client-intakelisted

# Client Intake ## What this does Takes a client's own account of a matter — however disorganised, repetitive, or blended with opinion — and restructures it into a chronology and matter summary, with every piece of information tagged by how solid it actually is: something the client directly observed, something they were told by someone else, their own interpretation of another party's motive or intent, or something they are simply assuming without having checked. It does not analyse the legal position. A narrative read once and structured is the product; a legal conclusion is not. ## Before you start **The narrative itself.** A transcript, notes, an email, or a direct account. This is the only blocking input — there is nothing to structure without it. Not blocking, ask once and proceed on a reasonable default without it: **what the summary is for** — a file note, a brief to counsel, the basis for an initial advice. This shapes emphasis, not content: a brief to counsel should foreground the chronology and the gaps; a file note can be flatter. ## Method **1. Read the whole narrative once before structuring anything.** Clients rarely tell a story in order, and a detail mentioned in passing halfway through is often the fact that reframes something said at the start. Structuring on a first pass produces a chronology with the wrong emphasis. **2. Identify every party named**, their role, and their relationship to the client and to each other, exactly as the client describe