Intake Specialist
Intake specialists are responsible for managing the processes of onboarding and evaluating incoming streams of claims. They also coordinate screening surveys, collect paperwork, and may work with marketing to provide support on outbound lead generation initiatives.
An intake specialist has to request all the relevant information about the potential client and the accident, and once he has all the details he has to set up a consultation with an attorney that will decide if the firm will take the case or not. If the attorney decides to take the case, the intake specialist has to proceed with the client sign-up and gather all the information that the client currently has to support their case, he also has to go through the legal representation documents and have the client sign the retainer agreement.
Multiple variables play a role in the workload that an intake specialist will have to handle, such as the marketing strategy of the firm, the complexity of the cases he gets, and the number of inbound calls per day. One day the intake specialist can receive four inbound calls for simple cases, and be able to present the information to the attorney on that same day, but maybe another day he gets only one call, but it is regarding an accident that involves 5 plaintiffs, 3 defendants, 6 vehicles, and 8 witnesses, that type of complex cases will necessarily require more time from him to organize the information.
Desired skills and experience
Excellent grammatical skills
Methodical and detail-oriented
Empathetic, good listener, and able to work well with others in stressful situations.
Confident enough to ask clarifying questions and lead the conversation
Importance of the role
From all the persons that call to the firm asking for assistance, just a small percentage ends up actually signing a retainer. That means that an attorney can spend many hours interviewing a potential client and collecting his information just to find out about a detail that compromises the whole case, and that will prevent him from taking it. The intake specialist’s end goal is to present the client’s information in a clear and organized way to the attorney, so he can assess the case in a few minutes not hours.