Capability template for operations and process improvement
Inquiry handoff
Every new inquiry reaches the firm’s conflict review and the responsible attorney as one complete packet on the day it arrives, with each missing item named and someone assigned to supply it.
The outcome
A fully powered intake desk turns a web form, a call and a few emails into one packet the conflicts clerk and the responsible attorney act on that afternoon. Every gap carries the name of the person who will fill it. That is 10X what your intake desk can do with the people it has.
This capability prepares the packet, lists what is missing and who must supply it, routes it to the people who run the firm’s conflict review and acceptance, and names who acts next. The conflicts clerk runs the conflict review, the responsible attorney decides whether the firm takes the client, and the intake coordinator sends every message. The packet never clears a conflict, accepts a client, gives advice or works out a deadline.
Who starts the work, and when
The intake coordinator starts it when an inquiry arrives, before anything goes to conflicts, and reruns it as each missing item comes in. The firm administrator owns the checklist and routing list.
What they supply
- The inquiry as it arrived. Form entry, call notes, emails and attachments, unedited.
- The intake checklist. The facts required for each matter type, and which related parties go on the conflict list.
- The routing list. Who runs conflict review and who decides acceptance, by practice area.
What comes out
One packet: the matter as described, the parties for conflict review, each missing item with its supplier, what the attorney must see, the routing and the next action. The example is an invented 40-person litigation and employment firm.
Good means the conflicts clerk starts without opening the inbox, and the intake coordinator asks Client A for everything in one message.
An invented example
Illustrative example with invented data. The inquiry as it arrived.
| Source | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Web form, Monday morning | Client A, a regional equipment distributor, has a contract dispute with Party B, a former supplier. Contact: Client A’s operations director. |
| Call, 12 minutes, same day | Party B ended the supply agreement and holds credits Client A disputes. Party B “belongs to a larger group”. A letter from Party B is dated 28 October. |
| Email after the call | The supply contract. Its signature page is hard to read. |
Illustrative example with invented data. The packet prepared from it.
Inquiry packet: Client A, contract dispute with Party B
- Status: Incomplete. Four items missing.
- Parties for conflict review: Client A. Party B. Party B’s parent company: missing. The two individuals who signed the supply contract: missing.
- Missing, and who supplies it: All four from Client A’s operations director: the billing contact, the parent company’s name, the two signatories’ names, and whether Client A has insurance that may respond.
- For the responsible attorney: Party B’s letter of 28 October, as the caller described it. No deadline has been worked out from it. The attorney assesses timing.
- Routed to: Conflicts clerk, for the firm’s conflict review, party list marked incomplete. Responsible attorney (litigation), for acceptance once the review is recorded.
- Next action: Intake coordinator: review the drafted request for all four items and send it to Client A today.
Prepared for the intake coordinator to review. Nothing has been sent, searched or decided.
Where it fits
- Law firms: the step between a new inquiry and conflict review.
- Professional services: the packet feeds an independence or competing-client check.
- Operations and process improvement: the gaps sit between intake, conflicts and the attorney.
- Growth & scaling: rising inquiry volume stops depending on one coordinator’s memory.
What has to change for your company
- Required facts by matter type. An employment inquiry needs different facts from a commercial dispute.
- The party rule. Which related parties go on the conflict list: parents, subsidiaries, signatories, insurers, opposing counsel.
- Routing. Who reviews and who decides in each practice area, and who covers for them.
Outside law firms, conflict review becomes whatever check your firm runs before it says yes. We map the handoff with the intake coordinator, the conflicts clerk and the responsible attorney, and land each step on the role that owns it. A week of real inquiries proves it before it becomes routine. This capability template is written for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini, and your firm keeps control of how the work gets done.
What has been checked
Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 9 November 2026. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.
Testing in your firm means running it on recent inquiries, including one with an unnamed parent company and one where the call contradicts the form. The intake coordinator and the conflicts clerk judge each packet. Pilot acceptance-test preparation builds that test set, and What we test before we call an AI workflow ready shows the record we keep.
The full capability template
Everything above is the outline. The complete capability template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.
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Next step
Bring a real piece of this work to a call. We’ll walk through what it takes to fit this capability to your rules, prove it on your work and put it in the hands of the roles that own it.