Turn client intake forms into Clio matters and contacts

When a new response is submitted to our client intake form in Google Forms, turn that submission into a clean, properly linked matter in Clio and post a triage summary to Slack. Use a poll trigger for new Google Forms responses so this runs once per submission.

First, parse the form response. Pull out the prospective client's full name, email, phone, and mailing address; the practice area or matter type they selected; a short description of their legal issue; and the name of the opposing party (the other side named on the form). Normalize these values before using them.

Before creating anything, check whether this person is already on file. Use Clio List Contacts to search existing contacts by the client's name and email. If there is a clear match, reuse that existing contact and do not create a duplicate. Only if there is no match, create a new Person contact with Clio Create Contact (contact type Person) using the parsed name and contact details. Remember that Clio write bodies are wrapped as { data: { ... } }.

Open a new matter for this client with Clio Create Matter. Link the matter to the contact you found or created by setting the client association as a nested id object, for example "client": { "id": <contactId> }. Set the matter description from the intake summary and record the selected practice area. Before creating, look at the client's existing matters so you do not open a duplicate matter for the same intake; if an obviously matching open matter already exists, reuse it instead. Capture the new matter's display_number for the summary.

Run a conflict check. Use Clio List Contacts again to search for the opposing party named on the form. If any contact matches the opposing party, treat it as a potential conflict of interest and flag it clearly with the matching contact's name. Always run this check and always report its result, even when it comes back clean with no matches found.

Finally, post a triage summary to our intake channel in Slack with Send a Message. Include the new matter display number, the practice area, the client's name and contact details, and a one-line description of the issue. End with a prominent conflict-check line: either "Potential conflict found" plus the matching contact name, or "Conflict check clear: no match for [opposing party]". Make the conflict result impossible to miss so the reviewing attorney sees it right away.