Last month I sat in on intake at a nine-person legal consultancy. They had a perfectly reasonable client intake sheet — two pages, clear fields, a place for the responsible lawyer’s initials. Nobody used the initials column.
The front desk filled forms completely. Files reached the partner’s desk. The partner opened the contract directly, skipped the intake sheet, and occasionally sent the file back because a conflict check box was empty. Front desk staff learned the sheet was optional in practice.
This pattern repeats across offices we visit. The fix is rarely a better form. It is aligning the review step:
- Name the review moment. Partners must know that opening a file without checking the intake sheet is the same as skipping a stamp.
- Make the sheet visible. Clip it to the outside of the folder, not buried inside.
- Track one metric for a month. Count returns from partner desk for missing intake items. One office saw returns drop from eleven to three after the partner started initialing the sheet before opening the contract.
Intake sheets fail when the person with authority to reject work does not participate in the habit. Change the review behaviour first; revise the form second.