You get more calls than your staff can screen, and you wonder whether an outside service can take over the first conversation. Yes, it can handle the answering, the screening against your written rules and the booking. The decision to take a case, the fee terms and any legal advice stay with your lawyers.
Quick answer
- Hand over the answering, screening questions and booking. Keep the yes or no on every case.
- Write your screening rules down before you call any vendor.
- Ask your state bar before paying a vendor a share of fees or a bonus per signed case.
- Call your own line at 9 pm with a mock case and time it.
- Judge the service after 60 days by cost per signed case.
What can an intake service do, and what stays with you?
A vendor can do the front half of intake; a lawyer keeps the back half. The table shows what the vendors' own pages say. "Not stated" means the linked page leaves it out, so ask.
| Task | What the pages say | Keep in house? |
|---|---|---|
| Answer and screen | Alert screens by practice area; Smith.ai says it qualifies leads on your criteria | Keep the criteria |
| Collect names for conflicts | Alert says it runs conflict screening at first contact, checking names against existing clients; Smith.ai lists conflict checks, with no word on the method | Keep the final check |
| Book the consultation | Named by Answering Legal, Alert and Smith.ai | Keep your calendar rules |
| Send your agreement for e-signature | Alert says its process extends to e-signature dispatch; the Smith.ai and Answering Legal pages are silent | Keep the terms |
| Decline a non-case | Smith.ai says it screens out unqualified leads; the page does not say what the caller hears | Keep the wording |
| Give legal advice | Not an intake task | Keep always |
Two terms. A conflict check is a search of your records for the caller and the other side. It stops a new case clashing with a current or former client. Screening means asking questions to see whether a case fits.
What goes in the screening rules a vendor follows?
One page. The vendor follows it word for word, so a gap in it becomes a gap in every call. Include:
- Case types and states you take, and ones you never take.
- The date of the incident or event, written down so a lawyer can check deadlines.
- Every name for the conflict check: caller, the other side, witnesses.
- Red flags that go straight to a lawyer, such as a hearing this week or an arrest.
- What to do when the caller is an existing client or the opposing party.
The same page covers who may be woken at night and who gets the next-morning list. For the fields a record should hold, see my post on law firm intake.
Can I pay an intake vendor a share of the fees?
Not without checking your state's rule first, because two ABA rules sit in the way. Each state adopts its own version of both. This is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer.
- Model Rule 5.4(a) says lawyers and firms "shall not share legal fees with a nonlawyer." The rule's four exceptions do not mention an outside vendor. A price set as a percentage of your fee on each signed case raises a question under this rule.
- Model Rule 7.2(b) bars giving "anything of value" to a person in return for recommending a lawyer. Its exceptions include the reasonable costs of advertisements and the usual charges of a nonprofit or qualified lawyer referral service. A bonus for each client a vendor sends raises a question under this rule.
A per-minute rate or a monthly fee is priced on the work, not on who signs. A comment to Rule 7.2 allows paying vendors engaged for "marketing or client development services," and your state bar decides whether intake counts. Two longer reads: paying for referrals and buying leads.
For Canada, rule 3.6-7 of the Federation of Law Societies' Model Code says a lawyer must not share, split or divide fees with anyone who is not a lawyer. It also bars any financial or other reward to a non-lawyer for referring clients. Each provincial and territorial law society sets its own rules.
How vendors charge is on their pages. Alert's intake page states $2.50 a minute against a $100 monthly floor. Answering Legal says it bills by the minute, and its intake page offers a free trial of 400 minutes. For a deeper billing comparison, see my legal answering service post.
Can an AI receptionist run intake?
It can answer, summarize and screen; what it may store is the question. Smith.ai's page mixes AI and live agents. Its FAQ says a real person answers calls on the virtual receptionist plans, with AI guiding the agents and writing summaries.
Alert's terms say it may use AI agents to answer your callers' calls, texts and chats. You can opt out in writing. Ask every vendor whether AI ever answers your line.
ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 29, 2024) covers generative AI. For self-learning tools, it says a client's informed consent is required before information about the representation goes in. Adding general boilerplate to engagement letters is "not sufficient" to get that consent.
Whether that reaches what a first-time caller tells a vendor's AI is a question for your bar. For outside providers, the points the opinion lists include:
- the vendor's security policies;
- its conflicts check system;
- confidentiality agreements;
- whether you can seek legal relief if the vendor breaks the deal.
Ask the vendor too whether caller details train its models. The opinion is a US one; in Canada, ask your law society.
How do I judge the service after 60 days?
By cost per signed case, counted for the same source in the months before and after. Per source and month, count calls, screened in, consultations booked, signed, the fee, and divide the fee by signed.
The vendor's records must carry the number dialed and an outcome. Without them you cannot tell ad calls from referral calls.
Illustrative: every number below is made up for an imaginary divorce practice with two attorneys, and none comes from a client.
| After-hours ad calls | Month before | Month after |
|---|---|---|
| Calls | 60 | 60 |
| Consultations booked | 9 | 18 |
| Signed cases | 3 | 6 |
| Service fee | $0 | $450 |
Cost per signed case is $450 divided by 6, so $75. Three more cases signed for $450 is $150 per added case. Wait for the second month, because one month's jump can be luck. Repeat the count before you trust it.
What goes in the contract, and how do I test it in ten minutes?
The contract should say who owns the data and how you leave. Ask for:
- Ownership of intake notes and recordings, and an export when you quit.
- Who keeps the phone number if the vendor assigns one.
- Confidentiality terms and the notice period if there is a breach.
- Who can see your CRM, and how.
- How fast a script change goes live.
- How agents are trained and what happens when they leave.
Alert's terms say call recordings are kept no more than 90 days and data is deleted after an account ends. They also give a client no property rights to a phone number Alert assigns.
Alert's data processing addendum returns a copy of your data on written notice and promises to report a security incident within 72 hours of learning of it. Ask for the export before you cancel.
Before you sign, run one mock call:
- At 9 pm, call your own intake line from a phone the service does not know.
- Play a mock case, with an incident date and a made-up opposing party.
- Time the answer, and count the questions asked.
- Next morning, see what reached you and whether the number dialed is on it.
Prices and rules checked on 2026-10-20.
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Frequently asked questions
What are legal intake services?
Outside companies that answer your new-client calls, ask your screening questions and collect the names your conflict check needs. Alert Communications, Answering Legal and Smith.ai all name appointment booking on their legal pages, and Alert says it also sends agreements for e-signature. Whether to take the case stays with a lawyer.
Can an intake service sign up a client for me?
It can send your agreement; the decision to take the case stays with a lawyer. Alert Communications says its intake process extends through e-signature dispatch and follow-up. The terms in that agreement are yours to set.
Can an intake vendor earn a bonus when a caller becomes my client?
Ask your state bar first. ABA Model Rule 5.4(a) bars sharing legal fees with a nonlawyer, and Rule 7.2(b) bars giving anything of value for recommending a lawyer's services. Each state adopts its own version. This is not legal advice, and I am not a lawyer.
Can an AI receptionist handle legal intake?
Smith.ai uses AI to guide its human agents and write summaries, and Alert's terms say it may let an AI agent answer your callers. What that AI hears and stores is a confidentiality question under your state's rules. ABA Formal Opinion 512 says to read an AI tool's terms and privacy policy and to supervise outside providers that use AI on your matters.
How long should I test an intake service before judging it?
Give it 60 days, so you have two full months to set against the months before. For the same source, compare calls, consultations booked and signed cases, then divide the fee by signed cases. One month alone can rise or fall by luck.
Written by
Marketing Analytics & Conversion Tracking Engineer, US and Canada, run remotely
- Media buyer on Google Ads and Meta Ads from October 2023 to September 2025, nearly $700K in spend.
- Set up patient conversion tracking for a New York medical practice (anonymized).
- Upwork Top Rated Plus, 5.0 from 20 reviews.