Task guide
Set up intake
Shape how the firm runs enquiries with pipelines and their gates, the reasons an enquiry closes for, the rules that assign a new enquiry, and the response targets.
Everything here is under Settings, Practice, Intake settings. Its tabs are Pipelines, Outcome reasons, Assignment rules, Service levels, Referral sources, Forms, Consent texts, UTM rules, Follow-ups and Booking types. The first four are below; Referral sources are in Where the firm's work comes from, Forms, Consent texts and UTM rules in Building an intake form and Forms on your website, Follow-ups in Automatic follow-ups and Booking types in Booking on your website. Every change is recorded in the audit trail.
Pipelines
A pipeline is the stages an enquiry passes through. The firm has one default pipeline and at most one live pipeline per practice area; a new enquiry goes on its practice area's pipeline, else the default. General, criminal defence and corporate pipelines are shipped and can be changed.
- New pipeline asks for its name, practice area and first stage. Add the other stages on its page.
- Each stage has a target in hours and its gates. Moving to a stage needs every gate of every stage up to it.
- Move up and Move down reorder the stages.
- A stage with open enquiries cannot be removed, and a stage an enquiry ever stood in is retired rather than deleted.
- Make the firm's default moves the default to this pipeline.
- Checklist lists what every prospect on the pipeline is asked for before the matter opens: papers such as proof of identity, and items such as the beneficial owners. Mark an item required when a conversion must not open the matter without it. Retire an item the firm no longer asks for; retired items keep the answers already given.
Outcome reasons
The reasons an enquiry is closed for, under each outcome: declined by the firm, conflict, prospect declined, no response, duplicate, referred elsewhere and disqualified. Retire a reason the firm no longer uses; a reason no enquiry was closed for can be deleted.
Assignment rules
Rules are read in order and the first whose conditions all hold chooses the owner of a new enquiry. Conditions are the practice area, the office, the channel, how the prospect found the firm and whether they are already a client. A rule gives the enquiry to a named person, to the client's relationship lawyer, or round robin over its members, the one assigned longest ago next. A name given when the enquiry is taken in always wins, and an enquiry no rule matches waits for the intake team.
Service levels and letters
How soon a prospect must hear back (60 minutes unless changed), how long after a missed target the owner's supervisor is told (24 hours), and how many days a closed enquiry may be reopened (90). The owner, or everybody who manages enquiries while nobody owns it, is told once when a target is missed. Whether a letter of non-engagement is offered or required when the firm declines the work (offered unless changed): required, closing an enquiry as declined by the firm, conflict, disqualified or referred elsewhere without one is refused.
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- Take in an enquiryRecord a prospect before any matter exists, move the enquiry through its pipeline as each gate is met, clear the conflict check, and close or reopen it.
- From enquiry to matterBook and record consultations, propose the fee, send the engagement letter to sign, work through the checklist, and convert the enquiry into a client and a matter in one step.
- Practice areas, matter types and custom fieldsThe areas the firm practises in, the kinds of matter under each with their defaults, and the extra fields the firm wants recorded.