Attorney Intake Form Templates: What to Ask for Every Practice Area

A good intake form does two things: it captures the information you need to run a conflict check and prepare for the consultation, and it signals to the client that you run a professional operation.

A bad one loses clients at the exact moment they're ready to hire you.

Most attorney intake forms err in one of two directions. They're either too short — a name and phone number with no context, which tells you nothing and forces a cold call — or too long, with 25 fields covering every detail of the matter before the client has even confirmed they want to talk to you. Long forms get abandoned. Short forms waste everyone's time.

The goal is a form that's precise: enough to qualify the lead, run the conflict check, and prepare for the first conversation — nothing more.

This guide covers the universal fields every attorney intake form should include, followed by practice-area-specific questions for the five most common solo firm practice areas.

What to Include in Every Attorney Intake Form (Universal Fields)

Regardless of practice area, every intake form should capture the same core set of information. These fields serve specific functions — they're not there because it seems like good information to have.

Contact information:

• Full legal name (required for conflict check — this needs to be their legal name, not a nickname)
• Primary phone number
• Email address
• Preferred contact method (phone call, email, text) and best time to contact

Matter information:

• Practice area or type of legal issue (dropdown mapping to your specific areas)
• Brief description in the client's own words (text area — 200-500 character limit is appropriate)
• Location of incident or issue, if applicable (city and state at minimum — for jurisdiction confirmation)
• Opposing party name, if applicable (critical for conflict checking — even "my employer" or "my ex-husband" is useful)

Source tracking:

• How did you hear about us? (dropdown: Google search, referral from [name], social media, legal directory, other)

This field is easy to skip and almost universally skipped by solo attorneys. Don't skip it. It's the only way to know which marketing channels are actually sending you clients.

Authorization:

• Electronic acknowledgment that submission of the form does not create an attorney-client relationship and is not legal advice

This one line protects you. Include it on every form, before the submission button.

Family Law Intake Form — Fields to Include

Family law clients are often in emotional distress when they reach out. They may be calling from their car, from a bathroom, from somewhere they need privacy. Your intake form needs to be completable quickly, on a phone, with one hand.

Beyond the universal fields, include:

• Client's date of birth
• Spouse or partner's full name and date of birth (for conflict check)
• Type of matter: divorce, legal separation, child custody, child support, modification of existing order, protective order, other
• Are children involved? If yes: names and ages
• If children are involved: current custody or living arrangement (who are they living with now?)
• Date of marriage (if applicable)
• State where married, state of current residence (both, if different — jurisdiction matters)
• Are the parties currently separated or still living together?
• Are there prior court orders or pending cases related to this matter?
• Assets likely to be at issue (checkboxes — home/real estate, business interest, retirement accounts, other significant assets): yes/no on each, not dollar amounts

What to avoid: Asking clients to describe the conduct that led to the divorce in detail, asking them to assign fault, or asking anything that requires legal analysis. "Who is responsible for the breakdown of the marriage?" is not an intake question.

Criminal Defense Intake Form — Fields to Include

Criminal defense intake operates differently from every other practice area. Timing is often urgent. The client may be calling from jail, from a friend's phone, from the steps of the courthouse. The form needs to be fast, and your follow-up process needs to reflect the urgency of the situation.

Beyond the universal fields, include:

• Client's date of birth (required for criminal records lookup and court identification)
• Charge or charges, if known — or a general description if charges haven't been filed yet
• Jurisdiction: city, county, state, and federal court if applicable
• Has an arrest occurred? (yes/no)
• If charged: next court date (date and court location) — flag this field as urgent
• Current status: in custody, released on bail, released on own recognizance, not yet arrested
• If in custody: bail amount set, if known
• Prior criminal history: yes/no (details in consultation — you don't need specifics on the form)
• Has the client spoken to law enforcement without an attorney present? (yes/no)

Personal Injury Intake Form — Fields to Include

Personal injury intake serves a dual purpose: gathering facts and beginning a preliminary assessment of case viability. You need to know enough to determine whether the matter is worth taking before you invest time in a consultation.

Beyond the universal fields, include:

• Client's date of birth
• Date of incident
• Location of incident (city and state, and specific location if relevant — intersection, business name, address)
• Type of incident: motor vehicle accident, slip and fall, premises liability, medical malpractice, product liability, other
• General description of injuries ("back and neck injuries" — not a detailed medical history)
• Has the client received medical treatment? If yes, from whom (hospital, doctor, urgent care)?
• Insurance: client's own insurance carrier (health, auto if applicable), opposing party's insurance carrier if known
• Has the client been contacted by any insurance adjuster? (yes/no — if yes, what happened?)
• Has the client spoken with or retained any other attorney about this matter? (yes/no)
• Referring attorney or firm name, if applicable

A note on statute of limitations: Personal injury statutes of limitations vary by state and claim type, and they're unforgiving. Your intake process — not just your form, but your entire workflow — should flag matters where the SOL may be approaching. This is a malpractice risk area.

Immigration Intake Form — Fields to Include

Immigration matters span an enormous range of complexity and urgency — from a routine naturalization to a deportation defense with a removal order. Your intake form needs to capture enough context to understand where on that spectrum this inquiry falls.

Beyond the universal fields, include:

• Full legal name as it appears on immigration documents
• Date of birth
• Country of birth
• Country of citizenship (may differ from country of birth)
• Current immigration status (undocumented, visa holder, lawful permanent resident, US citizen, other) and visa type if applicable
• Type of matter: green card application, citizenship/naturalization, deportation defense/removal proceedings, visa application or extension, asylum, DACA, family petition, work authorization, other
• Marital status: married, single, divorced, widowed
• If married: is spouse a US citizen or lawful permanent resident?
• Prior immigration filings or proceedings: yes/no (details in consultation)
• Any criminal history, including arrests with no conviction: yes/no
• Current employer and work authorization status, if relevant

Urgency flag: Immigration matters with active removal proceedings, imminent hearings, or expiring statuses require same-day response. Build this into your intake workflow.

Estate Planning Intake Form — Fields to Include

Estate planning intake is typically lower urgency than criminal defense or immigration, but the clients often have significant complexity in their situations — blended families, business interests, prior marriages, disabled beneficiaries — that affects which documents they need and how long the engagement will take.

Beyond the universal fields, include:

• Client's full legal name and date of birth
• Spouse or partner's full legal name and date of birth, if applicable
• Documents needed (checkboxes): will, revocable living trust, durable power of attorney, healthcare directive/living will, HIPAA authorization, all of the above, not sure — help me figure out what I need
• Do you have existing estate planning documents? (yes/no — if yes, bring to the consultation)
• Approximate estate value range (brackets: under $500K, $500K-$1M, $1M-$5M, over $5M — helps assess complexity and appropriate document structure)
• Minor children? (yes/no — if yes, names and ages)
• Beneficiaries: who do you intend to leave your estate to? (general — "my two adult children and my spouse")
• Special circumstances (checkboxes): disabled or special needs beneficiary, business ownership, blended family or prior marriage, charitable giving, significant real estate holdings, none of the above

What to skip on the initial form: Detailed asset lists, account numbers, property descriptions. These belong in the pre-consultation questionnaire or the consultation itself, not the initial intake.

Online vs. Paper Forms — The Case for Going Digital

Paper intake forms are still common in law firm waiting rooms. Client arrives, staff hands them a clipboard, client fills it out, staff enters the data into the computer. This process has several failure modes:

• Client fills out illegibly — data entry errors occur
• Client leaves fields blank — no way to prompt for missing info
• Paper gets misplaced or misfiled
• Data entry takes staff time and introduces transcription errors
• Client can't complete the form before the appointment because they didn't have it in advance

Digital intake solves all of these. The client completes the form before they arrive — ideally the same day they submit an inquiry. Their responses populate directly into your system. Missing required fields prompt them before submission. Nothing gets lost. No data entry.

Mobile completion is real and it matters. A significant portion of your intake forms will be completed on a phone. Test your form on both iPhone and Android before publishing. Large tap targets, readable font size, minimal scrolling, and single-column layout on mobile aren't optional features — they're what determines whether the form gets completed or abandoned mid-way through.

Accessibility is a practical consideration as well. Digital forms can be displayed in different languages (or translated via browser), read aloud by screen readers, and resized by users who need larger text. Paper cannot.

Intake Form Best Practices

Length: Initial form, 8-10 fields maximum. Full pre-consultation questionnaire, 25 fields maximum. If you're asking more than 25 questions before the first conversation, you're doing the intake in the wrong place.

Confirmation email: Every form submission should trigger an automatic confirmation email to the client. "We received your inquiry. An attorney will be in touch within [your timeframe]." Without this, clients don't know if their form submitted successfully and will call to ask — or assume it didn't and move on.

Response time commitment: Pick a realistic SLA — "within 2 business hours" works for most solo practices — and include it in your confirmation email. Then honor it. Clients who receive an auto-confirmation with a specific timeframe will wait. Clients who hear nothing will not.

Privacy notice: Every intake form should include a brief statement that submission does not create an attorney-client relationship and does not constitute legal advice. This protects you and sets accurate expectations.

Mobile testing: Before your form goes live, complete it yourself on an iPhone and an Android device. Try to fill it out with one thumb. If you struggle, your clients will too.

Common Intake Form Mistakes

Asking for too much information upfront. The longer the form, the more abandonment. Every field you add costs you some percentage of completions. Each field needs to earn its place.

No confirmation email. The client submitted the form and heard nothing. They don't know if it went through. They call. Or they assume it didn't and move on to the next attorney. This is one of the easiest fixes in legal intake and one of the most commonly skipped.

Form that doesn't work on mobile. See above. Test it.

Asking for sensitive information without explaining why. If you need an opposing party's full name and date of birth, say why: "We use this to run a conflict check before we can proceed." Context reduces friction and makes clients more willing to provide the information you need.

No spam protection. An unprotected form will eventually be filled with spam submissions. Add a honeypot field (a hidden field that humans won't fill out but bots will) or a CAPTCHA. Most form platforms handle this automatically — make sure yours is configured.

Form that sends notifications to a general inbox nobody monitors. Your intake form notification email needs to go somewhere that gets checked and acted on. If it's going to a shared inbox that nobody owns, leads are dying in silence.

The intake form is often the first substantive interaction a prospect has with your firm. Before the consultation, before the phone call, before they've spoken to anyone — they filled out your form and either felt like they were dealing with a professional operation or they didn't.

Get the form right, and you've already started building the relationship. For a closer look at the broader intake process — response time, conflict checks, and how to move from inquiry to retained client — see Law Firm Client Intake: How to Stop Losing Leads Before They Become Clients.

For guidance on building the website that your intake form lives on, see How to Build a Law Firm Website.