Legal
Legal intake service: from first call to booked consultation
Short answer
A legal intake service handles the step between a prospective client’s first call and their first meeting with an attorney: who they are, what the matter is, whether it fits your firm, and what happens next. Ours is a legal intake answering service that’s 100% AI. It screens each caller with your questions, takes the other party’s name for a conflict check, books the consultation or routes the call, and your intake team gets the same complete summary for every new matter, day or night.
Free setup · No contract · Cancel anytime
Example call: a consultation booked for an employment matter
Fenwick and Oduya Law · A consultation booked for an employment matter
- AI
- Fenwick and Oduya Law, this is AI Receptionist, the firm’s AI assistant. I can’t give legal advice. How can I help?
- Caller
- I was fired last Thursday. I think it was retaliation.
- AI
- Who was your employer?
- Caller
- Lakemont Logistics.
- AI
- Attorney Fenwick has Wednesday at 2 p.m. for a consultation. Does that work?
- Caller
- Yes. Brian Castillo, 555-0185.
- AI
- You’re booked, Brian. I’ll text you our intake form. Booking doesn’t mean the firm has taken your case.
Summary sent to you
- Consultation booked
- Wednesday 2:00 p.m. with Attorney Fenwick, saved in the calendar. Intake form link texted.
- New matter, employment
- terminated last Thursday; caller believes it was retaliation. **Fit:** meets your employment criteria (no longer employed, ended within your window). Employer: Lakemont Logistics (for conflict check).
- Caller
- Brian Castillo, 555-0185. No advice given; told the firm hasn’t taken the case.
When intake calls come at the wrong time
It’s 8:20 on a Monday morning, and your intake coordinator is going through the weekend. The voicemail box is full. Some messages have a name and no number; one has a number and nobody answers it. Two callers mention they’re “talking to a few firms.”
Meanwhile the phone keeps ringing: everyone who waited all weekend calls on Monday. While the coordinator is on one intake, the next caller hears the recording, and the matters you’d take are mixed in with the ones you wouldn’t.
How the call goes
-
Answer, and set expectations
It gives your firm’s name, says it’s an AI assistant and reads your legal advice line before the story starts.
The AI says: “Fenwick and Oduya Law, this is AI Receptionist, the firm’s AI assistant. I can’t give legal advice. How can I help?”
-
Screen with your questions
Each practice area has a short list, written with you: for employment, still working there and when it ended; for an injury, the accident date. Answers are checked against your criteria and noted in the summary, and a question the caller already answered isn’t asked again.
The AI says: “Are you still working there, or when did your job end?”
-
The other party, for conflicts
The employer, the other driver, the company on the other side: only the name, for your conflict check.
The AI says: “What’s the name of your employer?”
-
Dates that change the order
A hearing, a deadline, papers served. Anything inside your urgent window jumps the queue.
The AI says: “Is there a court date, or a deadline on anything you’ve received?”
-
The next step, decided by your rules
A consultation in the attorney’s calendar, a request for your team, or your referral line. Before anything is booked, the caller hears in your words that booking isn’t the same as being taken on and, if you want, gets a text with your intake form. The script itself, question by question, is the legal intake script.
The AI says: “Booking doesn’t mean the firm has taken your case. I’ll text you the link to our intake form.”
What counts as urgent
In intake, “urgent” means “this goes ahead of the queue.” These are the routes we start from. Your rules replace them.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| A court date or deadline inside your urgent window | Intake team or attorney on duty now, with the date |
| Fits your criteria, with consultation times open | Consultation booked; confirmed to the caller only once it’s saved |
| Fits, but the calendar doesn’t respond | Request marked pending; your team confirms the time |
| Your practice area, but outside a criterion you set | Message for your team to decide; nothing promised |
| The caller already has a lawyer on this matter | Message only, marked; the AI doesn’t encourage them to switch |
| An existing client | Their attorney, live or by message |
| A matter your firm doesn’t take | Your referral line, read once, if you’ve approved one |
What it never says on these calls
- That the caller qualifies, has a good case or meets your criteria. That note is for your team only.
- Any legal advice, including whether a deadline has passed.
- That a consultation is booked before it’s saved in the calendar.
- Contingency terms, fees or “no fee unless we win,” unless you’ve approved the words.
- That speaking with it, or booking, makes the caller a client.
What you decide
- Your screening questions, per practice area, and the order they’re asked in.
- Your criteria: what makes a matter a fit, and what goes to your team to decide.
- Booking: which matters get a consultation straight away, with which attorney, and how long it blocks.
- Your urgent window, and who takes those calls.
- The words it reads, exactly as you write them: legal advice, not yet representing them, any fee wording, and the intake form link if you use one.
We set it up the way you want and you approve the final version.
Why this works for intake
Our call protocols come from nearly two decades of running phone reception for small businesses, and an answering service for legal intake is where the same questions in the same order pay off. It asks what matters: the employer’s name and the date the job ended come before the long story, so your team can run a conflict check before calling back. It knows when to hand over: a hearing next week goes to a person now, and a fit with open slots goes into the calendar. The rules are on our method.
Each practice area gets its own questions: personal injury starts with the accident date and family law with a safe number. The rest of a firm’s calls are on the attorney answering service page.
What it costs
Intake calls are billed per answered call, so a Monday rush doesn’t cost more per caller than a quiet Tuesday: $0.99 each and no monthly fee, on Pay As You Go. If your team books consultations every day, the 50-Call Plan or the 100-Call Plan bundles those calls into one monthly fee. The numbers are on pricing.
Free setup · No contract · Cancel anytime
Your month, by plan
Best fit: 50-Call Plan, $29.00
- Pay As You Go Best fit $29.70
- 50-Call Plan Best fit $29.00
- 100-Call Plan Best fit $49.00
What the month would cost on each plan: the monthly fee plus each call past the ones included.
Questions law firm intake teams ask
What is a legal intake service?
It’s the step that turns a new client’s call into a consultation or a clear next step for your team. Ours puts a fit note at the top of each summary: which of your criteria were met, which weren’t, and what was booked. The caller never hears that note.
Is AI intake for law firms the same as an automated intake form?
No. A form waits for the caller to fill it in, and a caller in a hurry may not. AI intake happens while the caller is still on the line: it asks your questions, books the consultation and can text the form afterward for the rest. How booking works is on appointment scheduling.
How is this different from an answering service with legal intake run by people?
An intake team with people can probe, reassure and improvise when a story is complicated. The AI asks your questions in your order, every time, and anything that doesn’t fit the script goes to your team as a message. What you gain is that no intake depends on who picked up.
Does it replace my intake coordinator?
It doesn’t have to. It can take only the calls your coordinator can’t: nights, weekends and the Monday rush, through overflow call answering. Your coordinator starts the day with every intake complete and sorted. Lead capture for other kinds of business is on lead intake and qualification.
What happens to callers who don’t fit our criteria?
They’re treated politely and never told they don’t qualify. An area you don’t handle gets your referral line; a close call goes to your team to decide, with the criterion that didn’t match. It never books a consultation for a caller who already has a lawyer on the matter.
Every new matter, ready for your team
Send us your practice areas, screening questions and criteria through Get started. We turn them into one protocol for new and everyday calls on the same line (how it works), and your line is forwarded only after you sign off on every word.
Free setup · No contract · Cancel anytime