A prospective client calls your firm the day they get served with divorce papers. You’re in a hearing and your paralegal is on another line, so the call goes to voicemail. By the time someone plays the message back, the caller has booked a consultation with another firm.
Most law firm missed calls happen when nobody is free to pick up, at the exact moment a client is choosing a lawyer. In a secret-shopper study of 500 U.S. firms, Clio found that only 40% answered a prospective client’s call, down from 56% in its earlier test. And 48% neither answered nor returned the call.¹ An AI receptionist can cover those gaps by answering, taking the caller’s details, and routing the call while attorneys stay focused on legal work.
Why Do So Many Law Firm Calls Go Unanswered?
When attorneys are in hearings or client meetings and support staff are busy with their own work, nobody is left to pick up. Calls also arrive after the office closes, since legal problems don’t wait for business hours. Voicemail works if someone calls back fast, and until then the caller keeps searching.
What Does a Missed Call Cost Your Firm?
A missed call can cost you the client. In Clio’s consumer research, 42% of people said that if they like the first lawyer they speak with, they won’t need to talk to any others.²
Clio’s hiring study ranks responsiveness among the top factors in choosing a lawyer, tied with office location and second to client reviews.³
Each unanswered call is a lead your firm already worked to earn, whether it came from a referral, an ad, or your website.
How Can an AI Receptionist Help Law Firms?
An AI receptionist answers when no one on your team can and leaves the legal work to your attorneys. IPFone’s AI Receptionist picks up 24/7, answers common questions about hours, location, and services, takes messages with the reason for the call and a preferred callback time, and routes calls to the right person. When a caller needs an attorney, it transfers the call with full context. It handles English and Spanish out of the box and works on top of your existing phone system.
IPFone’s team handles the setup: we build the greetings, routing rules, and FAQ answers around your firm’s intake process, and most businesses go live within one to four weeks. To decide which calls to hand off, read “Which Calls an AI Receptionist Should Answer, and Why Setup Matters.”
IPFone’s AI also works after the call connects. Michael Goldstein, Esq., Partner, Goldstein & Goldstein, LLP, and his team run AI Call Recording and Call Analytics on the hundreds of client calls their personal injury firm in East Orange, NJ, handles each day. Every call gets transcribed, made searchable, and scored for sentiment, so a call from a month ago is one search away. Watch the video.
Your attorneys need to be in court and in client meetings. See how IPFone’s AI Receptionist can answer the calls that come in while they’re there, so the next prospective client who calls your firm gets an answer instead of a voicemail greeting.
Sources
- Clio. “Highlights from the Legal Trends Report: the Legal Industry in 2024”. https://www.clio.com/blog/highlights-from-2024-legal-trends-report/
- Clio. “2019 Legal Trends Report”. https://www.clio.com/resources/legal-trends/2019-report/read-online/
- Clio. “2022 Legal Trends Report”. https://www.clio.com/resources/legal-trends/2022-report/read-online/
Sol Narosky is a journalist and content marketing specialist with over seven years of experience covering technology, innovation, and emerging digital trends.
