Legal intake
Your AI receptionist for law firms is still taking intake at 9:21 PM.
It runs the conflicts search before it takes a single fact, books Wednesday at 10:00 with the attorney who handles MVA, and pages your on-call the minute a caller says her ex is in the driveway. The office locked up at six. The phone did not.
Live in 24 hours · Writes into Clio, Filevine, MyCase · Cancel anytime
One customer request, handled end to end
See how a customer request becomes a completed, reviewable business outcome.
Step 1
Customer need
Incoming call
(559) 555-0146 — rear-ended Monday, not represented
Step 2
AI action
CallSphere handles the next steps
The AI answers, captures the right details, follows your availability and escalation rules, and updates the systems your staff already use.
- Answers immediately and understands the request
- Checks the rules you approved during setup
- Books, routes, or escalates without creating more admin work
Step 3
Business result
3 consults booked tonight
0 calls to voicemail. Your staff sees the completed record and can review every action.
Illustrative intake workflow · synthetic matters
Works with what you already run
It writes into your case management system, not next to it
Where your software has an open API, the agent creates the lead, attaches the recording and transcript, files the conflicts report, and books the consult on the assigned attorney's calendar. Where intake CRM and matter management are separate products, it writes to both so nobody rekeys a phone number at 8 AM. Where a system is closed, or your firm keeps intake in a spreadsheet and consults on a shared Google or Outlook calendar, the agent books the calendar and emails a structured intake sheet your paralegal can paste in one action. We will tell you which of those three you are in during setup rather than after you sign.
- Intake
- New lead created with source, call recording, transcript, matter type, incident date, county, adverse parties, and carrier.
- Conflicts
- Caller, adverse parties, insurers, employers, and prior names searched against your party list. Hits and near matches are flagged for a lawyer. The agent never clears one.
- Calendar
- Consults booked against the right attorney with your consult lengths, buffers, and in-office or video preference. A cancellation releases the slot and texts the waitlist.
- Follow-up
- Intake form, fee agreement queued for e-signature, reminder sequence, and the morning intake digest. Client-facing sends are held to business hours if you want them held.
Product names and logos are the property of their respective owners. Integration availability varies by system and plan.
One evening, five contacts
Watch it work an evening of intakes
A phone call becomes a timestamped transcript. A web chat becomes a thread. An overnight job becomes a run log against the system it wrote to. Same agent, three different records — all of them filed before anyone unlocks the door.
Front desk
Website chat, a fall from 2023
The agent takes the date and refuses the question
Intake screen · new lead
- Matter type
- PREM · slip and fall
- Incident date
- Mar 2, 2023 — over two years
- Conflicts
- 3 names searched, no hits
- Jurisdiction
- Fresno County, CA
- Routed to
- K. Alvarez — SOL review
Definition
Plain answer
What is an AI intake agent for law firms?
An AI agent for law firms is software that answers your phone calls and website chats 24/7 and handles the work behind each one — screening callers, running new-client intake, flagging conflict-check details, and booking consultations straight to your calendar. It replies in plain, professional language and logs every conversation so nothing slips through, with encrypted handling of sensitive client information.
6:14 PM to 8:05 AM
One Tuesday night at a six-lawyer firm
These are the contacts that arrive after the intake coordinator goes home. Nobody at the firm hears any of them until morning, and by then some of those callers have hired somebody else. Same evening as the board above, same names, same clock.
- 6:14 PM
A woman starts a website chat about a fall at a grocery store in March 2023.
Today
The widget takes a name and an email. The one fact that decides whether this is a case, the date, sits unread overnight in a shared inbox.
With CallSphere
The agent captures the date, the store's corporate names, and the county, runs the conflicts search, tells her plainly that only an attorney can answer a timing question, and puts a before-noon callback on K. Alvarez.
- 7:42 PM
A man rear-ended two days ago calls to ask if you take car accident cases.
Today
He reaches voicemail, leaves a number, and calls the next firm on the results page while he waits. This is the call the entire marketing budget was for.
With CallSphere
Conflicts run on him, the other driver, and her carrier. He books Wednesday at 10:00, gets the intake form by text, and is told the fee conversation happens with Kim, not with an assistant.
- 8:09 PM
The 1:00 custody consult texts to cancel.
Today
The text lands in a shared inbox. The slot stays on the calendar until 1:05 tomorrow, when an attorney sits in an empty room for forty-five minutes.
With CallSphere
Two alternates are offered first. When she doesn't reply, the slot is released, the waitlist is texted, and P. Nwosu confirms a dissolution consult at 8:15. Six minutes, no attorney involved.
- 9:21 PM
A current client says her ex is in the driveway on a night he isn't supposed to have the children.
Today
An answering service takes a message marked urgent and emails it. Whether anyone reads it before morning is luck.
With CallSphere
The agent asks about immediate danger, reads your 911 instruction word for word, pages the on-call attorney, and holds 1:30 tomorrow for a restraining order consult. Boone picks up at 9:22.
- 11:38 PM
The overnight queue writes itself into the case management system.
Today
Four sticky notes and a voicemail box. Somebody retypes phone numbers at 8:30 and the conflicts checks happen whenever a paralegal gets to them.
With CallSphere
Four leads created with recordings and transcripts, 11 party names searched, one near match flagged for a lawyer, incident dates recorded with a confirm-SOL task, and two fee agreements queued to send at 8:15 AM.
- 8:05 AM
The team unlocks the office.
Today
The first hour goes to the voicemail box and the callback list, calling people who already signed with someone else.
With CallSphere
Wednesday is booked: 10:00 MVA, 1:00 dissolution, 1:30 TRO. Four matters are open with conflicts reports attached, one date question is waiting for an attorney, and nothing went to voicemail.
Scope
An intake coordinator, not an attorney
The agent gathers, schedules, and routes. It does not practice law, and it says so out loud on the call. Here is the whole line, before you have to ask for it.
Handles on its own
- Answers every call, chat, and text after hours and on weekends, in English and 56 other languages, and tells a caller it is an AI assistant whenever it is asked.
- Runs your conflicts search on the caller, adverse parties, insurers, employers, and prior names before it takes detailed matter facts, then reports hits and near matches.
- Books, moves, and cancels consults on the right attorney's calendar with your consult lengths, buffers, and in-office or video preference.
- Captures the intake a plaintiff or family firm actually needs: incident date, county and court, injuries and treatment so far, police report number, carrier and adjuster, opposing counsel, children and existing orders.
- Sends the intake form, queues the fee agreement for e-signature, and runs the reminder sequence before a consult.
- Backfills a cancelled consult from your waitlist by text, offering the slot in the order you set and holding it for the window you set.
- Gives current clients the status your system already records — next court date, whether a document was received, who the assigned paralegal is — and nothing beyond that.
- Escalates on your rules: order violations, safety, an angry client, a referral source you route straight to a partner, or anyone who asks for a person.
Hands to a human, immediately
- Legal advice of any kind. Whether they have a case, how long they have to file, whether an offer is fair, what to say to an adjuster. It says it cannot answer and gets them to a lawyer.
- Fees. No hourly rate, no contingency percentage, no cost estimate, and nothing that could be read as an offer to represent. Only an attorney signs a fee agreement.
- Clearing a conflict. It runs the search and attaches the report. A person reads it and decides.
- Deadline math. It records the incident date and opens a confirm-SOL task for the assigned attorney. It never tells a caller a date and never calendars a deadline on its own.
- Danger. If a caller describes an immediate threat, the agent reads your standing instruction to hang up and call 911, then pages the on-call attorney. It does not assess the situation.
- Turning a matter away. If it is outside your practice areas, the agent takes the details and follows your declination script or routes to your bar's referral line.
One consequence worth stating plainly: an after-hours conversation with the agent does not create an attorney-client relationship, and the agent says so. It does not follow that the conversation is unprotected. Under ABA Model Rule 1.18 and its state equivalents, what a prospective client tells you is confidential whether or not you take the matter, and information that could be significantly harmful to that person can disqualify you later. That is exactly why the agent takes identifying names and runs the conflicts search before it takes the facts, and why every recording and transcript is handled as confidential from the first word.
What we can and cannot claim
What we can show you, and what we can't
CallSphere is early. We are not going to hand you a signed-retainer lift or a case-value number, because we cannot support one and any figure a vendor gives you about your conversion rate is a guess about your firm. The published research below is other people's work, fetched and linked so you can check it yourself. The numbers that should decide this are the ones you count in your own phone log during a seven-day pilot.
Up to 45%
more qualified leads captured
Illustrative based on early CallSphere pilots; not a guarantee. Actual results depend on your call volume, intake criteria, and follow-up.
What you can count in seven days
- Calls and chats answered after 6 PM and on weekends, set against how many went to voicemail in the same hours last week.
- Consults booked from after-hours contacts, and how many of those people actually showed up.
- Minutes from first contact to a conflicts search on file, instead of the next business morning.
- Consults that would have sat empty after a cancellation and were refilled from the waitlist.
Not our numbers — theirs
- 40%
of law firms answered the phone when a secret shopper called, down from 56% in the same study five years earlier
- 48%
of the firms contacted were, in Clio's words, essentially unreachable by phone
- 33%
of firms responded to an email inquiry at all
- 18%
of the firms that did respond gave the prospective client clear next steps or any cost information
- 39%
of secret-shopper calls went to voicemail in the 2019 edition of the same study, when 56% still reached a person
- ~25%
of legal malpractice claims now come from administrative errors such as failing to calendar properly or failing to react to a calendared date, per ALPS reading the ABA Profile of Legal Malpractice Claims 2020–2023
Confidentiality, consent, and the rules you answer to
No state bar certifies an answering agent
There is no bar approval to display and no ethics badge to buy. What exists is a set of duties that belong to you and not to your vendor: confidentiality, conflicts, supervision of nonlawyer assistance, and your state's advertising and UPL rules. Here is how the agent is built to sit inside those, and what you still have to decide.
- No advice, no fees
- The agent is scripted never to answer a legal question, quote an hourly rate or contingency percentage, or say anything that sounds like accepting a matter. It identifies itself as an AI assistant on request and hands off when pushed.
- Conflicts before facts
- Identifying names first — caller, adverse parties, insurers, employers, prior and maiden names — then the search against your party list, then the matter facts. Hits and near matches go to a person. The agent never marks a conflict cleared.
- Rule 1.18 handling
- Prospective-client information is treated as confidential from the first word, whether or not you take the matter. Recordings, transcripts, and chat logs inherit that treatment, and declined intakes are stored exactly like accepted ones.
- Recording and consent
- A disclosure plays at the top of every call. In all-party consent states, California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington among them, you can require an affirmative yes before recording starts, or switch recording off for those states and keep transcripts only.
- Encryption
- TLS 1.2 or higher in transit, SRTP for call audio, AES-256 at rest, and a timestamped audit log of every call, message, write-back, and escalation.
- Retention
- You set the window for recordings and transcripts and they delete on your schedule. Bulk export on request, including if you leave.
- Access
- Role-based. Intake staff see intake. Billing, trust accounting, and matter documents are not something the agent reads or exposes.
None of this is a legal opinion and we are not offering one. Advertising rules, UPL rules, and the fast-moving guidance on generative AI differ by state, and several bars have issued opinions since 2024. Send us your bar's required language and your firm's disclaimer and we will put it in the script before you go live. If your malpractice carrier or your ethics counsel wants the call flow, the escalation rules, and the retention settings in writing first, ask and we will send the document.
Questions buyers actually ask
Before you put it on the main line
Can the AI handle confidential legal intake calls?
Yes. All calls are encrypted and CallSphere maintains confidentiality-minded handling with audit logging and role-based access. The AI collects case details without storing sensitive information beyond what's needed for intake, and never provides legal advice.
Does it qualify legal leads by practice area?
The agent asks about the nature of the legal matter, timeline, and jurisdiction to route callers to the right attorney or practice group.
Can it schedule consultations with specific attorneys?
Absolutely. The AI checks attorney availability and books consultations based on practice area, location, and preferred meeting format.
How does it handle existing client calls?
Returning clients are identified and can get case status updates, schedule follow-ups, or be transferred to their assigned attorney or paralegal.
Does it work for different practice areas?
Yes. CallSphere is configured for your specific practice areas — personal injury, family law, criminal defense, immigration, corporate, and more.
What does the agent say when a caller asks whether they have a case?
It declines and routes. The script is roughly: "I can't answer that, only an attorney here can, and I don't want to guess with something this important." Then it takes the facts that let a lawyer answer quickly — incident date, county, injuries, treatment, carrier — and either books the consult or flags the lead for a callback with a time attached. Same for deadline questions, settlement value, and what to tell an adjuster.
How does the conflicts check actually work?
The agent asks for identifying names before it takes matter facts: the caller's full and prior names, the adverse party, any business entity, the insurer, and the employer where it applies. It searches those against the party list in your case management system through the API and attaches a report to the lead. It reports hits and near matches. It does not clear them, it does not decline a matter on its own, and where a hit appears it stops collecting detail and routes to a lawyer.
Does an after-hours call with the agent create an attorney-client relationship?
No, and the agent says so before the call ends. What it does create is a prospective-client relationship. Under Model Rule 1.18 and its state equivalents, what that person told you is confidential whether or not you take the matter, and if what they said could be significantly harmful to them it can disqualify you from the other side later. That is the whole reason the agent runs the conflicts search before it takes the facts rather than after.
A caller says her ex violated a custody order. What happens?
The agent asks one question, whether anyone is in immediate danger right now, and if the answer is yes or unclear it reads your standing instruction to hang up and call 911. It does not evaluate the situation and it does not tell her what her order means. It then pages whoever your after-hours rule names, holds a consult slot, asks her to send the order when she is safe, and attaches the transcript to the matter. You write the trigger list and the script. We do not invent an urgency ladder for your firm.
Are calls recorded, and what about all-party consent states?
A disclosure plays at the top of every call. In states that require all parties to consent you can set the agent to get an affirmative yes before recording begins, or switch recording off for those states and keep the transcript only. Retention is your setting, audio and transcripts delete on your schedule, and everything exports if you leave. If your carrier wants the disclosure worded a particular way, send us the words.
We run Clio Grow and Clio Manage. What if our matter system is closed?
Where the API is open — Clio, MyCase, Filevine, Smokeball, PracticePanther, CASEpeer, Lawmatics and most of the cloud generation — the agent creates the lead, attaches the recording, transcript, and conflicts report, and books the consult on the right attorney's calendar. Where a system is closed or on-premises, it books your Google or Outlook calendar and emails a structured intake sheet in a fixed format your staff can paste in one action. We tell you which case you are in during setup, not after.
Will this replace our intake coordinator?
Not the way most firms use it. Your coordinator is best at the ten-minute conversation with a grieving family and the follow-up that turns a signed lead into a funded matter, and she cannot do either at 9:21 PM. The agent covers the hours nobody is at the desk and the calls that stack up while she is on another line, then hands her a lead that already has names, dates, a conflicts report, and a booked consult on it.
Where to go next
Compare the product behind this workflow
The industry page shows what happens on the call. These product pages explain the software, deployment model and pricing behind it.
- AI ReceptionistThe service overview: 24/7 answering, booking, transfers and multilingual calls.
- AI Phone Answering ServiceFull-time, overflow and after-hours answering that can finish the task on the call.
- Virtual Receptionist SoftwareCompare a receptionist system with a live service or an in-house hire.
- AI Receptionist SoftwareCompare capability layers, integrations, pricing models and deployment safeguards.
- Nationwide service and major-metro coverageCallSphere serves businesses across all 50 states; the location hub links the retained state and major-metro guides.
- Open the live Law firms demoExplore the interactive console with clearly labelled synthetic customer data.
Run it on your after-hours line for seven days
Your main number keeps ringing at the desk during business hours. We put the agent on the calls that arrive after six, on weekends, and while everyone is in a hearing. At the end of the week you have a phone log, a set of transcripts, and a count of consults that would otherwise have been a voicemail. Keep it or don't. The recordings and the intake data are yours either way.
Setup takes one call and your consult rules · $50/mo for message-taking, $149/mo for full intake · No contract
Overnight intake summary
Wed · 8:05 AM
- Calls and chats answered
- 11
- Consults booked
- 3
- Cancellation backfilled
- 1
- Conflicts searches run
- 4 · 11 names
- Escalated to on-call
- 1
- Sent to voicemail
- 0
Illustrative · one evening