Answering Service — Law Firms
Capture the enquiry. Not the matter.
A new client enquiry to a law firm is worth more than almost any other inbound call, and it is the one most often lost to voicemail while everyone is in court or with a client. Lumomatics answers every line, captures exactly what your intake needs and no more, books the consultation, and stops well short of anything that could be read as advice.
The call that captures too much.
Most answering services are measured by how much they capture. In legal practice that instinct is backwards, and it is the single thing a generic service gets wrong.
A caller with a dispute wants to explain it. They will name the other side, describe what happened, and give you the facts unprompted — before anyone has run a conflict check. A receptionist trained to gather as much as possible writes all of it down. If the firm then finds it acts for the other party, it is holding information it should never have received, and the enquiry has cost it something rather than earned it.
So this service is built to capture less, deliberately. Name, contact details, the general area of law, and how they found you — the things your intake actually needs to open a file and run a check. When a caller starts giving the facts, it moves them toward an appointment rather than continuing to take it down. The caller is told a conflict check comes first, which is both true and reassuring.
What it takes, and where it stops.
Handled on the call
- New enquiry capture to the limit your intake and conflict process allows
- Booking initial consultations with the right practice group or solicitor
- Office hours, location, parking, what to bring, identification requirements
- Fixed fees and consultation rates exactly as your firm publishes them
- Routing existing clients on the rules you set
- After-hours calls, with time-critical matters escalated immediately
Never done
- Taking instructions, or confirming the firm will act
- Indicating whether a matter has merit, or is strong, or is urgent in law
- Estimating a fee beyond what the firm already publishes
- Confirming or denying who the firm acts for
- Discussing the progress of a matter with an unverified caller
- Anything a caller could reasonably read as legal advice
The long-form version of where a legal AI receptionist should stop, and how to test that it does before go-live, is set out in this piece on conveyancing practices — written for conveyancers, but the design principle applies across legal practice.
Two things legal practice needs settled first.
Time-critical calls
Legal practice has more genuinely urgent calls than most fields — a court date, a limitation period running out, a settlement, an arrest, a family violence matter. Your firm defines which situations must reach a person immediately, which number they reach, and at what hours. The service applies those rules rather than forming its own view of what counts as urgent.
What is recorded and kept
Call summaries go where you specify — your practice management system, a restricted mailbox, or a nominated location — and retention is configured deliberately rather than left at a default. Material relating to a client matter carries confidentiality obligations that do not lapse because a third-party system took the call, so this gets decided at setup rather than discovered later.
Your obligations remain yours
Legal profession regulation differs between jurisdictions, and nothing here is a statement that this service satisfies your firm's obligations. What we will do is describe precisely what it does and does not do, in writing, so you can put that in front of whoever advises you on compliance. A provider telling a law firm it is compliant is not a provider worth trusting.
Flat monthly, no per-call billing.
Plans start at AUD $349 a month for 300 call minutes, with AUD $0.5 a minute beyond that, no per-call charge and no lock-in contract. Setup is a one-off from AUD $1500.
It begins with a Workflow Clarity Audit at AUD $399, credited in full toward setup. For a law firm that week is mostly spent on the boundary: what may be captured before a conflict check, which matters escalate immediately, what the service says when a caller pushes for an opinion, and where call records land. Those decisions are the build.
Legal answering service questions.
Can it take a new enquiry before a conflict check has been done?
It can take the enquiry, but not the matter. Name, contact details, the general area of law and how the caller found you are safe to capture and are what your intake needs. Detailed facts, the other side, or anything approaching instructions are deliberately not collected, because a firm that has absorbed the details of a matter it later cannot act in has created a problem rather than won a client. The caller is told a conflict check happens first, which is also a reasonable thing for them to hear.
Where exactly is the line between taking a message and taking instructions?
The service takes messages and books appointments. It does not take instructions, confirm that the firm will act, indicate that a matter has merit or is urgent in a legal sense, or say anything a caller could reasonably read as advice. When a caller starts giving instructions, the response is to book them with a solicitor rather than to keep listening and write it down.
What happens with genuinely time-critical calls?
They escalate on rules your firm writes, and legal practice has more of these than most fields — a court date, a looming limitation period, a settlement, an arrest, a family violence matter. Your firm defines which situations must reach a person immediately and which number they reach at which hours. The service applies those rules; it does not judge for itself whether a legal deadline is urgent.
Can it tell callers what something will cost?
Only what your firm has approved for general publication — a fixed-fee service you advertise at a set price, or the fact that an initial consultation is free or charged at a stated rate. Anything beyond that is a costs conversation, which belongs with a solicitor and carries disclosure obligations. The service books the appointment rather than estimating a fee.
What is recorded, transcribed and kept?
Decided by your firm at setup rather than by a default. Call summaries can be delivered to your practice management system, an email address, or a restricted location, and retention is configured deliberately. This matters more in legal than almost anywhere else, because material relating to a client matter carries confidentiality obligations that do not disappear because a third-party system handled the call.
Can it put an existing client through to the solicitor on their matter?
It can route by the information the caller gives and the rules you set — for example, to the right practice group, or to a named solicitor when the caller asks for one. What it does not do is confirm or deny who acts for whom, or disclose anything about a matter to whoever happens to be calling. Callers who cannot be verified are taken as a message for your team to action.
Write the boundary first, then the greeting.
The demo line is on 03 5910 1919. But for a law firm the useful first conversation is about limits — book fifteen minutes and we will define what may be captured, what must escalate, and what the service must never say.
Clear workflows. Smarter business.