Legal Services
Legal CRM for client intake and business development, kept apart from the matter file
Legal work is won before a matter is opened: in the intake call, the conflicts check, the consultation and the fee conversation. Senitix CRM keeps that commercial side on one record, with the practice area, the referral source, the consultation and every fee proposal version beside the client and a dated follow-up that has an owner. The matter file, court filings, and time and billing stay in the systems built for them.
Built for law firms, solo and small practices, mediation and arbitration providers and other legal-services businesses in the United States, whether the client is a company or an individual.
One record per inquiry, and nothing privileged on it
A practice sets the deal up around the new-client inquiry: practice area, referral source, originating attorney, conflicts-check status and fee arrangement as fields, beside the client (a company and its contacts, or an individual) and every version of the fee proposal. An example pipeline runs from inquiry received to engaged, and at every stage the key fields and the team's own guidance say what should be settled before an inquiry moves on. There is deliberately no field for the facts of the matter; the matter file keeps those.
In Senitix CRM
What Senitix CRM solves for law firms and mediation practices
Give every inquiry an owner and a next date
Each call, email or referral becomes a lead with its practice area, source and intake owner, and the consultation is a meeting activity on it with a reminder. Calls are logged after they happen, because Senitix is not a phone system, and mail from a connected Gmail, Outlook or IMAP mailbox lands on the same record.
- Qualifying the lead creates the contact, the client company where there is one, and the deal in one step, with the source carried over
- A public booking link lets a prospective client pick the consultation time, and Google Calendar or Microsoft Calendar stays in sync
- WhatsApp and other messaging channels are coming soon; until then, a request that arrives there is logged by hand with its source
Keep the commercial record apart from the matter file
The CRM holds what intake needs to follow up: who asked, about which practice area, when the consultation is and what the fee will be. The facts of the matter, strategy and case documents stay in the firm’s practice-management or case-management system, so the person who books a consultation never has to read what the client disclosed.
- Roles, departments and record ownership decide who opens an inquiry, and field permissions show fee terms only to the roles that set them
- A sensitive inquiry restricted to named people, with an access explorer that shows why anyone else can see it
- Every field change kept in the record's history, and an audit trail of who changed which setting and when
Version the fee proposal, and keep the signed engagement letter with it
Hourly rates, flat fees and retainers sit in a price book that works as the firm’s rate card, and every revision of the fee proposal is saved as the next numbered version on that deal, sent as a PDF from the firm’s template. The accepted version becomes a contract record for the engagement letter; signing happens outside Senitix, and the signed letter is then attached to that record. Plan details are on the pricing page.
- Named approvers sign off on a reduced or discounted fee before the client sees the proposal
- An annual retainer's end date on the contract record, with a renewal task for a named owner before it expires
- When the deal is won, an automation opens a task for the responsible attorney to open the matter in the firm's own system
See which relationships bring in retained clients
The referral goes onto the lead as its source the moment the inquiry comes in, and the referring lawyer, accountant or former client can be a contact of their own. Corporate clients are accounts, with each pitch or panel RFP as its own deal, so a partner knows which practice groups already work for the client before proposing another.
- Inquiries won and declined by practice area, referral source and originating attorney, with each declined matter closed under a reason
- Scheduled reports listing consultations that got no follow-up and fee proposals that expired unanswered
- A separate pipeline for corporate pitches beside the intake pipeline for individual clients
An example intake pipeline for a law firm
The stages a law firm or mediation practice might set up in Senitix CRM, from “Inquiry received” to “Engaged”. Each stage has guidance the practice writes in its own words, plus up to five key fields.
Example stages
- Inquiry received
- Conflicts check
- Consultation
- Fee proposal sent
- Engagement letter
- Engaged
Guidance on each stage
- Inquiry received The prospective client, the practice area and the source are on the record, and an intake owner is assigned. Nothing about the facts of the matter is written here.
- Conflicts check The check has been run in the firm's own conflicts system, and its status and date are recorded. An inquiry the firm cannot take closes as lost with the reason “Conflict”.
- Consultation The consultation is on the calendar as a meeting activity with the attorney who will hold it, and the prospective client has confirmed the time.
- Fee proposal sent A proposal version with the fee arrangement and a validity date is marked Sent, and someone owns a dated follow-up.
- Engagement letter The signed engagement letter is attached to a contract record that carries the accepted proposal version.
- Engaged A task exists for the responsible attorney to open the matter in the firm's own system, and the deal is closed as won.
An example, not a default: nothing arrives configured, and each practice builds its own stages. Guidance and key fields inform the person moving an inquiry; they never block the move. A mediation practice might finish at “Handed to the mediator” instead, and when a stage is renamed, reordered or removed, open inquiries keep their history.
Customer story Mediation and dispute resolution
Global Arabuluculuk Merkezi tracks mediation requests and room rentals apart from the case file
A mediation center in Istanbul's Kağıthane district, close to the Çağlayan courthouse, that also rents its meeting rooms to mediators from outside. Its story describes how requests, sessions and fee or rental proposals are set up on one commercial record while the dispute itself stays in the center's mediation software, and it publishes no results.
Read the Global Arabuluculuk Merkezi storyFAQ
Legal CRM questions
What is a legal CRM?
A legal CRM is customer relationship management software shaped around how a law firm or legal-services provider takes on and keeps clients. Each inquiry is a record with its practice area, referral source, consultation and fee proposal, and each client, whether a company or an individual, carries the history of every matter the firm pitched for. It sits in front of the firm’s practice-management system, not in place of it.
Is Senitix CRM case-management software?
No. Senitix CRM does not open or run matters: there is no docketing, court calendaring, deadline tracking, document assembly, time entry, trust accounting or court e-filing in it. It holds the commercial side before and around a matter: the inquiry, the conflicts-check status, the consultation, the fee proposal, the engagement letter and the client relationship. A firm keeps its practice-management or case-management system for the matter itself, and the two work side by side.
How does a law firm use a CRM for business development?
To see where new work comes from and what each client could need next. Referral sources are recorded on the lead and carried over to the contact and the deal, corporate clients are accounts with every pitch as its own deal, and reports show which practice areas, referrers and originating attorneys bring in retained clients. To set sources up so those reports hold, see our guide to lead source tracking.
Can a CRM handle the conflicts check at intake?
As a stage, yes; as the check itself, no. A firm can set up “Conflicts check” as a stage whose guidance says what must be true before an inquiry moves on, with the status and date of the check as key fields. The search against current and former clients and adverse parties runs in the firm’s own conflicts system, and Senitix CRM neither runs it nor stops an inquiry that skips the stage.
What should a law firm keep out of its CRM?
The facts of the matter and anything privileged: what the client disclosed in the consultation, legal strategy, work product and case documents. Keep intake notes to what the follow-up needs, such as practice area, timing and the next step, and leave the rest to the matter file. Field permissions decide who sees fee terms, and a sensitive inquiry can be restricted to named people; our guide to CRM permissions covers roles and field access.
Can a mediation practice schedule sessions and room rentals in a CRM?
Yes, as activities. Each session is a meeting activity on the request, a room rental can be an activity type of the practice’s own, and the calendar view shows the practice’s sessions beside rooms booked by outside mediators, who can pick a time from a public booking link. Each room type and its rate is a product in a price book, so a rental is quoted like any other service. Senitix CRM does not manage rooms as resources and will not block two bookings for the same hour, so the coordinator checks the calendar.
Does a legal CRM integrate with practice-management or billing software?
There is no ready-made connector for that. Senitix CRM does not link to legal practice-management, case-management, time-and-billing or court e-filing systems, and this page names no vendor. Gmail, Outlook or IMAP mail and Google or Microsoft calendars connect natively; other connections are built on connected apps registered by Senitix, which means a link to your practice software begins with a conversation with our team. CSV and Excel files handle import and export, and outgoing webhooks are coming soon.
Which reports should a law firm's intake team watch?
Start with inquiries that have no next activity, consultations held without a follow-up, fee proposals that expired without an answer, how long inquiries sit in each stage, and inquiries won and declined by practice area and referral source. Each report reads the firm’s own fields and stages and respects each user’s permissions, so nobody receives a row they could not open.
Start with the next new-client call
Open a free account and log this week's inquiries, or ask our team to help shape the fields, stages and permissions around your practice areas and the way your firm takes on clients.
No credit card required.