Criminal Defense Intake Checklist: from the arrest call to a retained client

A criminal defense intake checklist: what to collect from a family member's call, when to transfer to counsel, when follow-up stops, and how to track matters.

Criminal defense intake has almost no time to work with. The call usually comes at night or over a weekend, the caller is often a family member rather than the person charged, and the decision to hire is made within hours. This checklist covers what decides whether that call becomes a retained client: the information to collect, the moment a person should take over, how follow-up works when hiring is so fast, and the status tracking that shows what happened to every call.

1. What a complete criminal defense inquiry looks like

A complete inquiry gives an attorney enough to act without calling back to ask basic questions. It does not include what happened. The facts of the case belong in a privileged conversation with a lawyer, not on an intake line, and a good intake script says so plainly.

• Who is calling and their relationship to the person charged: self, spouse, parent, friend
• The full name of the person charged, and the caller's own name and best number
• Custody status: in custody, released, or not yet arrested, and the holding facility if known
• The charge as the caller understands it, without asking for the facts behind it
• Jurisdiction: county and state, and the court if known
• Any hearing or court date the caller has been told about
• Names of co-defendants or alleged victims for the conflict check, collected before anything is scheduled
• Language preference, so a Spanish-speaking family member isn't lost on the first call
• Where the call came from: search, ads, referral, or a returning client

2. When a person takes over from automation

Automation answers every call and collects the basics consistently. People make the judgment calls. In criminal defense the transfer rules matter more than anywhere else, so write them down with your attorneys, decide who is on call each night, and test the hard calls before going live: panicked parents, calls from a jail phone, callers who keep trying to explain what happened.

• The person charged is in custody, or a hearing is close: warm transfer to the on-call attorney
• The caller reports danger or an active emergency: immediate transfer, every time
• The caller asks for a specific attorney: transfer, or a booked callback if they're unavailable
• The caller asks what to do, whether to talk to police, or how a charge works: declined as legal advice and routed to an attorney
• The matter is outside your practice or your area: a staff member sends a referral, not a booking link

If the on-call attorney can't pick up, the caller should hear exactly what happens next and get a text confirming it. A caller left wondering whether anyone heard them will call the next firm.

3. When follow-up should stop

Criminal defense doesn't have the months-long decision cycle of other practice areas. Follow-up is short and fast: a confirmation text right after the call, an attorney callback as soon as the on-call rules allow, then a few attempts over the next day or two. The Convert Engine page shows a full sequence. It should stop when:

• The caller or the person charged replies, and a staff member takes over the conversation
• A consultation is booked, or the attorney has already spoken with them
• The caller texts STOP or asks not to be contacted
• Staff mark the matter as retained elsewhere, outside your practice, or closed

Messages should say as little as possible about the matter. Assume a text may be read by someone other than the person you meant it for, and keep the details for the conversation with the attorney.

4. How to track each matter's status

Every call should move through the same named stages on one record, with the time each change happened. Without that, a firm can't say how many arrest calls it received last month, let alone how many it lost.

1. 01New: the call or inquiry arrived. Record the time, the source, and whether it was answered live.
2. 02Contacted: a real two-way conversation happened. For calls answered at 2am, that is the first minute.
3. 03Screened: custody status, charge, jurisdiction, and conflict-check names are in.
4. 04Escalated or Booked: transferred to on-call counsel, or a consultation is on the calendar.
5. 05Consulted: an attorney spoke with the client or family.
6. 06Retained or Not retained: the outcome, with a reason when it's not retained.

Once these stages exist, the marketing becomes measurable too. You can see which searches and ads produced retained clients, which is especially important for expensive urgent keywords like those in DUI defense. For the wider picture of how this applies to a defense practice, see criminal defense intake and marketing.

The checklist

1. 01Every call is answered live, nights, weekends, and holidays included
2. 02Intake works for a third-party caller who doesn't have all the details
3. 03Callers are asked not to describe the facts of the case on the intake line
4. 04Custody status and any hearing date are captured on the first call
5. 05Conflict-check names are collected before anything is scheduled
6. 06Transfer rules to on-call counsel are written down, tested, and known by everyone
7. 07A caller who can't be transferred hears what happens next and gets a text confirming it
8. 08Spanish-speaking callers can complete intake where your market needs it
9. 09Every matter moves through the same named stages on one record
10. 10Someone reviews answer rate, transfer outcomes, and retained rate every month