Matter Intake

A matter intake belongs to an opportunity and a firm organization. The Relationship Owner can draft the request with a practice area, intake date, estimated fee and named conflict reviewer. Submission changes the request from Draft to Submitted. The named reviewer considers the submitted request. The intake records Approved or Rejected, and an accepted request may later be Completed. The intake stays linked to the opportunity that brought the work to the firm.

The intake status answers a different question from the opportunity status. A Won opportunity records a pipeline outcome; an Approved intake records an acceptance decision. The reviewer name on the intake helps the team route the request, while the parent link keeps its context available.

• Prepare. Relationship Owner establishes the record and checks the links to the relevant firm, person or opportunity.
• Work. The assigned team member records the event or decision where it belongs, using the available status, date and evidence fields.
• Review. Sales Manager and Auditor inspect the record in context, including the parent opportunity and any earlier decision or exception.

The team should use one parent opportunity for one prospective engagement. Related activities, intake requests, review decisions, attachments and operation receipts refer to that parent. This makes a later handoff easier to follow: the recipient can open the opportunity and then inspect the specific record that explains the next action.

Agree who is named as conflict reviewer, what information is needed before submission, and who records the final intake state. Pick a real prospective engagement for the first rehearsal. Decide who may make routine corrections, who records a review result and how the team handles a returned or rejected item. Keep those decisions in the operating procedure so an owner does not have to infer them from a status label.

Also decide how the team names records and documents. A short, descriptive subject or title should identify the matter without relying on a private message thread. Confirm which organization the record belongs to before the first import, then test access with the same user accounts the team will use in daily work.

The owner creates an opportunity for a potential employment matter, then drafts the intake with its practice area and estimated fee. The named conflict reviewer checks the submitted request and records the decision. If it is rejected, the owner can still see the associated prospect conversation while keeping the rejected intake outcome intact. If approved, the team can mark the request completed after acceptance work is finished.

Ask the receiving teammate to find the current state from the record itself. They should be able to identify the owner, the next decision and the history behind it. If an attachment, intake or receipt changes the interpretation, open that child record rather than summarizing it from memory. This rehearsal exposes ambiguous ownership and missing operating conventions before the team expands to more matters.

• Submitted matter intakes — Requests awaiting a decision, with practice area, reviewer name and parent opportunity.
• Matter intake workboard — Follow draft, submitted and decided requests by status.

Start with Review and Evidence, then use the engagement process to rehearse intake and review. The data model shows the exact record links, and roles identifies the team members who work at each step.