Take in an enquiry

An enquiry is not a matter

When somebody calls, writes or walks in, take it in as an enquiry. It gets its own number, for example ENQ-2026-00012, and nothing is added to the parties register until the firm decides to act, or until you link the enquiry to a party already there. A firm that does not run intake can still record a matter directly.

Take one in

Open Intake and choose New enquiry.

• Who: a new prospect with a name and at least a phone or an email, or a party already on the register. As you type, parties and open enquiries that share the name, phone or email are offered. Choose Use this party to take the enquiry in against that party, or carry on; nothing is merged.
• Someone contacts the firm for them: turn it on when a relative, a company secretary or anybody else speaks for the prospect.
• What they want: the summary is required. Add the practice area, the kind of matter, the urgency, the court and suit number, the next court date and the limitation date where known.
• How it reached the firm: the channel, how they found the firm (the same list of referral sources a matter uses) and who referred them.
• Who has it: left empty, the firm's assignment rules choose the owner.
• Named for the conflict check: the other side, related companies, directors, family and witnesses.

The enquiry goes on its practice area's pipeline, or the firm's default, at the first stage. The clock for the first response starts when it was received.

The register and the board

Intake, Enquiries lists every enquiry you may see, open or closed. Search by number, name, email, phone or summary, and narrow by pipeline, stage, owner, practice area, channel, urgency, outcome or Overdue.

Intake, Board shows one pipeline's open enquiries by stage. Drag a card to another stage, or use its menu. Moving back a stage asks why.

Move it on

Each stage has gates: owner assigned, lawyer assigned, prospect contacted, practice area set and conflict cleared. Moving to a stage needs every gate of every stage up to it, so skipping a stage never skips its gate. Move on the enquiry shows what still has to hold before you send it; if a gate is not met the move is refused and says which.

Log a call or note keeps calls, emails, SMS, WhatsApp messages, meetings and notes on the Timeline. The first outbound call, message or meeting counts as the first response. You can delete an entry you logged on the same day, with a reason.

Clear the conflict

On Parties and conflicts, name everybody the check must ask about and choose Run a check. The compliance function decides it on the check's page. The enquiry reads the latest decision:

• Cleared: the conflict gate holds.
• New names unchecked: somebody was named after the clearance; run another check.
• Conflict found: the enquiry cannot move. Close it with the outcome Conflict.

Close and reopen

Close enquiry asks for the outcome, one of the firm's reasons for it and a note. Referred elsewhere names who the prospect was sent to; Duplicate names the enquiry it repeats. A closed enquiry is read-only. Reopen is offered within the firm's reopening window and returns it to the stage it closed in; one closed for a conflict reopens only for somebody who decides conflicts.

History keeps every change from the audit trail.