Legal Client Intake Consultation: A Checklist to Keep in View
Updated 2026-11-01 · 3 min read
This rail is for a lawyer's first consultation with a possible client over video. People often tell the story out of order when they're stressed, and you need the same facts from every intake anyway. With the checklist on cards, you can look at the person instead of a form.
It's a starting checklist for your own process. Your firm's intake rules and your jurisdiction come first, so change any card that doesn't fit them.
The rail
Before the facts
- Names of every party, the other side too, for conflicts
- Not your lawyer until an engagement letter is signed: [firm's wording]
- What's confidential at this stage: [firm's wording]
- Our time: [30] minutes, then next steps
What happened
- Tell me what happened, from the start
- When did it start, and is it still going on?
- Who else knows about this?
Deadlines
- Any letters, court papers or dates you've been given?
- Time limits to check: [limitation period or filing deadline]
Documents
- Contracts, emails, letters, photos or receipts
- What you have, and what someone else has
- How to send them: [secure upload or address]
What they want
- What outcome would feel like a win to you?
- What matters most here: money, speed or privacy?
- What worries you most about this?
What we can do
- General options for now: [option one], [option two]
- What I can't promise yet, and why
- What I'd need to know to say more
Fees
- How we bill: [hourly, flat or contingency]
- Retainer: [amount], due [when]
- Rough range for a matter like this: [range]
Next steps
- Engagement letter by [day], if they want to go ahead
- What they send us, and by when
- What we do first once it's signed
- If we don't take it: non-engagement letter by [day]
How to use this rail
- Copy the rail. Press Copy this rail. It copies every card as text, with a heading on each one.
- Paste it into a new note in GlideRail. GlideRail spots the headings and offers to split the text. Press Split into sections: the rail's name at the top becomes the note's name, and each card heading becomes its own card.
- Fill in the brackets. Use your firm's own wording for engagement, confidentiality and fees, and the time limits that matter in your practice area.
- Open Cue Mode. Put the window near your camera, then move between cards with ⌘[ and ⌘] (they work from any app while Cue Mode is open) or a two-finger swipe.
- Turn on Live Rail, if you like. On an Apple Silicon Mac it listens to the call and offers the card whose heading matches what was just said, so a question about fees can bring up that card. One click opens it, and it never changes cards on its own. It listens on your Mac, and no audio is saved or sent.
If you share a document on screen, turn on Invisible first (Pro), and the share leaves the cards out. On Zoom, first set Settings, Share Screen, Advanced, Screen capture mode to "Advanced capture with window filtering" (the Zoom guide shows it). Cue Mode and Live Rail are Pro too, and every download comes with 7 days of Pro, free, with no card needed.
Make it yours
Make one copy per practice area, since the facts you need for a contract dispute aren't the ones you need for a family matter. Keep the conflict check on the first card so it never gets skipped. Filled-in rails stay on your Mac, since GlideRail has no account and no cloud sync.