This article reports the results of a two-stage study on the effectiveness of intake procedures in reducing dropout rates in family counseling services. Effective intake procedures help identify unsuitable candidates for family counseling services, including those who are likely to discontinue treatment because of reluctant others or primary loyalty to another agency. High dropout rates in counseling services indicate both ineffective client service and inefficient resource utilization. Extensive investigation of factors that contribute to client discontinuance of marriage and family counseling and psychotherapy have pursued client, counselor, and agency variables in an effort to determine factors that differentiate clients who continue treatment from those who discontinue treatment. Counselor variables, when investigated independently, appear to have less predictive value than they do when considered together with client variables. Agency variables, particularly as they relate to intake in a family service agency, are particularly relevant to the study reported in this article. Self-referral for counseling has been demonstrated repeatedly to be an important predictor of continuance in counseling.