Criminal Defense
Criminal Defense Client Intake Questions: The Screening Sheet That Books the Consult
A staged criminal-defense intake checklist for caller identity, matter location, custody, dates, related people, and attorney routing—without turning reception into legal analysis.
Criminal-defense intake questions should identify the caller and prospective client, reliable contact details, the general matter and jurisdiction, custody location or release status as reported, known court information, related people required for screening, and any date the caller believes is urgent. Ask only what the firm has approved at that stage, preserve the caller’s words, and route legal, conflict, deadline, fee, and representation decisions to a lawyer.
Ask five defense attorneys for their criminal defense client intake questions and you’ll get five versions of the same short sheet, because the facts an attorney needs to decide whether — and how fast — to act are largely the same no matter who takes the call. The difference between firms isn’t the list. It’s whether the list actually gets run on the first call, calmly, by whoever picks up, at whatever hour a frightened caller reaches out. Run it well and an attorney can walk into a morning consult already knowing the charge, the court, and whether the client is sitting in a cell. Run it poorly and the day starts with a callback to a distraught family to ask which county the arrest even happened in.
One ground rule before the sheet: intake is information capture, not case evaluation. The person — or the AI — running these questions is building a factual record and booking a consult, not advising the caller, judging the case, or forming a representation. That distinction is not pedantic; it is an important boundary that qualified counsel should define under the controlling jurisdiction. LumiTalk’s capability registry links code evidence for real-time voice, real-time chat, and knowledge-base functions; specific availability, languages, destinations, and performance require scoped verification.
The first-call screening sheet
| Question | Why the firm needs it |
|---|---|
| Caller and their relationship to the accused | Often it’s a spouse or parent, not the defendant. You need the accused’s name and who you’re actually speaking with. |
| The charge(s), as the caller understands them | Capture what they were told — DUI, possession, assault, a warrant. Record it; don’t reclassify or opine on it. |
| Jurisdiction and arresting agency | City police, county sheriff, or state — and which county. This is what tells the attorney whether the matter is even in their venue. |
| Custody and bond status | Still in jail, released on bond, or cited and released? This drives urgency more than almost anything else on the call. |
| Location and booking details | Which facility, and any booking or case number the family has. It’s what an attorney needs to actually locate the client. |
| Court or hearing date | An arraignment or bond hearing already on the calendar sets the clock for the whole matter. |
| Conflict-check basics | Names of the accused, alleged victim, and any co-defendants — enough for the firm to run its conflict check before committing. |
| Best contact and call-back path | A phone that will be answered and, when relevant, how to reach the person if they’re in custody. |
Capture the charge — don’t classify it
Callers rarely state a charge cleanly; they say what an officer told them, or what they fear it is. The usable version is simple: write down exactly what the caller says the charge is, and note that it’s their understanding, not a legal determination. The intake’s job is to preserve the caller’s account, not to decide whether it’s really a felony or a misdemeanor — that reading belongs to the attorney with the paperwork in hand. A caller who isn’t sure of the charge isn’t a problem to solve on the call; that uncertainty is itself a fact the attorney will want logged.
Lead with custody status, because it sets the urgency
Whether the person is still in custody changes the tempo of everything downstream. Someone released on their own recognizance can comfortably take a morning consult; someone sitting in a county jail with a bond hearing in the morning is a call the attorney may want routed to a human tonight. So the screen should establish custody status early and clearly — in jail, out on bond, or cited and released — because it is the single fact that most often decides whether this is a book-the-consult call or an escalate-now call.
Run the conflict-check basics every time
This is the question set that protects the firm. Before an attorney can take a matter, the firm has to be sure it isn’t already adverse to a party — a co-defendant it represents, an alleged victim who is an existing client. The intake doesn’t resolve conflicts; it collects the names that let the firm run its check: the accused, the alleged victim if known, and any co-defendants the caller can name. Gathering those on the first call means the attorney can clear the conflict before the consult instead of discovering one halfway through.
What the first call should never do
- Evaluate the case. No “that’s a strong defense,” no “they’ll probably drop it” — the screen records facts and books a licensed attorney.
- Predict an outcome or quote what a case is “worth.” Those sentences don’t belong anywhere near intake.
- Imply representation or privilege. Say plainly that no attorney-client relationship is formed by the intake, and that it isn’t legal advice.
- Quote a fee off the cuff. Retainer and fee discussions belong with the attorney at the consult, not as a first-call guess.
- End without a next step. Every completed screen closes with a booked consult and a clear note of what the caller should bring or do next.
A qualified defense intake isn’t a caller who sounds like a good case. It’s a call with the charge, the jurisdiction, the custody status, and a consult on the attorney’s calendar.
— The intake standard
Running the sheet on every call, not just the 10 a.m. ones
Every firm has one person who runs this screen calmly and completely — and that person is in court, at lunch, or asleep when half the arrest calls arrive. LumiTalk’s capability registry links code evidence for real-time voice, real-time chat, and knowledge-base functions; specific availability, languages, destinations, and performance require scoped verification. Your attorneys stop rebuilding intake from voicemail fragments and start from files.
Evidence, professional boundaries, and local review
ABA Model Rule 1.18 addresses duties involving information learned from prospective clients, including when no client-lawyer relationship follows. The ABA rules are models rather than the controlling rule in every jurisdiction, so the firm should have qualified counsel approve what initial intake collects, how it is stored, when the conversation pauses, and how the firm communicates its next step.
When a person, contractor, or technology vendor assists with intake, ABA Model Rule 5.3 places management and supervision responsibilities on lawyers. That makes scripts, permissions, escalation tests, audit logs, retention, and ongoing review part of the operating design—not merely vendor settings.
The ABA Criminal Justice Standards for the Defense Function emphasize prompt lawyer action and understandable communication after counsel is appointed or retained. Intake should therefore preserve claimed custody, hearing, or deadline information accurately and route it promptly, while leaving legal advice and client decisions to defense counsel.
Continue through the legal-intake topic cluster
Use this guide with the after-hours criminal-defense protocol, AI receptionist evaluation, answering-service comparison, and the applicable LumiTalk service page. These links cover the adjacent process rather than repeating this article's intent. LumiTalk for criminal-defense firms
What product evidence currently supports
LumiTalk’s maintained product capability registry maps code evidence for real-time voice, real-time chat, and knowledge-base functionality. The firm must still configure and test the actual workflow. This article does not treat a category label as proof of a specific uptime, response time, language count, price, or named legal-software write action; those claims remain verification-needed until linked to scoped evidence.
Map the approved intake, escalation, and handoff requirements, then test the configured workflow against ordinary and failure scenarios.
See Lumi for criminal defense firmsQuick answers
Frequently asked
What questions should a criminal defense firm ask during client intake?
A short, consistent screen: who is calling and their relationship to the accused; the charge(s) as the caller understands them; jurisdiction and arresting agency; custody and bond status; location and booking details; any court or hearing date; conflict-check basics (accused, alleged victim, co-defendants); and the best contact path. Asked the same way every time, those facts let a licensed attorney decide how fast to act and whether the firm can take the matter — without the intake ever evaluating the case.
Is criminal defense intake the same as evaluating the case?
No, and keeping them separate is essential. Intake is information capture — recording the charge, jurisdiction, custody status, and court date exactly as stated, and running conflict-check questions. Case evaluation — deciding what a matter is worth or how it might resolve — is the licensed attorney’s job at the consult, with the record in hand. An intake that starts evaluating instead of capturing risks crossing into the unauthorized practice of law and produces inconsistent, unusable files.
Can an AI intake agent ask criminal defense screening questions without giving legal advice?
Yes, when the guardrails are built in. A properly configured AI intake agent asks the same factual screening questions every time, records the answers without interpreting them, answers factual questions about the firm rather than legal questions about the case, surfaces a standard “not legal advice / no attorney-client relationship” disclaimer, and routes anything requiring judgment to a licensed attorney. It captures and books; it never advises, predicts, or evaluates.
Evaluate the criminal-defense intake workflow
Map the approved questions, attorney-only decisions, escalation rules, destination systems, access controls, and success measures—then test the configured workflow with ordinary, uncertain, and failure scenarios.
