Litigation Matter Intake Checklist

Definitions

Field definitions

Controlled vocabulary guidance

Intake disposition

Examples: New, information requested, conflict review, pending authority, approved to open, conditionally approved, referred, declined, deferred, or closed without opening.

Governance: Define transition criteria, required approvals, and evidence for each state. Do not use approved to open as a finding that the legal claim is valid.

Party role

Examples: Requester, client, prospective client, plaintiff, defendant, claimant, respondent, petitioner, agency, witness, expert, insurer, affiliate, vendor, counterparty, or related matter.

Governance: Allow multiple roles and preserve the source and effective date. Do not infer representation or legal liability from a role label.

Date confidence

Examples: Reported, source located, source-confirmed, counsel-confirmed, organization target, disputed, unknown, or pending review.

Governance: Keep confidence separate from urgency. A highly urgent date can still be unconfirmed and must be escalated for review.

Preservation state

Examples: Not assessed, assessment pending, routine retention, preservation recommended, hold requested, hold active, hold released, disposition eligible, or exception.

Governance: Record scope, authority, custodians, systems, notice, review date, release authority, and conflicts with routine retention.

Privilege and handling class

Examples: Public, internal, confidential, restricted, personal information, attorney-client, work product, sealed, third-party restricted, or counsel review required.

Governance: Use access controls and source-specific handling. A classification is an operational instruction and does not independently establish privilege.

Risk band

Examples: Critical, High, Medium, Low, or Informational.

Governance: Publish local anchors for exposure, urgency, uncertainty, evidence risk, financial impact, and control need. Do not add or multiply ordinal labels.

Approval decision

Examples: Approve, conditionally approve, decline, refer, defer, request more information, recuse, or escalate.

Governance: Record authority, scope, date, conditions, exceptions, and next review. An informal message is not approval unless policy authorizes it.

Practical workflow

1. Register the requester and intake channel

   Create an intake record with a stable request ID, received timestamp, requester name and role, organization, safe contact route, relationship to the matter, authority to request work, preferred language or accessibility need, referral source, urgency statement, and intake owner. Record the requester narrative separately from legal conclusions. Accept incomplete requests, identify missing facts, and do not treat the intake channel or requester title as proof that the organization has accepted representation.

2. Capture the requested outcome and urgency

   Ask what the requester needs from the legal team: issue spotting, preservation, response, defense, recovery, settlement assessment, investigation, filing, negotiation, monitoring, or another defined outcome. Record the event that created urgency, immediate business or personal impact, requested response window, known hearing or service event, and consequences of delay. Label all dates as reported, source-confirmed, organization-target, or pending counsel confirmation.

3. Identify parties, affiliates, and adverse interests

   List every known claimant, respondent, plaintiff, defendant, petitioner, complainant, witness, beneficiary, affiliate, parent, subsidiary, insurer, broker, vendor, co-party, successor, director, officer, employee, expert, and likely adverse or related entity. Capture legal name, aliases, identifiers, role, relationship, jurisdiction, contact or service information, and source. Do not collapse related entities or assume that a trade name, group relationship, or shared owner makes parties legally identical.

4. Run and record conflict checks

   Search the approved client, matter, party, organization, lawyer, staff, expert, and former-client sources using known names, aliases, affiliates, parent companies, adverse relationships, subject matter, and relevant confidential information. Record search scope, systems, date, reviewer, possible matches, analysis status, waiver or consent question, ethical screen need, recusal, escalation, and decision owner. A clear search result is not a legal conclusion; qualified counsel must determine whether a conflict exists and whether it can be managed.

5. Identify the court, tribunal, and governing forum

   Record the court, tribunal, agency, arbitral institution, internal forum, or other decision-maker; country, state, province, or jurisdiction; district, division, bench, venue, and location; proceeding type; judge, officer, arbitrator, or panel if known; local rule source; and portal or filing route. Preserve the source for each forum detail and identify parallel, transferred, removed, appealed, consolidated, or related proceedings. Counsel must confirm jurisdiction, venue, forum, and procedural posture.

6. Record official and internal case identifiers

   Capture the docket, case, claim, arbitration, investigation, complaint, citation, court portal, agency, CNR, client reference, policy, insurance, and internal matter identifiers that are known. Record the identifier type, exact value, issuing authority, source URL or document, retrieval timestamp, status, and verification owner. Preserve leading zeroes and punctuation where the source uses them, distinguish similar identifiers, and never invent an unverified value that could be mistaken for an official number.

7. Describe claims, defenses, issues, and relief

   Summarize the reported facts, claims, defenses, counterclaims, remedies, damages, defenses under consideration, contractual or policy questions, procedural issues, and decision questions in neutral language. Separate allegation, evidence, inference, legal theory, and confirmed finding. Record the source, confidence, disputed points, unknowns, limitation or accrual question, and relationship to other matters. Qualified counsel must determine legal characterization, viability, defenses, remedies, and required action.

8. Reconstruct service, notice, and response history

   For each summons, complaint, petition, notice, demand, order, email, portal event, publication, waiver, acknowledgment, or other communication, record document type, sender, recipient, method, attempt or receipt timestamp, time zone, location, proof or source, status, and related identifier. Preserve the original and proof of service or receipt. Do not calculate a response or limitation date from an unverified service event; qualified counsel must confirm legal effect and date.

9. Build a source-backed deadline register

   List hearings, conferences, responses, disclosures, discovery, motions, appeals, limitation or accrual questions, contractual notices, insurance notices, preservation reviews, settlement milestones, reporting steps, and internal readiness targets. For each item record the date or date range, time zone, trigger, source citation, calculation note, certainty, owner, reviewer, reminders, dependency, extension status, and escalation. Keep legal dates separate from internal buffers and mark every unconfirmed date for counsel review.

10. Assign internal and external counsel roles

    Record the supervising lawyer, matter owner, intake reviewer, business sponsor, external firm, partner or lead, local counsel, co-counsel, insurer-appointed counsel, specialist, paralegal, investigator, expert, service provider, and backup. Capture role, jurisdiction, engagement status, contact route, authority boundary, conflict result, access group, budget responsibility, and communication cadence. Distinguish legal advice, business decisions, factual investigation, technical work, and administrative coordination.

11. Inventory documents and evidence

    Create a source inventory for pleadings, orders, notices, contracts, correspondence, emails, messages, records, photographs, videos, logs, financial data, physical evidence, expert material, witness information, portal exports, and prior matter files. Capture custodian, source system, format, date range, location, identifier, provenance, sensitivity, collection status, duplicates, missing items, and access boundary. Preserve originals or controlled copies and record assumptions instead of treating a folder listing as a complete evidence inventory.

12. Assess preservation and hold requirements

    Ask whether a complaint, demand, notice, threatened dispute, investigation, audit, order, contract, policy, or other event may require preservation. Record the preservation question, decision owner, scope, custodians, systems, locations, date range, hold or freeze status, notice status, release authority, exceptions, monitoring, and source. Coordinate ordinary retention with authorized legal, records, privacy, security, and business owners. Intake staff should not issue, release, or narrow a hold without the required authority.

13. Classify privilege and confidentiality

    Mark attorney-client, work product, confidential business, personal, health, financial, trade secret, sealed, restricted, insurer, third-party, and public material according to the approved handling model. Separate factual evidence from legal advice and identify who may access each category. Record waiver, disclosure, common-interest, protective-order, export, redaction, and segregation questions for qualified counsel. A label alone does not create privilege or prevent disclosure.

14. Establish budget, funding, and exposure assumptions

    Record budget owner, currency, approved amount, phase or task assumptions, internal capacity, external rates, retainer or insurer funding, deductible or self-insured retention, expected expert and discovery costs, settlement or recovery assumptions, invoice requirements, approval thresholds, reserve or exposure notes, and forecast review date. Keep estimates, commitments, invoices, and legal or financial judgments distinct. Label organization-designed targets and obtain the required finance, insurer, business, or counsel approval.

15. Name strategy ownership and decision rights

    Define the matter objective, client or business outcome, decision questions, strategy owner, supervising counsel, business sponsor, approval authority, communication owner, settlement authority, escalation path, and review cadence. Record assumptions, alternatives, dependencies, constraints, and what requires client or executive approval. Strategy ownership does not authorize a person to give advice, settle, file, disclose, or waive rights beyond the approved authority.

16. Assess risk and immediate controls

    Record organization-designed risk dimensions such as procedural posture, deadline uncertainty, adverse action, evidence loss, privilege exposure, confidentiality, financial exposure, insurance, recovery, reputational impact, operational disruption, safety, cross-border issues, and dependency on a third party. Use qualitative bands with rationale and confidence, not unsupported numerical predictions. Assign immediate controls, owners, review dates, and escalation for material uncertainty. Counsel confirms legal risk, duties, rights, and dates.

17. Route approvals and intake disposition

    Route the completed record to the required legal, conflicts, business, risk, finance, insurer, records, privacy, security, or executive approvers based on the organization-designed intake policy. Record approve, decline, refer, defer, conditional approval, or request-more-information decisions with authority, scope, date, conditions, exceptions, and next review. Do not treat a submitted form, budget estimate, conflict search, or manager email as acceptance unless the authorized decision is recorded.

18. Prepare and accept the handoff

    Give the receiving owner a structured summary: requester and objective, parties and conflict status, forum and identifiers, claims and issues, service and source-backed dates, counsel roles, documents and evidence, holds, privilege and confidentiality, budget, strategy, risk, approvals, open questions, immediate actions, communication plan, and next review. Confirm access, responsibility, backup, acknowledgment, and escalation. Preserve the original intake record and the receiving owner’s acceptance.

19. Reassess intake when material facts change

    Trigger a new review when a party, forum, identifier, service event, claim, deadline, document source, hold, conflict, privilege issue, budget, insurer position, strategy, or risk changes. Record the prior state, new facts, source, owner, decision, approval, and effective time. Do not silently overwrite the initial intake rationale or mark the matter complete merely because it was handed off.

Comparison

Limitations and exceptions

• This is an organization-designed operational checklist, not legal advice, a conflict opinion, a filing instruction, a litigation strategy, or a guarantee that a matter is complete or safe to open.
• Courts, tribunals, agencies, insurers, contracts, engagement terms, professional rules, and jurisdictions may require different facts, forms, notices, dates, approvals, preservation steps, and service methods. Qualified counsel must confirm legal duties and dates.
• A conflict search can miss aliases, affiliates, former-client information, confidential knowledge, personal conflicts, or facts not yet known. The authorized lawyer must determine whether a conflict exists and whether consent, screening, withdrawal, or referral is permitted.
• A recorded deadline is not necessarily a valid deadline. Service, notice, trigger, calculation, extension, time zone, holiday, local rule, order, and procedural posture can change the legal effect of a date.
• Preservation, legal holds, retention, collection, privilege, confidentiality, and discovery obligations are fact-specific. Do not issue, release, narrow, or ignore a hold based only on this checklist.
• Budget, reserve, recovery, damages, settlement, and risk fields are planning inputs. They are not valuations, forecasts, legal conclusions, accounting opinions, or guarantees of outcome.
• A complete intake record cannot prove that all parties, claims, evidence, deadlines, conflicts, or related proceedings have been discovered. Preserve unknowns, assumptions, dissent, and re-review triggers.
• Access controls and handling labels reduce operational exposure but cannot guarantee privilege, confidentiality, admissibility, security, or the absence of waiver or disclosure.

Primary sources

Methodology

Use a versioned intake record with these standard fields: request ID; received timestamp; requester, authority, contact route, accessibility need, and requested outcome; urgency and immediate impact; parties, aliases, affiliates, roles, identifiers, and relationships; conflict search scope, sources, possible matches, waivers, screens, recusals, reviewer, and decision; court or tribunal, jurisdiction, venue, proceeding type, judge or panel, local rules, portal, and filing route; official and internal case identifiers; factual summary, claims, defenses, issues, relief, damages, disputed facts, assumptions, and source confidence; service and notice events with proof; deadline, trigger, source, calculation note, time zone, confidence, owner, and counsel confirmation; counsel, investigators, experts, insurers, business sponsor, and backups; document and evidence inventory with custodian, source, date range, format, provenance, sensitivity, collection status, and gaps; preservation assessment, hold state, scope, custodians, systems, notice, release authority, and monitoring; privilege, confidentiality, access, redaction, and disclosure questions; budget, currency, funding, rates, reserve, forecast, approval, and invoice controls; matter objective, strategy owner, decision rights, communication cadence, and escalation; risk bands, rationale, confidence, controls, owners, and review dates; approvals, conditions, exceptions, handoff acceptance, next actions, and reopen triggers. Use controlled values for disposition, party role, date confidence, proceeding posture, preservation state, handling class, risk band, approval, and handoff status. Keep unknown, not applicable, disputed, reported, and pending counsel confirmation distinct. Use organization-designed risk bands with written anchors and never perform arithmetic on ordinal labels. Review the record when new service, party, forum, evidence, conflict, privilege, budget, strategy, or risk facts arise. Qualified counsel confirms legal duties, procedural posture, privilege, preservation, strategy, and legally significant dates.

FAQs

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