Immigration
Immigration Client Intake Questions: A Staged First-Contact Checklist
Use a staged immigration intake to identify the prospective client, support conflict screening, capture a neutral matter summary and caller-stated dates, then route legal questions to an attorney or authorized representative.
Ask five immigration attorneys for their immigration client intake questions and you’ll get five versions of a short, familiar sheet, because the facts an attorney needs to decide whether — and how urgently — to act are largely the same across the practice. What separates firms isn’t the list. It’s whether the list actually gets run on the first call, calmly, in the language the caller speaks, at whatever hour a frightened family reaches out. Run it well and an attorney walks into a consult already knowing this is a removal defense matter for a client from Honduras with a master calendar hearing in nineteen days. Run it poorly and the morning begins with a callback, through an interpreter, to a distraught caller to ask what country they’re even from.
One ground rule before the sheet: immigration intake is information capture, not an eligibility assessment. The person or system running these questions is building a factual record for the firm's next step, not deciding whether the caller qualifies for relief, predicting approval, or selecting legal options. The firm should approve the question sequence, decide when variation is appropriate, and define how role and representation boundaries are explained in a language the caller can understand. Qualified counsel should review the exact script under the rules that control the practice.
The first-call screening sheet
| Question | Why the firm needs it |
|---|---|
| Caller and their relationship to the person | Often it’s a spouse, parent, or employer, not the beneficiary. You need the person’s name and who you’re actually speaking with. |
| Matter type, as the caller describes it | Family petition, removal/deportation, asylum, green card, naturalization, a visa question, a detention situation. Record it in their words; don’t reclassify or opine. |
| Country of origin and primary language | Fundamental to the matter and to routing — and it confirms which language the rest of the intake and the consult should run in. |
| Current immigration status | In status, out of status, pending application, in removal proceedings, detained. Capture what the caller states, not a legal determination of it. |
| Any filing or hearing deadline | A notice to appear, a hearing date, a filing window, or an expiring status sets the clock — and often the urgency of the whole matter. |
| Prior filings and prior attorneys | Previous applications, denials, or a prior lawyer shape both the matter and the conflict check. |
| Conflict-check basics | Names of the parties involved — beneficiary, petitioner, any opposing interest — enough for the firm to run its check before committing. |
| Best contact and safe call-back path | A number and channel that will be answered, and, when someone is detained, how the family can be reached. |
Capture the matter type — don’t classify it
Callers rarely name a matter cleanly. They say “they want to send my brother back,” or “I need papers for my wife,” or “I got a letter with a court date.” The usable version is simple: write down exactly what the caller says, and note that it’s their description, not a legal characterization. Intake’s job is to preserve the caller’s account — “removal, per the caller,” “marriage-based petition, per the caller” — not to decide whether it’s really cancellation of removal or an asylum claim. That reading belongs to the attorney with the notice in hand. A caller who can’t name their situation isn’t a problem; that uncertainty is itself a fact worth logging.
Surface deadlines early, because they set the tempo
In immigration, a date can quietly turn a routine intake into an emergency. Someone weighing a naturalization application can comfortably take a consult next week. Someone holding a notice to appear with a hearing in two weeks, or a status that lapses at month’s end, is a call the attorney may want to see today. So the screen has to ask about deadlines early and plainly — is there a hearing date, a filing deadline, a date something expires? — because that single fact most often decides whether this is a book-the-consult call or an escalate-now call. A missed immigration deadline can’t be undone, which is exactly why intake has to catch it at hello, not discover it at the consult.
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 petitioner it represents, an employer on the other side of a case. The intake doesn’t resolve conflicts; it collects the names that let the firm run its check: the beneficiary, the petitioner, and any other party the caller can name. Gathering those on the first call means the attorney can clear the conflict before the consult instead of discovering one midway through — and it’s the same discipline whether the call came in English, Spanish, or Vietnamese.
What the first call should never do
- Assess eligibility. No “you qualify for asylum,” no “that’s an easy green card” — the screen records facts and books a licensed attorney.
- Predict an approval or guarantee an outcome. “This’ll get approved” has no place anywhere near intake, in any language.
- Imply representation or privilege. State plainly that no attorney-client relationship is formed by the intake, and that it isn’t legal advice.
- Quote a fee off the cuff. Fee and retainer 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 to bring — the notice, prior filings, identity documents.
A qualified immigration intake isn’t a caller who sounds sympathetic. It’s a call with the matter type, the country, the current status, the deadline — and a consult on a licensed attorney’s calendar.
— The intake standard
Running the sheet on eligible calls, in every language
A written sheet becomes an operational system only when the firm trains or configures for it and verifies the full path. Test representative multilingual inquiries for question accuracy, caller-stated dates, conflict identifiers, legal-advice boundaries, scheduling permissions, record fields, uncertainty, urgent escalation, and failure recovery before relying on the workflow.
Add a prospective-client information checkpoint
ABA Model Rule 1.18 addresses prospective-client information even when no engagement follows. Because local law controls, the firm should define how much detail to invite before conflict review and what warnings accompany intake. multilingual intake QA framework
| Field | Neutral capture | Do not decide |
|---|---|---|
| Matter | Caller’s words and documents mentioned | Relief or strategy |
| Dates | Exact date and source | Applicable deadline |
| Status | Caller’s words and document label | Legal conclusion |
| Next step | Approved review or consultation | Acceptance of representation |
EOIR distinguishes authorized professionals from unqualified advisers. Intake may organize facts; individualized interpretation stays on the authorized path. EOIR representation guidance · answering-service buyer guide
This checklist is operational information, not legal advice. Adapt it to the firm’s jurisdictions, conflict procedure, privacy rules, and escalation policy.
Hear Lumi run the full immigration intake — matter type, country, status, deadline — and book the consult on a live call, in the caller’s language.
See Lumi for immigration firmsQuick answers
Frequently asked
What questions should an immigration firm ask during client intake?
A short, consistent screen: who is calling and their relationship to the person; the matter type as the caller describes it (family petition, removal, asylum, green card, naturalization, a visa question, a detention situation); country of origin and primary language; current immigration status; any filing or hearing deadline; prior filings and prior attorneys; conflict-check basics; and a safe contact path. Asked the same way every time — in the caller’s language — those facts let a licensed attorney decide how urgently to act, without the intake ever assessing eligibility.
Is immigration intake the same as checking whether someone qualifies?
No, and keeping them separate is essential. Intake is information capture — recording the matter type, country, status, and deadline exactly as stated, and running conflict-check questions. Assessing eligibility for relief, or predicting whether a petition will be approved, is the licensed immigration attorney’s job at the consult, with the documents in hand. An intake that starts assessing instead of capturing risks the unauthorized practice of law and can lead an anxious caller to act on a wrong answer.
Can an AI intake agent ask immigration 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 — in multiple configured languages (coverage to be verified) — records the answers without interpreting them, surfaces filing and hearing deadlines, answers factual questions about the firm rather than legal questions about the case, presents a “not legal advice / no attorney-client relationship” disclaimer in the caller’s language, and routes anything requiring judgment to a licensed attorney. It captures and books; it never assesses eligibility, predicts approvals, or evaluates.
See Lumi answer the immigration call in the caller’s own language
Bring a synthetic multilingual inquiry and the firm's approved fields, scheduling rules, attorney-only boundaries, urgent routes, and named system actions. Ask to see accuracy, escalation, and failure recovery demonstrated end to end.
