Why it matters
Friday, 8pm: an arrest
A family member searches for a criminal defense lawyer at 8pm on a Friday. Two firms' phones go to voicemail, and one website form promises a reply within one business day.
By Monday the family has retained a firm. It's the one that answered over the weekend.
An assistant on your website changes the first hour of that night. It says it's an AI and not a lawyer, takes the family member's name, number and the court date, and sends your intake team an urgent alert while they're still on your site. Whether someone calls back tonight is still the firm's decision.
- 40%of 500 US law firms answered the phone when secret shoppers called in 2024, down from 56% in 2019.Clio Legal Trends Report, 2024 (vendor study, third-party fieldwork)
- 33%of the same firms replied to email inquiries, down from 40% in 2019.Clio Legal Trends Report, 2024 (vendor study)
- 79%of consumers expected a law firm to respond to their inquiry within 24 hours.Clio Legal Trends Report, 2019 (2,000 consumers)
Example conversation
An employment inquiry after hours
- Hi, I'm an AI assistant for Rivera Law, not a lawyer. Chatting here doesn't make you a client of the firm, so please don't share confidential details yet. How can I help?
Discloses it's AI and sets expectations up front
- I was fired today. Do you handle wrongful termination? Do I have a case?
- Yes, employment law is one of our practice areas. Whether you have a case is something only a lawyer can advise on after a consultation. Our first consultation is free. Which state do you work in, and what's the name of your employer?
No view on the case; asks what a conflict check needs
- Illinois, Northside Logistics. I'm Sam Reyes, 555-0177.
- New inquiry · Sam Reyes · 555-0177 · Employment, wrongful termination · Illinois
Emailed to your intake team
Try a sample
Ask a sample assistant yourself
Sample Law Office
SampleA sample law firm, made up for this demo.
Nothing loads until you tap. No account, and nothing you type is saved.
What customers ask
What prospective clients ask a law firm chatbot
- Do you handle my type of case?
- Do you practice in my state or county?
- Is the first consultation free?
- How do you charge: hourly, flat fee or contingency?
- Can I speak to a lawyer today?
- Do you have evening or weekend appointments?
- What should I bring to the consultation?
- Do I have a case?
It answers these from your own website, and hands over any it can't.
What it does
What it does for you
Screens by practice area and location
Confirms whether the matter is one you handle, in a place you practice, from your own website.
Explains consultations and fees
Your consultation terms and published fee structure, never an estimate of what a case will cost.
Treats urgency as urgent
An arrest, a court date or a deadline gets contact details taken at once and an urgent alert sent to you.
Books the consultation
Opens your consultation booking page, inside the chat if it's on Calendly, Acuity or Cal.com, or offers a time from your Google Calendar at the consultation length you set, never one you've blocked out for court.
Rules it follows
Built around legal ethics rules
Says it's AI, not a lawyer
Florida Bar Ethics Opinion 24-1 says a lawyer must tell prospective clients they're talking to an AI program, not a lawyer or law firm employee. Yours says so at the start.
No legal advice
It never assesses a case, predicts an outcome or advises on deadlines. ABA Formal Opinion 512 makes lawyers responsible for supervising AI tools, so it's built to hand every legal question to a lawyer.
Only what a conflict check needs
Under ABA Model Rule 1.18, what a prospective client shares can create duties and conflicts. It takes contact details, the area of law, the location and the other parties' names, and asks for nothing confidential.
No claims about results
It never promises outcomes or makes claims about the firm that your website doesn't make.
What reaches you
What reaches your intake team
Each inquiry arrives by email with enough to call back: who, what kind of matter, and where. The other party's name, for your conflict check, is in the conversation saved with the lead in your dashboard.
- Name
- Sam Reyes
- Phone
- 555-0177
- Matter
- Employment, wrongful termination
- Location
- Illinois
Your tools
Works alongside your practice management software
- Clio
- Clio Grow
- MyCase
- PracticePanther
- Smokeball
- Filevine
- Lawmatics
- Lead Docket
Questions
Common questions
Is it ethical for lawyers to use AI to answer website inquiries?
Bar guidance allows it with safeguards. Between them, Florida Bar Opinion 24-1 and ABA Formal Opinion 512 ask for four things: tell people it's AI, give no legal advice, protect confidentiality, and supervise the tool. Yours is built around the first three, and its conversations are there to read in your dashboard, so a lawyer can do the fourth. Check your own state bar's rules.
How much does an AI receptionist cost for a law firm?
Start on the Free plan, with 100 customer messages a month and no card. Paid plans start at $19 a month, a flat price rather than a charge per call or per minute. Paste your firm's website and it reads your practice areas and consultation terms in about a minute. It goes live when you add one line of code to your site or install the WordPress plugin.
Are our chats used to train an AI model?
We don't train AI models on your data. Each conversation is sent to the provider whose model writes the answer: Anthropic's API, or Google's Gemini API if you choose a Gemini model or Anthropic can't take the request, under that provider's terms for the service. Our security page lists every provider involved. You also choose how long transcripts are kept: everything, or deleted after 3, 6, 12 or 24 months.
Can it run our conflict check?
No. It collects the names of the other parties and hands them to you. The check itself happens where it does now, in your practice management system or conflicts database, before anyone at the firm hears the details of the matter.
How is this different from a legal answering service or virtual receptionist?
A legal answering service answers your firm's phone line. This answers the people on your website, at any hour, from your own pages: practice areas, consultation terms, fees you publish. It doesn't pick up calls, so firms that want both use it beside their answering service.
Can a law firm chatbot take intake in Spanish?
Yes. It replies in the language the person writes in, using the facts from your website, and asks for the same intake details. After its first reply, the buttons in the chat window switch to that language too; the greeting and suggested questions stay as you wrote them.
Similar businesses
Close to yours
- Accountants and CPA firmsAn AI chatbot for CPA and accounting firms: answers prospective clients from your website, books consultations, emails each lead, keeps tax details out.
- Insurance agents and mortgage brokersAn AI chatbot for insurance agents and mortgage brokers: answers visitors from your own pages, books the call, emails you each lead and never quotes a rate.
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