Client Intake Automation From enquiry to conflict check to engagement letter, without re-keying
A new enquiry is classified, conflict-checked and acknowledged the same day, with the engagement letter drafted for your approval.
- Installed for you · one-time$249
- Run for you$247/month
- Custom build · this process$3,500–6,000 one-time
- Starts whenNew enquiry (email, web form, phone note)
Per firm, one intake inbox, one matter system, up to 300 enquiries a month. Several practice areas with different intake rules, a client portal, or a matter system without an API are a custom build. Custom builds start at $2,000 site-wide; this band is for this process and its integrations.
Client Intake Automation is an automation Agentmelt installs in your own tools. The free template is a file you import yourself; the kit ($49) adds the setup guide and prompts. Installed for you costs $249 one-time and is live within two working days of access, with a recorded walkthrough and 30 days of fixes. Run for you costs $247/month, with setup and maintenance included. A custom build of this process is $3,500–6,000 one-time; custom builds start at $2,000 site-wide. No call is needed for any option. Written by Max Zeshut; last revised 2026-09-21.
Reference stack: Claude + n8n. Node names are on each step; the file is under the template.
Founder at Agentmelt
Reviews every build before it goes live; the workflow escalates to a person, never past one.
What is client intake?
Client intake automation takes the new enquiry — email, form, a phone note — and carries it to an opened matter without re-keying: the enquiry is classified by matter type, the parties, dates and facts a conflict check needs are extracted, the check runs against the client and adverse-party lists, the acknowledgement goes out the same hour, the engagement letter or the next document is drafted from the practice’s template, a person approves, and the matter is opened in the practice management system with everything attached. Built for law firms first; accountants, consultancies and agencies with an intake-and-conflicts process use the same workflow. The AI reads and drafts; the conflict decision and the engagement stay with the partner.
- Enquiries are typed into the matter system by hand, days later.
- The conflict check happens after the first call, sometimes after the work started.
- Prospective clients wait a day for an acknowledgement and go elsewhere.
- Engagement letters are drafted from the last one with the wrong client’s name left in once.
- Nobody can say how many enquiries came in last month, or where from.
If two of these are yours, this is the process to look at first. Free audit — or read on.
What it looks like once it runs.
New enquiries arrive by email, form and phone note, and each one is typed into the matter system, conflict-checked by hand and answered whenever someone gets to it. The workflow classifies each enquiry by matter type, extracts the parties, dates and facts a conflict check needs, checks them against the existing client and adverse-party lists, drafts the engagement letter or the polite decline from the firm's templates, and puts the whole file in front of the responsible person for approval. Nothing is sent unreviewed; everything arrives ready to review.
- 9:20 An enquiry arrives by email. The matter type and urgency are classified; the parties are extracted.
- 9:22 The conflict check runs against your client, former-client and adverse-party lists.
- 9:25 The enquirer gets an acknowledgement from the firm: received, who will respond, by when.
- 9:30 The engagement letter is drafted from your template with fees from the schedule; you approve, edit or decline from your phone.
- On approval The matter is opened in your practice system with the parties and documents; the letter goes out.
Intake is the least billable hour in the firm and the one that decides whether the client comes. Enquiries wait a day for a reply, conflict checks are a spreadsheet search, and the engagement letter is copied from the last one and edited under time pressure.
Every enquiry is acknowledged within minutes, classified and conflict-checked within the hour, and the engagement letter is a tap away for the person who owns the matter. The firm answers in the same day it is asked, every time.
Trigger, then 8 steps.
Seven of the eight steps run without anyone. Step 07 waits for a person.
New enquiry (email, web form, phone note)
Receive the enquiry
Email body and attachments, form fields, or the phone note; sender details and the time received.
Classify the matter
Matter type from the firm's own taxonomy (employment, commercial, family, conveyancing…), urgency, and whether it is within the firm's practice at all.
Extract the conflict-check facts
Names of parties and related entities, addresses, dates, the other side's counsel if named — structured, with the source sentence for each.
Run the conflict check
Parties checked against the client list, former-client list and adverse-party list in the matter system, with fuzzy matching on names and companies; hits are listed with the matter they came from.
Acknowledge
A same-day acknowledgement to the enquirer from the firm's address: received, who will respond, by when. No advice, no fee quote.
Draft the next document
Engagement letter from the firm's template for that matter type with fees from the schedule, or a decline where the matter is out of scope or conflicted — variables highlighted.
Approve
The responsible person sees the classification, the conflict result, the extracted facts and the draft; approve, edit, reassign or decline.
Open the matter
On approval: the matter is created in the practice-management system with the parties and documents, the letter is sent for signature, and the intake is closed.
Every enquiry is acknowledged within minutes, classified and conflict-checked within the hour, and the engagement letter is a tap away for the person who owns the matter
Every enquiry is acknowledged within minutes, classified and conflict-checked within the hour, and the engagement letter is a tap away for the person who owns the matter.
One decision, at step 07. Seven steps ran without you.
Each pattern page explains it in plain words and lists every automation that uses it.
The template is built on n8n (how the n8n AI Agent node works); the same steps run on Make, Zapier or plain code. The tool is chosen to fit your accounts, you own the result, and the template comes in all three formats.
Data it touches
- Intake inbox and web form
- Matter system (Clio, PracticePanther, a spreadsheet)
- Client, former-client and adverse-party lists
- Engagement letter templates and fee schedule
- Firm matter taxonomy
Guardrails
- Nothing is sent to an enquirer except the acknowledgement until a person approves; no advice or fee is ever quoted automatically.
- Conflict results are shown with their evidence; a hit blocks the engagement letter until a person clears it.
- Enquiry content is processed through an API with no data retention and stored only in the firm's own systems.
- Out-of-scope or conflicted matters get a courteous decline drafted for approval, never an automatic one.
- Every intake keeps an audit line: received, classified, checked, approved by whom, when.
The conflict check is the step that cannot be sloppy
A missed conflict is a professional problem, not an efficiency problem. The workflow does the tedious part — extracting every party from the enquiry, including the ones mentioned in passing, and checking them with fuzzy matching against every list the firm keeps — and presents hits with the evidence. A person still decides. What changes is that the check happens on every enquiry, within the hour, with nothing skipped because the day was busy.
Same-day acknowledgement wins the client
Enquirers contact three firms. The one that replies first, even just to say who will call and when, is usually the one they hire. The acknowledgement goes out in minutes and commits to nothing beyond a name and a time; it is the cheapest thing in the workflow and the one most firms cannot do consistently by hand.
Engagement letters from the template, not from the last one
Copying the previous letter carries the previous client's fee, scope and name. Drafting from the template for the matter type, with the fee schedule applied and every variable highlighted, produces a letter that needs a read, not a rewrite — and one that is the same across the firm.
What it connects to.
| Tool | Role in this workflow |
|---|---|
| n8n | Intake, conflict check, approvals, matter creation |
| Claude | Classification, fact extraction, letter drafting |
| Clio / PracticePanther | Matter system, client lists, documents |
| Gmail / Outlook | Intake inbox and acknowledgements |
| DocuSign / PandaDoc | Engagement letter signature |
Want this running without building it?
$247/month
We set it up in your tools, run it on our servershost it on our n8n cloud (or deploy it to your own n8n, Make or Zapier), watch it, and fix it when something changes. Setup included, cancel monthly; the automation stays yours if you leave.
$3,500–6,000 one-time
Your systems, your rules, your edge cases. A one-off build delivered into your accounts to keepon Claude and n8n, delivered into your accounts to keep, with documentation and a recorded walkthrough.
Per firm, one intake inbox, one matter system, up to 300 enquiries a month. Several practice areas with different intake rules, a client portal, or a matter system without an API are a custom build.
Also sold one-time, installed in your own accounts, as part of the legal professionals package and the healthcare providers package and the freelancers package — do it yourself $49 · installed for you $249 · done for you $490.
When this becomes a custom build.
The subscription covers the standard version — $247/month, setup and maintenance included. Three things move it to a custom build ($3,500–6,000 one-time), delivered into your accounts to keep. If one of them is you, say so on the audit and the plan prices both.
Several practice areas with their own intake rules, templates and approvers.
A client portal for intake and document collection, rather than email and forms.
A matter system without an API, or conflict data spread across several systems.
Running the standard version first is the usual path: the exceptions it logs in the first month are the scope of the custom build, with your own numbers. How custom builds work.
Frequently asked questions.
Is this only for law firms?
It is written for them, but accountancy, architecture and consulting intake have the same shape: classify, check for conflicts, acknowledge, draft the engagement. The lists and templates change; the workflow does not.
Where does the enquiry data go?
Into your own inbox and matter system, nowhere else. Model calls use an API with no data retention, and the workflow keeps no copies.
Can it quote fees?
It fills the fee schedule into the letter for a person to approve. It never quotes to an enquirer on its own.
Is client intake automation only for law firms?
It was built for them — the conflict check is the distinctive step — and it fits any practice that qualifies, checks and engages: accountants, consultancies, agencies, architects. Practices without a conflict step skip it; the classification, acknowledgement and engagement drafting are the same.
Where does the enquiry data go?
Into the practice’s own systems — the practice management or CRM tool, the document store, the email — and nowhere else. The model reads the enquiry text to classify and extract, under a data-processing agreement, and stores nothing. A client portal for intake and document collection is a custom build.
Can it quote fees?
When fees are rules — fixed fees by matter type, rate cards, retainers — the engagement letter carries the figure and the workflow shows the rule. Fees that depend on judgement are left blank for the partner with the inputs assembled.
What this blueprint is built on.
Vendor documentation the steps rely on, and the rules the guardrails are written against.
- ABA — Model Rule 1.7: Conflict of interest, current clients www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_1_7_conflict_of_interest_current_clients/
- Clio — API documentation docs.developers.clio.com/
- n8n docs — Wait node (approval steps) docs.n8n.io/integrations/builtin/core-nodes/n8n-nodes-base.wait/