Why You Need Empathy in Your Client Intake Process

Lawyers aren’t known for having a warm rapport with others.
In fact, if jokes and stereotypes about our profession were taken at face value, you’d think that “prickly” and “callous” are some of the kindest things that a non-lawyer would say about lawyers.
As an intake specialist who works with lawyers regularly, I can understand where this perception comes from. Lawyers endure a grueling three years of law school and one of the hardest professional qualification examinations, only to then sacrifice their personal lives to spend most of their waking hours devoted to fighting on our clients’ behalf. It’s natural that you compartmentalize your emotions. But it’s exactly what your clients don’t need from you when they’re first getting to know you and your firm.
In order to complete an accurate and precise intake both the client and intake specialist must be empathetic towards one another’s needs. However, since most new personal injury clients are unfamiliar with the personal injury intake process, it’s the intake specialist’s duty to inform the client as to why a piece of information might be necessary to their case. It is also important for the intake specialist to explain what the information will be used for and who it will be shared with. The intake specialist must also understand why a client might feel uncomfortable providing him or her with sensitive personal information.
Divulging Contact Information.
During the initial steps of the intake process the client is asked (but also expected) to provide the law firm with his or her name, phone number, email and address. Yet many clients are hesitant to provide intake specialists with their entire name or address due to various personal reasons.
A client’s personal reasons can vary from their immigration status, to a concern over privacy. At the beginning of the intake process it is not crucial for the intake specialist to obtain information that would not only make the potential client uncomfortable but that would also risk losing the client’s interest in the firm. At such an early stage of the intake process, the intake specialist should empathetically settle for the basics. For example, when a client is reluctant to providing his/her entire address — the intake specialist should simply ask what city he/she is located in.
Evidential Photography
Throughout the intake process, an intake specialist is required to ask all potential clients if pictures of the incident are available and if so, for them to be sent to them. Pictures are worth a thousands words and even more so when it is of injuries or a products/premises liability. The above would especially apply to cases concerning an uneven sidewalk or the degree of severity of a burn.
Although providing photos of oneself can help an intake specialist determine the seriousness of a case — it can also be seen as intruding on one’s privacy. Many clients view providing evidential photography as such, which is why empathy is important during this part of the intake process. If a client is reluctant to providing evidential photography, the intake specialist should simply state that they understand but that the client should continue to preserve and document his/her injuries through photography as it can be crucial to their case.
Severity of the Injury
The final part of the intake process requires for clients to describe the extent and details of their injuries or that of a loved ones. A client’s injuries can come in all from and vary from soft tissue, fractures/breaks, head, bedsores and misdiagnosis.
Depending on the severity of the injury clients may be reluctant or have a hard time expressing themselves. Some clients may still be grieving a loss at the time of the call. Although the intake specialist has not directly been impacted by the injuries — it is paramount that he/she empathetically responds to the clients emotions. An intake specialist can do so by listening, imagining and understanding how the client might feel. Allowing the client to emotionally discuss his or a loved one’s injuries will provide him/her with a sense of comfort and trust in the firm. If a client trusts and feels comfortable discussing his injuries with a firm he/she is more likely to meet and sign with the firm — hence the importance of empathy throughout the intake process.
Legal Intake at Lawfty
At Lawfty, we strive to hire intake specialists with high emotional intelligence. Since our machine learning technology makes our Google pay-per-click advertising so effective, we have to make sure not to lose out on the value it adds to us and our partner firms by running an effective legal intake team. It sounds counterintuitive — many people think that having cutting edge AI running our ads means we can afford to set it and forget it when it comes to legal intake. On the contrary — when we attract more injured people in desperate need of help to our intake process, it becomes even more important to serve their needs effectively. If your firm has what it takes to become a Lawfty partner, let us know.
