Arriving at an attorney already organized
An intake decides in a few minutes whether to call you back. This is what it is looking for, what to bring, what to ask, and what hiring a lawyer does not make cheaper.
What an intake is doing
A firm screens on documents before it screens on merit
A firm working on a share of what is recovered is deciding whether a case can be run economically. That question is answered by what can be evidenced, how long it will take, and who can actually pay at the end of it. None of the three is about whether you were wronged.
So the first call is an inventory. A dispute with a complete file gets assessed on what happened. A dispute with a box of receipts gets assessed on how much work it would be to find out, and that work is the reason for most declines.1
Seven things
What the first call asks for
Who the other side is, exactly
The legal name of the business, not the name on the truck. A trading name, a license number and the entity that signed the contract are three different records, and which one is on the paperwork decides who can be pursued.
What you signed
The contract, with every amendment. An intake reads it for the arbitration clause, the notice requirements and the limitation of liability before it reads anything about the work.
What you paid, and how
Amounts, dates and method. How you paid matters as much as how much: some payment routes carry their own recovery mechanisms that close on their own schedules.
When it went wrong
The date the work was done, the date the problem appeared, and the date you first raised it. Every state limits how long after an event a claim can be brought, and these three dates are what that limit is measured from.
What you have already done
Letters sent, complaints filed, and the responses to each. An attorney needs to know what has been said in your name already, because they will be held to it.
What the loss is, in money
What it will cost to put right, evidenced by a quote or an estimate from somebody else. This is the number the whole engagement is sized against.
Whether anybody else is already involved
An insurer, a licensing board, another attorney, a small claims filing. Overlapping processes constrain each other, and a firm needs to know before it takes anything on.
The pack
The six parts of the pack
The one-page chronology, on top
Dates down the left, one line each, from signing to today. It is the only page most intakes will read in full, and it is what decides whether the rest gets read at all.
The agreement and its amendments
Contract, estimates, change orders. Behind the chronology because the chronology tells the reader what to look for in them.
The money
Invoices and proof of payment, in date order.
The evidence of the failure
Photographs, reports, inspection results. Dated, and labeled with what each one shows.
The correspondence, complete
In date order, including the messages that do you no favors. An intake that finds a gap assumes the worst about what was in it.
What you have been offered
Any settlement discussion, in writing. It sets the floor for everything that follows.
The consultation
Six questions worth asking
- How are you paid on this, and what happens to that if we lose
- What is the deadline you are working back from
- Who will actually handle this day to day
- What would make you decline a case like mine
- What do you need from me that I have not brought
- What is the realistic sequence, and how long is each part
The chronology does more than the documents
The honest half
What an attorney does not make cheaper
Small disputes
Below a certain size a claim costs more to run than it returns, and a firm that takes it on anyway is doing you no favor. Where that line falls is the first thing a good intake works out, and it is why small claims exists.
Assembling your file
Sorting, dating and chasing your own documents is billed at the same rate as the argument. It is the one part of the work you can do to the same standard yourself, which is what makes the pack above worth building.
Collecting afterwards
Winning and being paid are separate problems. A judgment against a business with nothing in it is a document, and pursuing it is a second engagement with its own cost.
Speed
An attorney does not shorten a court's calendar. Hiring one earlier changes what is filed and when, and it does not change how long a hearing takes to come around.
What goes in the file, and the order it goes in, is on the evidence checklist. Where the dispute is small enough to run yourself, small claims is the route built for people without lawyers.2
Disclosures
- 1.Satisfy is not a law firm, does not provide legal advice, and does not refer, recommend or select attorneys. This page describes how a law firm’s intake generally works. It does not assess any dispute, say whether anybody needs an attorney, or state what any firm will do.
- 2.How attorneys charge, what a firm will take on, and how long any part of a proceeding takes are set by the firm, by the state and by the court. Nothing on this page states a fee, a rate, a share or a period, because none of them is the same in any two engagements.