Immigration Intake Specialist

Duties and Responsibilities:

The Immigration Intake Specialist is responsible for managing prospective clients from the moment they contact the firm through consultation scheduling, follow-up, retention, and handoff to the legal team.

This is a highly client-facing role. The Intake Specialist is often the first person a prospective client speaks with and is responsible for creating a professional, organized, responsive, and compassionate first impression of the firm.

The successful candidate must be comfortable speaking with prospective clients by telephone, text, email, and video; gathering detailed immigration and personal history; maintaining accurate records; following up consistently; and ensuring that no viable lead is lost because of poor communication or lack of follow-through.

This position does not provide legal advice or determine immigration eligibility.

New Lead Response:

• Respond promptly to new inquiries from telephone calls, website forms, email, text messages, referrals, social media, and other lead sources.
• Make outbound calls to new prospective clients as required.
• Contact new leads within the firm's established response-time standards.
• Maintain consistent follow-up with prospective clients who do not immediately respond.
• Ensure every inquiry is documented and accounted for in the firm's system.
• Identify urgent matters and escalate them appropriately.
• Escalate urgent matters (ICE holds, emergency cases) immediately.

Immigration Intake Interviews:

• Conduct detailed intake interviews with prospective clients.
• Gather relevant personal, family, immigration, criminal, employment, and procedural history according to firm intake protocols.
• Ask appropriate follow-up questions to ensure the attorney receives a complete factual picture.
• Identify the general type of immigration issue involved without providing legal advice.
• Document prior immigration filings, entries and exits, government encounters, court matters, deadlines, and other relevant information.
• Obtain copies of initial documents when appropriate.
• Prepare clear and accurate intake summaries for attorney review.

Consultation Scheduling:

• Schedule consultations with attorneys according to firm procedures.
• Match prospective clients with the appropriate consultation type or attorney when directed by firm protocol.
• Confirm consultation dates and times.
• Send consultation instructions, questionnaires, payment links, and reminders.
• Follow up with prospects who have not completed required intake information.
• Reduce consultation no-shows through proactive reminders and follow-up.
• Reschedule missed appointments promptly when appropriate.
• Schedule consultations and collect consultation fees.

Lead Follow-Up:

The Intake Specialist is responsible for ensuring that prospective clients do not disappear from the firm's pipeline simply because they were not ready to retain immediately.

• Follow up with leads who have not scheduled consultations.
• Follow up with prospects who scheduled but did not attend.
• Follow up after consultations according to firm protocol.
• Maintain scheduled follow-up sequences for undecided prospects.
• Re-engage appropriate older leads.
• Document every follow-up attempt.
• Identify prospects requiring personal attorney or management follow-up.
• Maintain an organized pipeline so that no lead falls through the cracks.

CRM and Docketwise Management:

• Enter complete and accurate prospective-client information into Docketwise and/or the firm's CRM.
• Maintain current lead statuses.
• Document every call, email, text, consultation, and follow-up.
• Create follow-up tasks and reminders.
• Maintain accurate referral-source information.
• Upload relevant prospective-client documents.
• Ensure notes are sufficiently detailed for another team member to understand the history of the lead without additional explanation.
• Regularly review the intake pipeline for stale or incomplete records.

Consultation Preparation:

• Confirm intake information is complete.
• Ensure questionnaires have been submitted when required.
• Confirm payment when applicable.
• Organize relevant documents.
• Prepare a concise intake summary.
• Identify important dates and deadlines.
• Flag obvious inconsistencies or missing information for attorney review.
• Ensure the attorney has the information necessary to conduct an efficient consultation.

Post-Consultation Follow-Up:

• Record consultation disposition promptly.
• Send approved follow-up communications.
• Follow up with prospective clients who have not made a retention decision.
• Answer administrative questions concerning fees, scheduling, engagement procedures, and next steps.
• Escalate substantive legal questions to the attorney.
• Track prospective clients through retention or closure of the lead.

Retention and Handoff:

• Confirm completion of the engagement agreement.
• Send out Professional Service Agreements (PSAs) to new clients.
• Confirm required initial payment according to firm procedures.
• Update the lead status to retained.
• Ensure all intake information and notes are complete.
• Initiate the firm's onboarding workflow.
• Facilitate a clean and professional handoff to the Case Manager and legal team.
• Ensure the retained client understands who will be their primary contact moving forward.
• The Intake Specialist remains responsible for the quality of the intake record transferred to the Case Manager.
• Convert leads to signed clients and handle onboarding process.

Referral Management:

• Accurately record referral sources for every prospective client.
• Identify referral partners requiring acknowledgment or follow-up.
• Track attorney, client, professional, and community referrals.
• Maintain accurate source data for marketing and business-development reporting.
• Reach out to successful clients for reviews and testimonials.

Client Service Standards:

• Communicate professionally and confidently.
• Demonstrate patience with clients who may be anxious, confused, or emotional.
• Listen actively and ask thoughtful questions.
• Avoid rushing prospective clients through the intake process.
• Maintain appropriate boundaries.
• Protect confidential information.
• Never promise outcomes or guarantee results.
• Never provide legal advice.
• Represent the firm's brand and service standards consistently.
• Follow established SOPs and scripts while developing independent judgment.

Requirements

• Minimum 2 years of experience in legal intake, U.S. immigration law, or a comparable high-volume professional client-intake environment.
• Strong experience handling telephone-based client intake.
• Excellent spoken and written English.
• Strong active-listening skills.
• Ability to gather detailed information while maintaining control of a conversation.
• Excellent client-service skills.
• Strong follow-up discipline.
• Experience working with CRM or case-management systems (Docketwise, Clio, MyCase, or similar).
• Excellent documentation and note-taking skills.
• Ability to manage a high volume of incoming leads or customer service experience.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills.
• Comfort discussing professional fees and consultation requirements.
• Ability to recognize when a question requires attorney involvement.
• Ability to follow scripts, SOPs, intake questionnaires, and workflows without sounding robotic.
• Ability to work independently and consistently during U.S. Eastern Time business hours.
• Reliable high-speed internet and professional remote work environment.
• Reliable computer equipment and a professional remote workspace.
• Strong phone communication skills and comfort with client-facing interactions.
• Empathetic listening skills and cultural sensitivity.
• Ability to work with clients from diverse backgrounds and spell names correctly.
• Self-starter mentality with ability to work independently.
• Available for daily morning team meetings (10-15 minutes).

Preferred Qualifications but not required

• Candidates with U.S. immigration law experience will be given strong preference.
• Previous experience working for a U.S. immigration law firm.
• Previous legal background or paralegal experience.
• Experience with Ring Central or similar VOIP systems.
• Familiarity with common U.S. immigration case types.
• Experience with lead-management and follow-up systems.
• Experience with consultation scheduling and conversion tracking.
• Prior remote work for a U.S.-based law firm.
• Experience handling high inbound call volumes.
• Sales or consultative-service experience in a professional environment.
• The Intake Specialist is not responsible for deciding whether the prospective client qualifies for any immigration benefit. That decision belongs to the attorney.
• Bilingual ability is a plus.

Key Performance Indicators:

• Speed to first contact.
• Percentage of new leads successfully contacted.
• Consultation booking rate.
• Consultation show rate.
• Lead-to-consultation conversion.
• Consultation-to-retention conversion where appropriate.
• Follow-up completion rate.
• Accuracy and completeness of intake notes.
• CRM/Docketwise data accuracy.
• Number of leads with no documented follow-up.
• Client responsiveness and service quality.
• Referral-source accuracy.
• Quality of handoff to the Case Manager and legal team.

What Will Make Someone Successful in This Position:

• Picks up the phone rather than relying only on email.
• Follows up consistently without being aggressive.
• Can have sensitive conversations professionally.
• Knows how to listen instead of simply reading a script.
• Asks good follow-up questions.
• Takes ownership of every lead assigned to them.
• Does not allow prospects to disappear because someone forgot to follow up.
• Documents conversations thoroughly.
• Understands the difference between gathering information and giving legal advice.
• Can discuss fees confidently without becoming overly sales-driven.
• Maintains professionalism even when a prospect is emotional, frustrated, or not yet ready to move forward.
• Understands that exceptional intake is both client service and business development.