Hiring a personal injury case manager or intake specialist

Personal injury firms often post one job for two different people. A listing asks for someone to "handle intake and manage cases", and the firm hires whoever interviews best. Six months later the files are behind, or the phones are, because the two halves of that job reward opposite strengths.

Intake is one conversation done well, under time pressure, with a stranger who may be hurt and frightened. Case management is thirty conversations spread over months, with clients, providers and adjusters, where the risk is not a bad call but a quiet file. Write a rubric for each.

What does a personal injury case manager do?

A personal injury case manager keeps signed files moving from sign-up to demand: checking in with clients, tracking treatment, chasing records and bills, and telling the attorney when something changes. A law firm intake specialist handles what comes before that: the first conversation with someone who hasn't signed yet. A paralegal is a third job again, usually closer to the legal work itself, such as drafting and court deadlines, though small firms often blur all three.

Write down which job you are filling

Before you write the posting, list what the person will own in their first ninety days, and which of the two jobs each item belongs to. Most of the confusion goes away on paper.

An intake specialist usually owns

• The first call or form from a new caller, start to finish.
• Getting the facts an attorney needs to decide, in the caller's words.
• Recognizing what can't wait, and getting it to an attorney the same day.
• The callback promise: who calls, and by when.

A case manager usually owns

• Regular check-ins with signed clients about treatment and how they're doing.
• Requesting records and bills, and chasing the ones that don't arrive.
• Keeping the file current, so anyone can pick it up.
• Telling the attorney when something changes: a gap in treatment, a new provider, a call from an adjuster.

If your list is mostly one column, hire for that job. If it really is both, say so in the posting and score both rubrics, knowing the candidate will be stronger at one.

Before you add a seat, map who you already have

Personal injury firms tend to hire case managers when the files pile up, which is the worst moment to decide what you need. Before you post, spend an hour mapping the team you already have: who carries how many files, who is strong at records and who at client calls, who speaks Spanish, who is ready for more. In my experience a skill map often turns "we need two more case managers" into "we need one, and a better split of the work".

It also tells you which gaps actually matter. If a third of your callers prefer Spanish, Spanish fluency belongs in the rubric as a must-have, not as a nice-to-have on the posting. Revisit the map every quarter, when caseloads shift or the firm takes on a new practice area, so hiring follows the work instead of the panic. I wrote more about building one in 50 to 100 Real Quick, Part 02.

Separate the must-haves from what you can teach

A firm that waits for the case manager who already knows its software, its providers and its attorneys' habits can wait for months, while the existing team covers the gap and burns out. Mark each rubric criterion as must-have (they can't do the job in month one without it) or teachable (a capable person can learn it from you), and screen out only on the must-haves. Potential outweighs perfection more often than hiring managers expect.

A rubric for an intake specialist

1. Taking the facts without sounding like a form

• 5: Has handled inbound calls where they had to gather specific details from upset callers, and describes how they kept the conversation human.
• 3: Phone-based customer service, without detail on how hard calls went.
• 1: No live phone work.

2. Knowing what can't wait

• 5: Gives an example of spotting something urgent in a routine call and escalating it the same day.
• 3: Followed a written escalation list.
• 1: No sign of judgment about urgency.

3. Staying out of advice

• 5: Has worked where they couldn't advise (legal, medical, insurance), and can say how they handled a caller who pushed for an answer.
• 3: Some regulated-industry experience, no example.
• 1: Background suggests they're used to giving answers on the spot.

4. Closing the call with a next step

• 5: Describes ending calls with a specific commitment and owning the follow-through.
• 3: Logged calls for someone else to handle.
• 1: Nothing about follow-up.

A rubric for a case manager

1. Keeping many files moving

• 5: Has managed a caseload, says roughly how many files, and describes the system they used to see what was overdue.
• 3: Lists case or file management, with no detail of how.
• 1: Single-project or single-client work only.

2. Records and bills

• 5: Has requested and tracked medical records or bills, and knows what makes a provider respond.
• 3: General document requests in another setting.
• 1: No records work.

3. Client communication over months

• 5: Kept clients informed through a long process, including when the news was slow or bad.
• 3: Some client contact, mostly scheduling.
• 1: No client-facing work.

4. Noticing what changes the file

• 5: Gives an example of spotting something in a file, such as a gap in treatment, and bringing it to the attorney before it became a problem.
• 3: Followed checklists reliably.
• 1: No sign of judgment about what matters.

As with any rubric, write the evidence next to every score. A résumé that says "excellent communicator" and nothing else hasn't shown you communication, so it shouldn't earn more than a middle score. The interview is where the candidate gets to raise it.

Interview questions, and one work sample each

Interview-question lists for these roles are mostly written for candidates rehearsing answers. Write yours for the interviewer, aimed at the evidence the résumé didn't give you.

For an intake specialist

• "A caller says they were in a crash last week and asks what their case is worth. What do you say?"
• "Tell me about a call where you realized partway through that something was urgent. What did you do?"
• "How do you get someone who is upset to give you a date and a place without making them feel rushed?"
• Work sample: a ten-minute mock call. Play a caller who was rear-ended yesterday, is in pain, and keeps drifting into the story of their week. Score it against the rubric while it happens.

For a case manager

• "How did you know, in your last job, which files needed you this week?"
• "A provider hasn't sent records after three requests. Walk me through the next week."
• "Tell me about a client who was angry about how long things were taking. What did you tell them, and what did you tell the attorney?"
• Work sample: ten one-paragraph file summaries and twenty minutes. Ask which three need attention today, and why. The reasons matter more than the picks.

Hiring several? Run one sprint, not five searches

Growing firms rarely hire one case manager. After a big settlement or a jump in signed cases, the need is often four or ten at once, split between intake and records work. The instinct is to open each seat as its own search, with its own posting, its own interviewers and its own timeline. That spreads everyone thin, and the bar drifts from one search to the next.

Run them as one hiring sprint instead. Picture ten case managers, five for medical records and five for intake. Source for all ten in parallel. Use the two rubrics above as shared scorecards, so every interviewer scores the same things the same way. Hold debriefs together, comparing candidates side by side rather than one at a time weeks apart. You get a shorter time to hire, decisions made on the same evidence, and a hiring manager who stays engaged because the search has a start and an end.

Look where these candidates actually are

Case managers and intake specialists respond to job postings far more than attorneys do, so expect volume. That's good for reach and hard on your time, which is exactly why the rubric and the work samples matter: they let you get through a large applicant pool without lowering the bar.

Your next case manager may also already be in your files: a strong runner-up from your last intake search, or a medical-office applicant who didn't fit a front-desk role. Keep past applicants scored against the rubrics you used, and check them first: in Gem's 2025 Recruiting Benchmarks, about 44% of hires in 2024 were people already in the employer's own candidate records, up from 29% in 2021 (Gem). Ask your team for referrals too, but don't let referrals become the only channel. A team that hires only from its own network ends up hiring people who look like itself.

How we handle it

This is the job Sara does in TalentOS. You set the role and the rubric, or one for each role if you're hiring both. She scores every applicant 1 to 5 on each criterion, quoting the résumé line each score relies on, and checks each quote word for word. When no quote survives, the score is capped at 3. She explains why a candidate fits the role or doesn't, citing their profile.

She rediscovers past applicants who fit the role you're filling now, keeps a pipeline for every role, and can run a hiring blitz: she researches the market, writes the job description and builds a scored shortlist, checking in with you at each step. She proposes interview times or sends the invite once you approve it, and writes the assessment from an interview recorded in Chrome or Edge.

She doesn't decide who you interview or hire, and nothing goes to a candidate without your approval. Sara is one worker at $500 a month.

If you're also hiring a paralegal, the paralegal rubric covers that role. And if after-hours calls are part of why you need an intake specialist, see what the first call must capture.

Start here

Take your current job posting and sort every line into the two columns above. If the posting is half and half, you now know why the last hire felt like a compromise.

See how Sara fits a law firm, what each worker does, and what it costs.