflows end to end use legal process outsourcing. You can also have our team draft your firm's full intake packet: intake form, engagement letter, declination letter, and first-day authorizations, matched to your practice areas and jurisdiction.