## The intake hours nobody bills Every UK solicitor knows that the first three hours of a new matter — initial contact, factual intake, conflict check, ID/AML capture, engagement letter, first phone or Zoom consultation — are the least billable hours the firm will spend on that client. Multiply across 40–80 new matters a month for a mid-sized firm and you have hundreds of fee-earner hours a year absorbed into administrative work that clients don't value and that fee earners actively dislike doing. ## Where the time actually goes The specifics vary by matter type, but a typical intake breaks down roughly as: 30–45 minutes on first-contact call and factual capture; 20–30 minutes on conflicts and CDD gathering; 30 minutes on engagement letter drafting and sending; 30–60 minutes on the initial consultation prep. Personal-injury and family matters can double that number because of vulnerability handling, document collection and immediate advice needs. ## What AI intake removes and what it doesn't AI removes the factual, procedural and logistical work: capturing the client's details across matter-type-specific structured intake, triggering conflicts checks against the PMS, sending the ID/AML request, drafting and sending the engagement letter from template with the correct matter-specific clauses, and booking the initial consultation. It does not remove the substantive legal conversation, the vulnerability judgment, the fee-earner's decision to act, or the client relationship. Our [AI for Solicitors and Law Firms](/solicitors) is built specifically around this line. ## Time recovered per matter Firms that deploy AI intake correctly recover 60–75% of the pre-consultation admin time — typically 2–4 fee-earner hours per matter. On a firm running 60 new matters a month that's 120–240 hours a month, equivalent to almost a full fee earner recovered without hiring one. The recovered hours can flow into billable work, business development, or reduced overtime — whichever the partnership prefers. ## Engagement letter turnaround as a client-experience metric The turnaround from first contact to signed engagement letter is a quietly powerful marketing metric. Firms getting this to same-day, or even inside an hour for straightforward matters, convert dramatically more of the enquiries they already receive. Firms taking 3–5 days lose a meaningful share of clients to competitors who moved faster. ## PMS integration is where the value compounds AI intake writes structured data directly into Clio, LEAP, Actionstep or the firm's PMS — matter opened, client record created, engagement letter attached, conflicts result recorded, CDD status flagged, first consultation on the diary. The fee earner opens the matter with the shell already built. Nothing is re-typed, and the audit trail is complete from minute one. ## Compliance is a benefit, not a risk Firms sometimes worry that automation weakens the compliance position. Correctly deployed, the opposite is true: every interaction is time-stamped, every consent captured explicitly, every vulnerability flag logged, and every message library sign-off controlled by the COLP. The audit position is stronger than a human-only intake. ## Where to start Automated intake is a Professional-tier deployment from £597/month — see [pricing](/pricing). Payback is typically inside 60 days on recovered fee-earner hours alone. ## Book a free 30-minute AI audit We'll shadow a live intake in your firm and quantify the specific admin hours the AI would recover. [Book a Free AI Audit](/contact).