Law Firm CRM: From Client Intake to Retained to Closed Matters

A law firm CRM manages the part of the practice that happens before and around the legal work: inquiries, consultations, conflict checks, engagement letters and keeping in touch after a matter closes. Your practice management or case management software handles the matter itself. The CRM makes sure the right people become clients in the first place.

For a solo attorney or a small firm, intake is where most opportunities slip. A potential client calls on a Tuesday, leaves a message, gets a callback on Thursday, and has already hired someone else. A clear intake pipeline, a few automations and engagement letters signed online fix most of that.

Here's how to set it up from first inquiry to closed matter.

What a law firm CRM does

Think of the CRM as the front office. It's built for relationships, not for billing hours or managing documents in a matter.

• Every inquiry becomes a record, whether it came from your website, an email or a referral call.
• Each potential client has a stage, so you know who's waiting on a consult, a conflict check or a signature.
• Follow-up has an owner, with a due date, instead of living in someone's memory.
• Referral sources are tracked, so you know which other attorneys, past clients and marketing actually send you work.

Your matter files, time entries and trust accounting stay in the systems built for them.

Mapping intake to retained to closed

Start with the stages a matter actually moves through. A simple version for most small firms:

Rename these to match your practice. A family law firm might add "Waiting on documents." An estate planning practice might have "Draft review" and "Signing meeting." Clients and matters are the right words here, not leads and deals.

Put a value on each card if your fee structure allows it, like a flat fee or an estimated retainer. Then you can see what's sitting in "Engagement letter sent" at any given moment.

Conflict checks as a manual step

A CRM can't decide whether you have a conflict. That judgment belongs to the attorney, using whatever conflict-checking process your firm already relies on. What a CRM can do is make sure the step is never skipped.

Set it up like this:

1. When a consultation is booked, create a task: "Run conflict check for [name]," assigned to the responsible attorney or paralegal, due before the consult.
2. Search the CRM itself for the client and the opposing party's name, along with your firm's own conflict records.
3. Record the result as a note on the contact, with the date and who ran it.
4. Move the card forward only once the check is cleared.

Keeping opposing parties and related people as contacts, tagged clearly, makes later searches faster and more complete.

Client intake that doesn't stall

The fastest firm to respond often gets the client. You don't need someone at the desk at midnight to be fast.

An intake automation

1. When the website form is submitted
2. Then tag the contact with the practice area (estate-planning, family, business)
3. Then send an email thanking them and linking to your consultation booking page
4. Then create a task for intake to call within one business day

If they book online, the consultation lands on the calendar and the card moves to "Consultation scheduled." If they don't book within a few days, a follow-up task reminds intake to try again.

Keep email on the record

Potential clients often email whoever they met first. If those emails sit in one attorney's inbox, nobody else can see the history. Connecting your firm's Microsoft 365 or Gmail mailbox to the CRM files each conversation to the client's record. For more on keeping a team's email organized, see shared inbox for small business.

Engagement letters signed online

Waiting for a printed engagement letter to come back by mail costs days. Sending it for e-signature can get it back the same day.

A good process:

1. Use a template with merge fields for the client's name, matter description and fee terms.
2. Send it from the client's record so the signed copy is filed in the right place.
3. Each signer gets a private link and agrees to sign electronically before typing or drawing a signature.
4. Track it. You see when it's opened, viewed and signed, and can follow up if it stalls.
5. Everyone gets the signed copy, along with a certificate showing who signed, when and from where.

In the US, the ESIGN Act (2000) and UETA give electronic signatures legal effect for most business documents, including engagement letters. There are exceptions, such as wills and certain family-law and court documents. For anything high-stakes or unusual, check the specific rules that apply with a lawyer who handles them. For the step-by-step, see how to get a document signed electronically.

After the matter closes

Closed doesn't mean done. Past clients are a major source of repeat work and referrals.

• Tag closed clients by matter type so you can reach out when something relevant changes, like an estate plan that's five years old.
• Send a thank-you email when the matter closes, with an easy way to leave feedback.
• Track who referred them, and thank the referrer.
• Report on sources each quarter to see which relationships send the most work.

How Everything Portal handles this

Everything Portal's Legal industry setup starts you with clients and matters, a pipeline you can rename to fit your intake stages, and fields you can add for practice area or opposing party. Website forms create contacts directly, booking pages handle consultations, and automations can tag, email, assign or create a task, including the conflict-check task. Your Microsoft 365, Outlook, Gmail or Google Workspace mailbox connects so email is threaded on each client's record.

Engagement letters go out from templates with merge fields. Each signer gets a private link, and everyone receives the signed copy with a signing certificate (who, when, IP, city, device) and a SHA-256 fingerprint that shows nothing changed. Invoices can be sent by email or private link with partial payments and reminders; online card payments aren't available yet and are on the roadmap. Want to see it with your stages? Contact us.

Frequently asked questions