Guide

Intake training for managing partners

You do not need to run the intake desk. You do need to know what happens on the first call, because that is where the firm's marketing spend meets a person.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026 · By Dr. Jeffrey Scott Stanton, DCH

What is at stake

Marketing brings in the contact. Intake decides whether it becomes a consultation. A partner who sees only the number of leads and the number of signed clients is missing the stage between them, and that is where the cause of most plateaus sits. See the intake ceiling.

Five questions to ask your intake lead

What share of qualified contacts book a consultation, by person and by source?
How fast do we return a web form or a missed call?
What do we say when someone asks what it costs?
What happens to a caller who does not book?
When did someone last listen to a full call and score it?

If answers are vague, that is information. See 12 signs your desk has hit a ceiling.

What to decide yourself

The consultation fee and the fee wording for each fee model.
The hand-off line and the list of questions that always go to the attorney. See the line between intake and the attorney.
The recording and communication policy.
Who owns the intake scorecard and the weekly review.

These are the decisions that cannot be delegated without risk.

What to delegate

Weekly scoring and coaching to an intake manager or an outside reviewer.
Follow-up cadence and logging to the desk.
Scripts and wording drafts, with the attorney reviewing every line.

See how to coach a law firm intake team.

A reasonable first step

Send a handful of recent calls for a scored review before changing anything. You see where the calls lose the caller and which person needs what. See what the audit includes.

Keep reading

Scope, plainly: everything on this site concerns the conversation that turns an inquiry into an engagement. Nothing here is legal advice, nothing touches the legal work or the attorney's judgment, and any wording a firm adopts is reviewed by the firm against its jurisdiction's rules on attorney advertising, solicitation and fee communication before it is used.

About the Author

Dr. Jeffrey Scott Stanton, DCH is a behavioral strategist and the founder and Chief Learning Officer of R2R Diagnostic Group. He is the former EVP of Learning & Development at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, where he trained sales professionals on the conversations that turn an inquiry into a commitment. He applies the same method, the R2R Assessment and a 14-item call-review scorecard, to law firm intake teams. The work is the conversation only; legal questions and judgment stay with the attorney.

The method, the scripts and the scorecard are on how it works, the script template and the scorecard guide.

Start With the Calls

Want this scored on your own calls?

Send a handful of recordings or transcripts. You get a scored review by person, and the one moment to fix first.

Start With the Audit or book a conversation