The intake checklist for solo and small-firm litigation practices.
Thirty-two steps across six categories: conflicts, client and matter facts, the deadlines to calendar before the client leaves the room, documents to request, paperwork to sign, and the file-opening housekeeping that keeps a matter from generating fire drills six months in. No email required to read it.
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Before you take the call: conflicts and scope
Run this before any facts get discussed in detail. A conflict caught after two hours of intake is a wasted afternoon and an awkward call back.
Run a conflict check on every named party.
Not just the prospective client and the opposing party: co-defendants, witnesses, insurers, and any company or individual mentioned by name in the first email or voicemail. A name that seems minor on the first call is often the one that matters.
Confirm the matter is inside your practice's competence and capacity.
A quick gut check before the client invests an hour walking you through facts: is this a matter type you're equipped to handle, and do you have the bandwidth to open it this month, not next quarter.
Note the referral source.
Where the client came from (existing client, another attorney, online search, a specific ad or article) feeds both marketing decisions and, in some jurisdictions, referral-fee obligations that need to be on the file from day one.
Check for any statute of limitations already close to running.
A one-question triage before scheduling a full intake: when did this happen, and does that make today urgent. A matter with 30 days left on the clock does not wait for next week's calendar opening.
Decide who owns the matter internally before the call ends.
Even at a firm of one, name the responsible attorney of record in your own notes immediately; at a firm of three or more, assign it before intake starts so the client isn't handed off mid-conversation.
On the call: client and matter identification
The baseline facts every matter needs, captured once, correctly, instead of chased down piecemeal over the next two weeks.
Full legal name, preferred name, and every prior legal name.
A married name change or a legal name change midway through a matter's history is a common source of records requests that come back with no match.
Date of birth and, where relevant to the claim, minority status.
Minors change tolling on statutes of limitations in most jurisdictions; confirm this on the first call, not when a deadline calculation comes up short later.
Current mailing address, phone, and email, plus how they prefer to be reached.
Ask directly: text, call, or email, and at what hours. Getting this wrong is a common source of missed callbacks that read to the client as the firm not caring.
Every opposing party's full name and, if known, their counsel.
Corporate defendants need their exact registered name and state of incorporation, not the storefront name on the sign; this detail matters the moment a complaint gets drafted.
The court or agency with jurisdiction, if already known.
Sometimes obvious (an accident in a specific county), sometimes not (a contract with a forum-selection clause pointing somewhere else entirely). Flag it as unconfirmed rather than guessing.
A one-paragraph plain-language summary of what happened, in the client's own words.
Write down the client's account before your own legal framing overwrites it. That original account is often the most useful thing in the file six months later, when memory has smoothed over details that mattered.
Deadlines to calendar before the client leaves the room
The single most common way a solid matter gets damaged isn't a bad legal theory, it's a missed date nobody calendared on day one.
The statute of limitations for every claim under consideration.
Calculate it, write down the rule you used, and calendar it with a warning window well before the actual date, not on it. If a MatterOS matter is opened, this calendars automatically off the incident date; manually, write the calculation and the citation into the file.
Any notice-of-claim deadline against a government entity.
If a city, county, state agency, public school, transit authority, or other government body is anywhere in the fact pattern, ask the question explicitly: notice-of-claim windows are frequently 60 to 180 days, far shorter than the underlying statute of limitations, and are the single most common way an otherwise strong matter gets barred before anyone files anything.
Any contractual or insurance-policy notice deadline.
Many insurance policies and commercial contracts carry their own prompt-notice requirements, independent of any statute. Ask whether insurance is involved on the first call and pull the policy early.
Upcoming hearings, deadlines, or deposition dates inherited from prior counsel.
If the client is coming from another attorney, get the full docket immediately, not just the reason they're leaving. An inherited matter with a hearing in nine days is not a normal-priority open.
The date a demand or response is due, if one has already been sent or received.
A client who mentions in passing that opposing counsel sent something last month may be sitting on a response deadline that's already ticking. Ask explicitly whether anything has already been sent or received in writing.
Documents to request on day one
The records request that goes out in week one is the one that comes back before it matters. The one that goes out in week six is the one that holds up the case.
Every document already in the client's possession, unsorted.
Ask the client to send everything, not a curated selection. Clients routinely decide something isn't relevant and leave out the one document that turns out to matter most.
Signed authorizations for every record category the matter will need.
Medical (HIPAA-compliant authorization, per provider or a blanket authorization where the jurisdiction allows it), employment, financial, or educational records, depending on the claim. Get these signed at intake so the request can go out the same week, not after a follow-up call to re-engage the client.
Letters of representation to every known counterparty and carrier.
Send these the same week the matter opens: they stop direct contact with the client, put the file on notice with any insurer, and start the clock on any records request that requires a rep letter as a precondition.
A specific list of providers, employers, or institutions to request records from.
Get names, approximate dates of treatment or employment, and locations from the client directly, rather than relying on memory alone once the file is a few weeks old.
Prior counsel's complete file, if the matter is a transfer.
Request the full file in writing immediately, including any expert reports, discovery already propounded or received, and correspondence with opposing counsel. A partial transfer discovered later is a recurring source of missed deadlines.
Photographs, video, or physical evidence, preserved before it disappears.
Ask specifically and immediately: security footage gets overwritten in days at many businesses, and physical evidence gets discarded or repaired. This is the one category where delay is often irreversible.
Paperwork to get signed before work starts
Nothing on this list should be pending when the first substantive email goes out on the client's behalf.
A signed engagement letter or retainer agreement.
Scope of representation, fee structure, and what's explicitly excluded, in writing, before work begins. This is the single most commonly skipped step under time pressure and the most commonly regretted one later.
A fee agreement that matches the fee structure actually being used.
Contingency, hourly, or flat fee, with the percentage or rate stated plainly and, where required by the jurisdiction's rules, the client's initials on the specific fee provision.
A conflict waiver, if any conflict was identified and is waivable.
In writing, specific to the actual conflict identified, not a boilerplate waiver that doesn't describe what's actually being waived.
Consent to electronic communication and, where relevant, e-signature.
Confirms the client is comfortable receiving updates and documents electronically and sets expectations about response times up front.
A trust account or retainer acknowledgment, where a retainer is collected.
The client should leave intake with a clear, written understanding of what the retainer covers, how it will be drawn down, and when they'll be asked to replenish it.
File-opening housekeeping
The unglamorous last mile that determines whether the matter runs smoothly for the next year or generates avoidable fire drills.
Open the matter under a consistent naming and numbering convention.
Whatever the convention is, apply it identically every time. An inconsistent naming scheme is invisible on day one and expensive to untangle by matter fifty.
Calendar every deadline identified above in the firm's actual calendar system.
Not a sticky note, not a mental note: the calendar the whole firm checks, with enough lead time built in that a missed reminder isn't a missed deadline.
Assign staffing: responsible attorney, any supporting paralegal or associate.
Write it down on the file itself, not just in an email thread that will get buried within a week.
Send the client a written summary of next steps and expected timeline.
What happens next, roughly when, and how the client will hear from you. This single document prevents the majority of anxious mid-matter check-in calls.
Log the matter for conflict-checking purposes going forward.
Every party identified today needs to be checkable against every future matter's conflict search, not just today's. An intake that isn't logged for future conflict checks is a liability that surfaces months later, on someone else's file.
Questions about this checklist.
Who is this intake checklist for?
Solo attorneys and small-firm litigation practices who don't have a dedicated intake coordinator and need one reliable sequence to run every time a new matter comes in the door, regardless of practice area. It's deliberately generic to civil litigation rather than tied to one subspecialty, so it works as the base checklist a firm customizes per practice area rather than a template built for someone else's caseload.
Is this checklist actually free, or is it gated behind an email address?
It's fully on this page, no email required to read it. The optional form below lets you send yourself a copy to keep in your own notes or share with staff; it's there for convenience, not as a paywall.
What happens to my email address if I use the capture form?
Today, submitting the form logs an analytics event on this site and shows a confirmation; it does not yet send an automated email or add you to a mailing list, because that pipeline hasn't been built. If you want a copy sent to you directly in the meantime, email hello@raghavrhanda.com and we'll send one by hand.
Does this replace a jurisdiction-specific deadline calculation?
No. The checklist tells you which deadlines to identify and calendar on day one (statute of limitations, notice-of-claim windows, service deadlines); it does not calculate the actual date for your jurisdiction and claim type. Confirm every date against the applicable rule or statute before relying on it.
Why does the checklist mention MatterOS by name in a couple of places?
Because several items describe things MatterOS automates on intake (SOL calendaring off an incident date, conflict checks across parties, HIPAA-authorization tracking) and it would be misleading to describe the workflow without naming which parts are manual versus software-assisted. The checklist works identically as a manual, paper-and-spreadsheet process if you don't use MatterOS.
Several of these steps run themselves once the matter is open in MatterOS.
Conflict checks run automatically against every party already on file. Statutes of limitations and notice-of-claim windows calendar off the incident date the day the matter opens. HIPAA and records authorizations sit on the matter as blocking, opening-day checklist items instead of a memory test for whoever handled intake. None of that requires this checklist to be followed inside MatterOS specifically; it works identically as a manual process, on paper, at a firm running nothing but a calendar and a shared drive.