Immigration Law Intake Training for Law Firms: Calls, Scripts and Scoring

What is different about immigration intake

Callers are often scared, and the strongest temptation on the desk is to reassure.
Language access matters: asking the preferred language and offering an interpreter is part of the first thirty seconds.
The person calling is often not the person who needs the legal help, so who the client is has to be established early.

The method does not change. The five stages, the 14-item scorecard and the boundary are the same. What changes is the wording, the questions to ask and where the pressure shows up.

Two Calls

The same moment, answered two ways

"Can you promise?"

The caller says: "Can you guarantee that I will not be sent back?"

What most desks say

"Don't worry, our attorneys are very good. I am sure it will be fine."

A kind sentence that is both a promise and a legal opinion.

What a trained desk says

"That is exactly the question for the attorney, and I do not want to guess at it. I am writing it down so she has it in front of her and goes through it with you at the consultation. Would Thursday at ten or Friday at two be easier?"

No promise is made, the question goes to the attorney, and the caller still gets a time.

"Someone else quoted less"

The caller says: "Another office told me it would cost much less."

What most desks say

"We are the best, so it is worth it."

Defensive, and about the firm rather than the caller.

What a trained desk says

"I understand that cost matters a lot. What did they say they would be doing for that fee? ... Here is how ours works: [the firm's fee]. The consultation is where the attorney explains exactly what the work includes, so you can compare like with like. Thursday at ten?"

The concern is explored, the fee is stated, and the consultation is framed as a way to compare.

Questions that always go to the attorney

These come up on immigration calls all the time. Intake does not answer them; it hands them off with the fixed line and asks for the next step.

"Will I get my visa approved?"
"Can I work while I wait?"
"Is it safe for me to travel?"

The hand-off wording and the full boundary are on the line between intake and the attorney. Wording on this page is an example only; the firm and the attorney set the final wording against their jurisdiction's rules. Scope, plainly: everything on this site concerns the conversation that turns an inquiry into an engagement. Nothing here is legal advice, nothing touches the legal work or the attorney's judgment, and any wording a firm adopts is reviewed by the firm against its jurisdiction's rules on attorney advertising, solicitation and fee communication before it is used.

About the Author

Dr. Jeffrey Scott Stanton, DCH is a behavioral strategist and the founder and Chief Learning Officer of R2R Diagnostic Group. He is the former EVP of Learning & Development at Douglas Elliman Real Estate, where he trained sales professionals on the conversations that turn an inquiry into a commitment. He applies the same method, the R2R Assessment and a 14-item call-review scorecard, to law firm intake teams. The work is the conversation only; legal questions and judgment stay with the attorney.

More on the method, the scripts, the dialogues and the scorecard is on the legal intake pages at jeffreyscottstanton.com.

Immigration Law Intake Training

What is different about immigration intake

The same moment, answered two ways

"Can you promise?"

"Someone else quoted less"

Questions that always go to the attorney

Start with the immigration calls you already have.