The Private Investigator Client Intake Form: Fields, Template, and What Happens Next

A new client calls on a Tuesday. By Friday you are on a surveillance job, and you still do not know the subject's plate number, whether anyone else has been hired before you, or what the client is actually going to do with your report.

That gap is an intake problem. The full field list is below, grouped into sections, ready to copy into whatever you already use.

Then comes the part no template gives you: what each field is doing later, when the file gets read by a client's attorney or an insurer who was not in the room when any of this was agreed.

What should a private investigator client intake form include?

A private investigator client intake form should capture client identity and contact preferences, the matter and the outcome the client wants, full details on every party involved, a dated timeline, prior actions taken, budget and scope, conflict-check names, signed engagement acknowledgments, and how the client found you. Signed, dated, and stored with the case file.

The complete field list

Copy this straight across. Cut what does not apply to your practice, but cut it on purpose rather than by accident.

1. Client identity and contact

• Full legal name, plus any other names used (maiden, prior married, professional, business)

• Date of birth

• Company name and client's role, if retained by an entity

• Mailing address

• Best phone, and whether it is safe to leave a voicemail there

• Email address

• Does anyone else have access to that phone or email

• Preferred contact method and hours

• Is there anyone who should not know you have contacted us

• Is the client the end client, or acting for someone else

• If retained through an attorney: firm, attorney, direct contact, matter reference

2. The matter itself

• Describe the situation in your own words

• Type of matter: surveillance, background, locate or skip trace, domestic, insurance, corporate or employee, due diligence, asset, service of process, other

• What outcome are you hoping for

• What decision will you make based on what we find

• Active litigation, plus court and case number

• Law enforcement report filed, plus agency and report number

• Deadline, hearing date, or filing date to work backward from

3. Parties involved

• Subject's full name, aliases, nicknames, prior names

• Date of birth or approximate age

• Last known address, plus prior addresses

• Employer, work address, known shift or schedule

• Vehicles: make, model, color, plate, state

• Physical description: height, build, hair, distinguishing marks

• Photograph upload

• Social media handles or profile links

• Known associates, relatives, roommates, co-workers

• Relationship between client and subject

• Is the subject known to be armed, violent, or under a protective order

• Who else is likely to be present or involved

4. Timeline

• When this began

• First relevant event: date and description

• Key events since: dates and descriptions

• Most recent event: date and description

• Days or times the relevant activity tends to happen

• Is the situation ongoing or concluded

5. Prior actions taken

• Another investigator on this matter: who, when, how it ended

• Have you spoken with police, an attorney, HR, or an insurer

• What have you already done or searched yourself

• Has the subject been confronted, or likely to suspect an investigation

• Upload any documents, photos, messages, or recordings you already have

6. Budget and scope

• Budget range you have in mind

• Acknowledgment of retainer amount and hourly rate

• Spending limit before we stop and ask for authorization

• Update frequency and format

• Do you need court-ready documentation, and would you need us to testify

• Expected duration of the work

7. Conflict check

• Full names of every individual involved, including the other side

• Full names of every business entity involved

• Attorneys and firms on both sides, if known

• Have you or the subject used our services before

• Are you related to, or acquainted with, anyone at our firm

8. Consent and engagement acknowledgments

• The information I have given is true and complete to the best of my knowledge

• This firm works within the law and may decline any request it cannot lawfully perform

• Results may be unfavorable, partial, or inconclusive, and no outcome is guaranteed

• I have read and accept the fee and retainer terms

• I consent to contact by the method I selected, and understand messages may be seen by anyone with access to that device

• Typed full name, signature, and date

9. How they found you

• Referral, web search, attorney, prior client, directory, advertisement, other

• Name of the referrer, and may we thank them

The six fields investigators skip, and what they are actually for

These get dropped because they feel awkward to ask on a first call. Each costs more later than the awkwardness costs now.

Why intake is where the case gets won or lost

The intake form is the first document in the file, and everything else gets checked against it.

An address collected wrong on day one becomes a surveillance day on the wrong street. A misheard employer name becomes a background search that returns a different person with the same name. Nothing downstream corrects an error that entered at intake, because nothing downstream knows it is an error.

The conflict check is the sharpest version of this. It is a search against your own history, and it is only as good as the names you collected. Run it before you accept the retainer. A conflict found on day one is a polite decline. A conflict found on day twenty is a returned fee and a file you cannot use. Store the check with the case file, dated, so you have a record rather than a recollection.

The scope conversation happens at intake or it happens badly

Clients rarely know what investigative work costs. They have a picture from television and a number in their head, and the two are seldom related.

Asking for a budget range on the form sets up the retainer conversation honestly and gives you an authorization ceiling in writing. When you hit that ceiling on hour eleven of a surveillance, you stop and ask instead of guessing. That one question prevents most fee disputes a small firm will ever have.

Your intake form will be read by someone who was not there

Your intake form does not stay in your office. It goes into the case file, and the case file gets read by the client's attorney, sometimes opposing counsel, sometimes an insurer or a court. Months later, by people who never met you.

A typed, dated, consistently laid out record reads as a firm that keeps records. A handwritten sheet with a coffee ring, three crossed-out lines, and a phone number nobody can quite make out reads as the opposite, no matter how good the field work was. Zero Deciphering, applied to the one document everybody downstream ends up seeing.

Confidentiality when the client is in a coffee shop

Plenty of first meetings happen at a corner table or in a hotel lobby. That is the nature of the work, and it is a problem for a clipboard. Paper is readable over a shoulder. It travels in a bag, sits in a car overnight, and gets scanned later or never.

A form sent to the client's own phone by text or QR code solves most of that. The client types on their own screen. Required fields stop them skipping the plate number. On submit, the answers assemble into an encrypted PDF that lands in your file, timestamped, before either of you has left the table.