Legal Intake & Conflict Check
A small practice takes on risk in the first ten minutes of an enquiry, before anyone has checked whether the other side is already a client. This workflow captures the intake, records the matter as Conflict check pending rather than open, sends the enquirer a holding note that carefully does not create a retainer, and raises the check as a same-day task with the parties listed.
What you get
Workflow blueprint
The full blueprint — every field mapping, example value and the written copy for each message — is included with purchase.
Getting it into Zapier
Build this one from the recipe. The blueprint gives you the exact trigger, action events and field mapping for all 6 steps, so it is a copy-and-paste job rather than a design job.
You need your own Zapier account. Zapier’s Free plan runs single-step Zaps only; multi-step Zaps need a paid plan, and Paths and Webhooks need Professional. How this works →
Not on Zapier?
An n8n workflow JSON ships with this template. Import it and all 6 steps arrive on the canvas wired in order, and 5 of the 6 nodes arrive with their fields already filled in — the subject lines, the message copy, the delays, the column names. Every step maps to a native n8n node, one of them by a different route — see below.
Google Forms has no n8n node at all, so that step arrives as a native Google Sheets node on the form’s linked responses sheet. It is named for what it is on the canvas rather than for the app it stands in for, and the sticky note under it opens by saying so — the field names are unchanged either way, but the account you connect is the $Google Sheets one.
What an import cannot carry is your credentials, and the IDs that only exist inside your own account — which spreadsheet, which channel, which board. Those stay in a sticky note under the node, listing what is already done so you do not retype it, and what is left so you can see it.
A Make-specific guide ships with this template: every module in order, every field value, and the concept translations that catch people out — filters live on the links between modules, and the schedule lives on the scenario rather than in a trigger module.
Self-hosted n8n has no per-task fee, which is worth knowing if this workflow runs at volume. Platform coverage →
Setup steps
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Implementation notes
- The status is Conflict check pending, never Open. A matter that starts life as Open is a matter somebody will start work on before the search is run.
- The disclaimer wording is deliberate: acknowledgement without retainer, and an explicit instruction to telephone if a limitation date is close. Have your own regulator’s wording checked before you send it — this is a starting point, not advice.
- Search related entities, not just named parties. Group companies are where conflicts actually hide.
- Log declined enquiries too. The record that you declined, and when, is worth as much as the record that you acted.