A clean client intake process decides how the next six months of a matter will go. Miss a conflict check and you have a malpractice problem. Forget to ask for the original retainer agreement and billing slips later. Collect documents over email and you lose the audit trail.
This law firm client intake checklist gives you the exact steps and documents to collect for a new client, broken down by practice area. Copy it, adapt it to your firm, and pair it with a portal that does the chasing for you.
The core law firm client intake checklist
Every new client, regardless of matter type, needs the same baseline. Run this checklist before you bill the first hour.
Identification and contact
- Government-issued photo ID (driver’s license, passport, national ID)
- Proof of address (utility bill, lease, bank statement under 3 months old)
- Date of birth
- Primary phone number and email
- Preferred contact method and language
- Alternate contact (spouse, family member, executor)
Conflict and compliance
- Full legal name and any aliases or maiden names
- Names of all opposing parties, co-parties, and key third parties
- Names of related entities (employers, businesses, trusts)
- AML/KYC source-of-funds questionnaire (where required)
- Beneficial ownership form for corporate clients
- Politically exposed person (PEP) declaration
Engagement
- Signed engagement letter or retainer agreement
- Fee agreement (hourly, flat, contingency, hybrid)
- Initial retainer payment confirmation
- Trust account authorization (if applicable)
- Communication preferences (email, secure portal, phone)
- Consent for electronic communication and e-signature
Matter background
- Statement of the issue in the client’s own words
- Timeline of key events
- Names and contacts for witnesses or third parties
- Any prior counsel and reason for the change
- Court filings, case numbers, and deadlines already in motion
- Insurance information when relevant
This is the foundation. The next sections add documents specific to the practice area.
Documents to request by practice area
Use these as add-on checklists. Combine them with the baseline above and only request what the matter actually needs.
Family law (divorce, custody, support)
- Marriage certificate
- Prenuptial or postnuptial agreement
- Birth certificates of any children
- Last 3 years of tax returns (joint and individual)
- Pay stubs from the last 3 months
- Bank, retirement, and brokerage statements (last 12 months)
- Mortgage statements and property deeds
- List of debts with current balances
- Custody calendar or parenting schedule (existing)
- Domestic violence records or restraining orders (if any)
Estate planning and probate
- Existing will, trust, or power of attorney
- Death certificate (probate matters)
- List of beneficiaries with contact details
- Real estate deeds for all properties
- Vehicle titles
- Life insurance policies
- Retirement account statements
- Business ownership documents
- Inventory of valuables (art, jewelry, collectibles)
- Funeral or burial instructions
Personal injury
- Incident report or police report
- Photographs of the scene, injuries, and damage
- Witness statements and contact info
- Medical records and bills from every provider seen
- Health insurance card and policy number
- Lost wage documentation from employer
- Auto or homeowner insurance policy (declarations page)
- Prior similar injuries or claims (full disclosure)
- Correspondence with the opposing insurance carrier
Business and commercial
- Formation documents (articles, operating agreement, bylaws)
- Recent financial statements (2-3 years)
- Tax returns for the business
- Cap table and shareholder agreements
- Existing contracts in dispute or under review
- Employee handbook or HR policies
- Intellectual property filings (trademarks, patents, copyrights)
- Insurance policies (general liability, E&O, cyber)
- Bank statements for the relevant accounts
- Board minutes or written consents on the matter
Immigration
- Passport (all pages, even blank)
- Birth certificate translated and certified
- Marriage certificate (if applying with a spouse)
- Visa stamps and I-94 records
- Education diplomas and transcripts (translated)
- Employment letters and job offers
- Criminal record check from country of origin
- Tax returns (sponsor and applicant)
- Photos meeting consular specifications
- Medical exam results from approved physician
If you handle a lot of immigration work, we have a dedicated guide on document collection for immigration firms with workflow templates by visa type.
Criminal defense
- Charging document or indictment
- Police reports and incident narratives
- Bail or bond paperwork
- Court calendar with all scheduled dates
- Witness contact information
- Prior criminal history (full transcript)
- Employment and education records
- Character references
- Medical or mental health records (where relevant to defense)
Real estate transactions
- Purchase agreement
- Title commitment and prior title insurance
- Survey or plat
- Property tax records
- Mortgage payoff statements
- HOA documents and covenants
- Lease agreements (for income properties)
- Environmental reports
- Inspection reports
Immigration, family, and complex matters often need re-uploads in waves. A spouse forgets to scan one page of the marriage certificate. A child’s birth certificate is at grandma’s house. Build your intake so the client can come back later without you re-sending instructions.
Conflict checks: do this before anything else
A conflict check is the single highest-stakes item on the intake list. Run it before you accept money or share advice.
Capture every name a conflict could touch:
- The client (and aliases, maiden name, prior business names)
- Opposing parties and counsel
- Spouses, children, parents, executors of any party
- Related companies, partnerships, and trusts
- Insurance carriers and lenders involved
- Expert witnesses you might call
Compare against your matter management system before sending the engagement letter. If a conflict exists, decline early, in writing, before privileged information changes hands.
Engagement letters and retainer agreements
Your engagement letter is the contract that governs the rest of the relationship. Get it signed before the first substantive call.
Include:
- Scope of representation (what the firm will and won’t do)
- Fee structure with exact rates or flat amounts
- Retainer amount, replenishment terms, and trust account details
- Billing frequency and what’s billable (calls, travel, paralegal time)
- Communication expectations (response times, channels)
- Termination terms for both sides
- Conflict waiver language if applicable
- E-signature consent
E-signature via DocuSign or a comparable provider speeds this up considerably. Avoid PDFs sent by email when you can send a portal link that captures the signed copy automatically.
The intake workflow most firms get wrong
Most law firms intake clients through a mix of email, paper forms, scanned PDFs, and Dropbox links. Documents get lost, paralegals chase the same items twice, and the partner finds out at the deposition that the medical record is missing.
A modern intake workflow looks like this:
- Lead submits an intake form through a public portal on the firm’s website with screening questions (type of matter, jurisdiction, urgency).
- Firm runs a conflict check against existing clients and matters.
- If clear, system sends an invitation with a magic link to the client portal.
- Client uploads documents step by step following a guided workflow tailored to the matter type.
- Paralegal reviews and approves documents, requests corrections directly inside the portal.
- Engagement letter goes out for e-signature once core documents are validated.
- Retainer payment is confirmed before any substantive work begins.
- Matter is created in the practice management system with all documents already organized.
The whole sequence runs in days, not weeks, and the partner can see exactly where things stand from a single dashboard.
Tools that handle law firm intake
You can run intake on Google Forms, Dropbox, and email. Most firms do. But once the matter count grows past a few dozen open files, the manual chase becomes the bottleneck.
A few categories of software help:
- Practice management platforms (Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther) handle the matter side but tend to have weaker client-facing intake portals.
- Generic document request tools (Dropbox Forms, Google Drive) collect files but offer no workflow guidance, no expiration tracking, no approval flow.
- Purpose-built client onboarding platforms like Superdocu give the client a step-by-step portal, automate reminders, handle e-signature, and let your team approve or reject items with feedback. The portal is branded as your firm, not as the software.
Superdocu in particular fits law firms because of three things:
- GDPR-compliant document collection with full audit trails (see our guide on GDPR-compliant document collection)
- A white-label client portal that looks like your firm’s website, not a third-party tool
- Magic-link access so clients never have to remember a password (a common drop-off point for older clients or international ones)
Practical tips that save hours per matter
A few things experienced firms do that newer ones miss:
Send the document list as a workflow, not an email. A bulleted list of 18 documents in an email gets skimmed. The same list as a step-by-step portal gets completed.
Use templates for each practice area. Family law gets a family law intake template. Personal injury gets a different one. Build them once and clone for new clients.
Set expiration dates on documents that age. Bank statements over 90 days get flagged. ID expiring in 30 days gets flagged. Don’t discover it at the closing table.
Let clients mark items as “not applicable.” A divorcing couple without children should not have to explain why they skipped the birth certificate request.
Automate reminders. Two days after invitation, four days, seven days. Stop having paralegals chase by hand.
Approve or reject inline. “Driver’s license expired, please upload a current one” should be a one-click action with the message attached to the document, not a back-and-forth email thread.
Collect from contacts without email. Some elderly probate clients don’t have email. We wrote about how to collect documents from clients without email using SMS and portal codes.
When to start using a portal
If you intake more than five new clients a month, a portal pays for itself within the first month in saved paralegal time. If you intake one or two complex matters a quarter (estate, M&A, immigration), a portal still helps because the document list runs into the dozens.
A rough rule: if intake takes more than two hours of staff time per client across all back-and-forth, you have room to automate.
Frequently asked questions
What documents do I need for a new client intake at a law firm?
Every new client should provide government-issued photo ID, proof of address, a signed engagement letter, and a completed conflict check questionnaire. Beyond that, the documents depend on the practice area: divorce clients need tax returns and financial statements, personal injury clients need medical records and incident reports, business clients need formation documents and financials.
How do I run a conflict check during client intake?
Collect full legal names (including aliases and maiden names) for the client, opposing parties, spouses, executors, and related entities. Run those names through your matter management system before sending the engagement letter. If a conflict exists, decline in writing before privileged information is shared.
Can clients sign engagement letters electronically?
Yes. Electronic signatures are legally binding in most jurisdictions under e-signature laws like the ESIGN Act (United States) and eIDAS (European Union). Using DocuSign or a comparable tool integrated into your intake workflow is faster than printing and scanning and produces a stronger audit trail.
How can a small law firm automate client intake without expensive software?
A client onboarding platform like Superdocu runs a small firm’s intake from start to finish: branded portal, document requests by case type, e-signature, automated reminders, and a single dashboard. Pricing starts well below what most practice management systems charge and integrates with the rest of your stack.
How long should a client intake take?
A well-run intake should take the client 20-40 minutes spread over a few sittings, and the firm 1-2 hours of staff time per matter. Anything significantly longer usually means the document list is too generic for the matter type or the chase-by-email loop is eating time.
Ready to upgrade your client intake?
Stop chasing documents and start onboarding clients in days, not weeks. Superdocu gives your firm a branded portal, automatic reminders, e-signature, and GDPR-compliant document collection. Start your free 7-day trial — no credit card required.