AI receptionist for law firms that turns intake calls into consultations

A person who searches for a lawyer is rarely calling at a calm moment. Someone was hurt in a crash on the way home, a spouse moved out over the weekend, or a letter from an insurance adjuster arrived with a deadline in bold type. They call the firm they found, and the call reaches a front desk that is also scheduling depositions, or an attorney who is in court until four. An AI receptionist for a law firm is there to answer that call properly, collect what the intake team needs, and stay away from the one thing it must never do, which is to act like a lawyer.

Intake is the core of the job. A personal injury firm wants to know what happened, when and where, whether anyone was hurt, and whether the caller already has a lawyer. A family law practice asks different questions: which county, whether there are children, whether a case is already filed. With Asyntai you write those questions into your AI Instructions, or upload your intake questionnaire, and tell the agent to ask them on a new-matter call. It asks one question at a time and lets the caller tell the story in their own words. At the end it asks for a name and the best number to call back on, says the number back digit by digit, and waits for the caller to confirm it. The request goes to your intake email, and with lead collection on, the number is also saved as a lead.

The boundary is the rule to write first. A caller who is hurt, angry or frightened will ask questions that only an attorney should answer: whether they have a case, what it is worth, whether it is too late to file, whether to accept the insurer's offer. The rule can be short. Tell the agent that it never assesses a case, never estimates a value or a deadline, and never tells the caller what to do. When such a question comes, it says that an attorney has to review the details and offers a consultation callback. Because the rule sits in the AI Instructions, the agent applies it at two in the afternoon and at two in the morning, and every transcript shows you the exact words it chose.

Existing clients call for other reasons. They want an update on a settlement, they have a question for their attorney, or they need to send medical records. For those calls the agent connects people. Each number you import can have a transfer number, such as the front desk or a paralegal's mobile. During the business hours set under Escalation, a client who asks for a person hears that they are being put through, and the phone that rings shows the client's own number. If nobody answers within 20 seconds, or the line is busy, the client returns to the agent, which apologizes and takes a callback request. Outside those hours, the agent takes the callback request straight away.

Matters outside your practice areas deserve a clear answer as well. If the firm handles injury cases only, a caller with a speeding ticket or a question about a will should hear that quickly and politely, not after five intake questions. A rule can list what the firm takes on and name a referral source for everything else, for example your state bar's lawyer referral service. The agent answers from that rule, and the intake inbox holds only the matters your attorneys can accept.

Questions about the firm itself are answered from your website and documents: which counties you cover, where the offices are, whether the first consultation is free, which languages your staff speak, how to send photos of an accident scene. Asyntai reads the website page by page and uses the PDF files or text you upload. It does not invent fees or policies, and when a question falls outside what you wrote, it offers a callback request. When the firm changes a fee or opens a new office, update the document, or have Asyntai read the changed page again. Uploaded documents and AI Instructions take effect on the next call.

The phone side is easy to reason about. The agent answers numbers in your own Twilio account, and Twilio bills you directly for the number and the minutes. You can keep the number on your letterhead and forward calls to the Twilio number when the desk does not pick up, or only in the evenings and at weekends, with the call forwarding your phone provider offers. The Standard plan includes 200 voice minutes a month and answers 5 calls at the same time; Pro includes 1,500 minutes and 10 calls at the same time. The plan finder helps you match a plan to your call volume.

Before any prospective client hears the agent, test it the way a skeptical partner would. Add the website, write the advice rule and the intake questions, and make free test calls in the browser from the Voice Agent page. Ask whether you have a case. Ask what a whiplash claim is worth. Give a phone number with a wrong digit and correct it. Ask for a divorce lawyer when the firm only takes injury work. Read each transcript, add a line to the rules wherever an answer was too loose, and call again. The voice agent guide explains each setting. When every answer sounds like your most careful intake person, connect the number.