The short answer
A law firm answering service, human or AI, should answer every call, capture the details your conflict check needs, route the caller by practice area and book a consultation. It never gives legal advice or suggests the caller is now a client, and urgent matters such as an arrest go straight to whoever your firm has on call.
Key takeaways
- Intake starts with the conflict check: the names of the caller and any opposing parties come before the story.
- Collect only what an attorney needs to decide whether to take the matter; the full facts wait for the consultation.
- The intake agent never gives legal advice and tells callers plainly that speaking with it does not make them a client.
- Routing by practice area sends each caller to the right attorney with the screening questions already answered.
- Urgent after-hours matters, such as an arrest or a hearing tomorrow, follow a written on-call rule.
A law firm answering service has one job that outweighs the rest: making sure a prospective client who calls once reaches the firm, gets a consultation on the calendar and leaves a record your attorneys can act on. People looking for a lawyer are often stressed and comparing several firms at the same time. If your line rings out, the next firm on their list may well be the one that hears the story.
This guide covers what good legal intake looks like by phone: the conflict-check details to capture first, routing by practice area, booking consultations, where the line on legal advice sits, and how to handle the urgent calls that arrive at night.
What should a law firm answering service do?
A law firm answering service should answer every call in the firm's name, tell new matters apart from existing clients, collect the details needed for a conflict check, ask the screening questions for that practice area, then book a consultation or route the caller to the right person. Urgent matters follow the firm's rules. It should never give legal advice or comment on the merits of a case.
Existing clients take a separate path. A client calling about their case should reach their attorney or paralegal, or leave a message for them, without being pushed through new-matter intake again. An AI receptionist for a law firm can ask that question early and route the call accordingly.
Intake that starts with the conflict check
The first details to capture are names: the caller, anyone on their side, and the opposing party or parties. Those let your team run a conflict check before anyone hears the full story. Only then come the basics of the matter: what type it is, where it is and which dates matter.
The order has a reason. ABA Model Rule 1.18 treats a person who consults a lawyer about possibly forming a client-lawyer relationship as a prospective client, and bars the lawyer from using or revealing what that person shared even when no relationship follows. Information that could be significantly harmful to the prospective client can also keep the firm from acting for the other side in the same or a substantially related matter, and one of the rule's exceptions depends on the lawyer having avoided more of that information than was reasonably necessary to decide whether to take the case. Your state's version may differ, so have your ethics counsel approve the script. The lesson for intake holds either way: collect what you need to decide, not everything the caller wants to say.
- Who is calling: name, phone, email and the best time to reach them.
- Who else is involved: the opposing party, any co-parties and, for businesses, the company names. These go to your conflict check first.
- Existing client or new matter: existing clients are routed to their own team.
- Matter type and location: practice area, state or county, and the court if a case has already been filed.
- Key dates: when the incident happened, upcoming court dates and any deadline the caller already knows about.
- How they found you: for your own marketing records.
Deliberately left off the list: a detailed narrative, documents and the caller's view of who is at fault. Those wait for the attorney.
Routing callers by practice area
Each practice area needs a few different questions before an attorney can tell whether a consultation makes sense. Build them into the agent so every inquiry arrives already screened:
| Practice area | Questions the agent asks | Where the call goes |
|---|---|---|
| Personal injury | When and where did it happen? Did anyone see a doctor? Is an insurer already involved? | Intake specialist or PI attorney; consultation booked |
| Family law | Is a case already filed? Is a hearing scheduled? Are children involved? | Family law attorney; marked urgent if a hearing is days away |
| Criminal defense | Is someone in custody right now? Where are they held? Is there a court date? | On-call attorney if someone is in custody; otherwise a consultation |
| Estate planning and probate | Is this planning ahead, or about someone who has died? Is there a deadline? | Consultation with the estate attorney |
| Employment | Do you still work there? When did it happen? Has anything been filed with an agency? | Employment attorney; any deadline the caller mentions is flagged |
| Outside your practice areas | What kind of matter is it? | A polite explanation that the firm doesn't handle it, plus a referral if you keep a list |
Questions like these let an attorney judge an inquiry in half a minute. The agent asks them in the same order every time, and the answers arrive in a call summary alongside the recording and transcript.
Can an AI receptionist give legal advice or form an attorney-client relationship?
No. An intake agent collects information for the firm; it does not give legal advice, assess the strength of a case or tell a caller what to do. It should also say plainly that speaking with it does not make the caller a client, and that the firm will confirm whether it can help after reviewing the details, conflict check included.
In practice that comes down to a few scripted lines your attorneys approve: an opening that tells callers they are speaking with the firm's virtual intake assistant, a standard reply to "Do I have a case?" (an attorney will look at it in the consultation), and a refusal to comment on fault, deadlines or likely outcomes. If a caller asks whether a deadline is close, the agent records the question and flags it for a fast attorney callback instead of answering.
Urgent after-hours calls: arrests, hearings and deadlines
Some legal calls can't wait for Monday. A parent calling because their son was arrested, someone served with a protective order and a hearing tomorrow, or a business owner with a filing due in two days all need a fast route to a lawyer. Your firm decides what counts as urgent and who is on call; the agent applies that rule on every call.
- Recognize the trigger. The words and situations your firm lists, such as arrested, in custody, hearing tomorrow, served today or deadline this week.
- Capture the essentials. For an arrest: the person's full name, where they are held if the caller knows, the caller's relationship and a callback number. The agent does not ask the caller to describe what happened.
- Transfer to the on-call attorney. If nobody answers, it takes an urgent message or schedules a callback and tells the caller when to expect a call. Your routing is confirmed during setup.
- Leave a record. The recording, transcript and summary are in the dashboard, waiting for the team in the morning.
If a caller describes someone in immediate danger, the agent tells them to call 911 first. Our guide to after-hours answering services covers how other businesses structure night and weekend coverage.
Booking consultations and connecting Clio
Once a caller passes screening, the agent offers consultation times from the attorney's calendar, books one during the call and texts a confirmation with the date, time and location or video details. Calldone integrates with Clio and with Google Calendar; during setup we confirm with you which call details go where and how consultations appear on attorneys' calendars. Other software can usually be connected through custom actions or webhooks.
Booking on the first call matters because legal callers shop around. A prospective client with a confirmed appointment has stopped comparing firms; one waiting for a callback may not have.
Human legal answering service vs AI intake
| Human legal answering service | AI intake agent | |
|---|---|---|
| Screening | Operators follow your script; quality varies by shift | Asks your screening questions in the same order on every call |
| Booking | Depends on the service and its access to your calendar | Books consultations into the attorney's calendar during the call |
| After hours | Depends on the plan you buy | Same agent and script at any hour |
| Distressed callers | A trained person can slow down and listen | Should recognize distress and transfer quickly |
| Records | Message notes | Recording, transcript, summary and outcome for every call |
Plenty of firms combine the two: the AI handles first contact and booking around the clock, and attorneys or staff take over for sensitive calls. Our AI receptionist guide explains how these systems work more broadly.
Legal intake setup checklist
- Conflict-check fields and the order the agent collects them.
- Screening questions for each practice area, approved by the attorney who runs it.
- The matters you don't take, and a referral list if you have one.
- Approved lines for "Do I have a case?", fee questions and the notice that the call does not create a client relationship.
- Urgent triggers, the on-call number and what happens when nobody answers.
- Consultation types, lengths and which attorneys take them.
- Your state's call-recording consent rules reflected in the greeting.
- Forwarding from your existing number, all day or after hours only.
- Test calls: a new injury inquiry, an existing client, a matter you don't handle and an arrest call at midnight.
Intake is where a client's view of your firm forms, often before any lawyer is involved. Answer every call, capture what the conflict check needs, keep advice with attorneys and put consultations on the calendar. Our setup guide walks through the process end to end, and plans are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
What is a law firm answering service?
A law firm answering service answers calls in the firm's name when staff are busy or the office is closed. It separates existing clients from new inquiries, collects intake and conflict-check details, asks screening questions by practice area, books consultations and routes urgent matters by the firm's rules. It can be staffed by people or run by an AI intake agent, and it never gives legal advice.
Can an AI receptionist for a law firm run a conflict check?
It can collect what a conflict check needs, such as the caller's name, the opposing party and any related companies, and pass that to your team before a consultation is confirmed. The check itself stays with the firm, using your own records and judgment. Taking names first and the full story later also limits what the firm hears before it knows whether a conflict exists.
Does talking to an AI intake agent create an attorney-client relationship?
It shouldn't, and the script should say so. The agent tells callers it is collecting information for the firm, that it cannot give legal advice and that the firm will confirm whether it can help after reviewing the details. Prospective clients may still be owed confidentiality under your state's ethics rules, so treat intake information as confidential from the first call.
How should a law firm handle after-hours calls about an arrest?
Write a rule for it before launch. The agent recognizes arrest-related calls, captures the person's full name, where they are held if known, the caller's relationship and a callback number, then transfers to the on-call attorney. It does not ask the caller to describe what happened. If nobody answers, it takes an urgent message or schedules a callback, tells the caller when to expect a call, and leaves the summary in the dashboard.
Does Calldone integrate with Clio?
Yes. Calldone integrates with Clio, the legal practice management software, and with Google Calendar for booking consultations. During setup the team confirms which call details are sent to Clio and how consultations appear on attorneys' calendars. Software without a named integration can usually be connected through custom actions, which call an HTTPS endpoint you provide, or through signed webhooks.
Can a legal intake agent answer calls in Spanish?
Yes. The agent can be pinned to Spanish or set to detect the caller's language and reply in it, asking the same screening questions either way. Voices are tested for your languages during setup. Make sure someone at the firm can hold the consultation in that language, or note it in the intake so the right attorney calls back. Our bilingual answering service guide has more.
The Calldone Team
Editorial team
Calldone builds, deploys and manages AI voice agents that answer business calls, book appointments and qualify leads. We write about what we see running phone lines for small businesses.
