Answer the practice-area question
Whether the firm handles this kind of matter at all, which is the first thing most enquirers want to know.
LEGAL FRONT DESK
AI receptionist for law firms and solicitors
For a law firm the value is at the front of the funnel: catching a new enquiry at the hour it arrives, capturing what the matter is about, explaining how you charge and booking a consultation. Advice, conflict checks and client care obligations stay with people.
Send your website. See Elily answer as your business.
The short version
- New legal enquiries are time-sensitive and arrive out of hours. Whoever replies first is often instructed.
- An AI receptionist can capture and book. It must not advise, and must not appear to.
- Conflict checks and client identification are human tasks and cannot be automated away.
- Say clearly and early that no solicitor-client relationship is created by the conversation.
Why the first reply matters so much here
Someone with a legal problem rarely contacts one firm. They contact three, usually in the evening, usually in a state where waiting feels unbearable. The firm that replies first is frequently the firm instructed, not because it is better, but because the client wanted the uncertainty to stop.
Most firms lose those enquiries to the answerphone rather than to a competitor's argument. The enquiry arrives at half past seven, the message says the office reopens at nine, and by nine the client has spoken to someone else.
That is the specific gap an AI receptionist closes. Not advice. Reception.
What it can safely do
Capture the enquiry properly
What the matter concerns, the names involved, any deadline, and how to reach them, so a fee earner opens a useful summary rather than a name and number.
Explain how you charge
Fixed fees, hourly rates or funding options exactly as you publish them, without estimating the cost of a matter it has not seen.
Book an initial consultation
Offering real availability from the connected calendar and confirming the appointment in the same thread.
Cover evenings and weekends
The hours when personal legal problems surface and no firm has a receptionist on duty.
Hand over with the context intact
So the fee earner picks up a conversation rather than starting a fresh one with someone who has already explained it once.
Where it must stop
- No legal advice, no view on the merits, and no comment on likely outcomes or amounts.
- No statement that the firm is acting, and no wording that implies a retainer has begun.
- No conflict check. Capture the names and let a person run the check.
- No identity verification or anti-money-laundering steps, which require a human process.
- No promise about limitation periods or deadlines, even when the enquirer asks directly.
- No confidential detail repeated back into a channel the client did not choose.
A short, plain line early in the conversation saying that this is an enquiry and not legal advice is worth more than a long disclaimer nobody reads.
Regulatory duties do not move
Whatever answers the enquiry, the firm keeps its obligations: client care, confidentiality, conflict checking, complaints handling and the record-keeping around all of it. Automating the first reply changes who types it, not who is responsible for it.
Practically, that means two things. Agree in writing what the receptionist may say, and keep the transcripts, because they are part of the file. And test the handover on the awkward cases: the enquirer who starts describing the merits in detail, the one who asks whether they will win, and the one who is clearly in distress.
Catch the half past seven enquiry
Send Elily your firm's website on WhatsApp. She reads your practice areas and published fee information and answers as your firm, so you can see exactly how an out-of-hours enquiry would be captured.
QUESTIONS BEFORE YOU START
Common questions
Can an AI receptionist give legal advice?
No, and it should be configured so it will not try. It can say whether the firm handles that kind of matter, explain published fee arrangements and book a consultation. Anything about the merits of a case goes to a solicitor.
Can it run a conflict check?
No. It can capture the names and the nature of the matter so the check is quick to run, but the check itself is a human task and should stay one.
What does it actually do for a firm, then?
It answers the enquiry at the hour it arrives, establishes whether the firm can help, captures a usable summary, explains how you charge and books the consultation. That is reception work, and it is where most firms lose new instructions.
Is WhatsApp appropriate for legal enquiries?
It is where many people already message, and the conversation runs on your firm's own number through the official Platform. Whether it suits a particular matter type is a judgement for the firm, and confidential detail is better moved into your normal secure channel early.
KEEP READING
Where this goes next
THE NEXT MESSAGE CAN BE HERS
The enquiry does not wait until nine.
Send Elily your firm's website on WhatsApp and see how the out-of-hours enquiry is captured and booked before a competitor answers.
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