Case study · Law firm
Law Firm Intake Answered in Under 10 Seconds: Case Study
New matters captured on the first call
A legal intake case study from AssistBPO: new matters captured on the first call for a law firm client, anonymized at their request. The desk was staffed by a named assistant with a trained backup and a team lead, working the client's own hours inside the client's own systems. What follows is the operational account: what the desk looked like before, what the assistant took over, and what the client sees every day now.
By Nimra Khalid · · Reviewed by Issabela Masters
What was happening before?
A personal injury and family law practice in the US Northeast had one paralegal covering reception between her own case work. New inquiry calls landed while she was on another line or in a meeting, and a caller who reaches voicemail with a legal problem usually calls the next firm rather than waiting. Intake notes varied by whoever took the call, so conflict checks and consult bookings often needed a second conversation. AssistBPO put a named legal receptionist on the line with a trained backup and a team lead, working in the firm's own case management system during office hours and on an after-hours desk in the evenings. Every new inquiry now follows one intake script, gets the conflict-check details captured before anything else, and either books a consult or is declined politely with a referral note.
What did we do?
In the order it happened, on the client's own systems.
Wrote one intake script with the partners
The same questions in the same order on every call: caller and opposing party names, the area of law, what happened and when, whether another firm is involved, and how the caller prefers to be contacted. The script is written so the receptionist gathers facts without giving anything that could read as legal advice.
Put conflict-check details first
Names of everyone involved are captured at the top of the call and run against the firm's conflict list before a consult is offered. If a conflict shows, the call ends politely with a referral note and nothing further is discussed. That single change removed the awkward follow-up call the firm used to have to make.
Booked consults into the right calendar
Matter type maps to the right attorney and the right consult length, with buffer rules and travel time respected. The receptionist books directly, sends the confirmation and the intake form, and tells the caller exactly what to bring. The attorney opens the day with complete notes rather than a name and a phone number.
Added an after-hours desk
Evening and weekend inquiries are answered by a person rather than a machine, with the same script and the same conflict-check discipline. Urgent matters follow an escalation rule the partners wrote. Everything else is booked or queued, and the office opens to a written overnight summary.
Set a weekly review on intake quality
The team lead reviews call recordings and intake records monthly against a scorecard for greeting, script adherence, completeness and tone. The weekly review covers answer speed, consults booked and held, declined matters and any question the script handles badly, which is usually the fastest way to improve conversion.
The desk
What changed on the desk?
Three moments on one desk. Every line here is something the client can check against their own systems.
- Before
- Reception was one paralegal fitting it around her own case work. New inquiry calls landed while she was on another line or in a meeting, and a caller with a legal problem who reaches voicemail usually calls the next firm rather than waiting for a callback. Intake notes varied with whoever picked up, so conflict checks and consult bookings often needed a second conversation, and the firm sometimes had to make an awkward call back because a conflict surfaced only after a consult had been offered.
- What the assistant took over
- A named legal receptionist took every new inquiry, on the line during office hours and on an after-hours desk in the evenings and at weekends, with a trained backup and a team lead. Every call follows one intake script the partners wrote: the names of everyone involved first, then the area of law, what happened and when, whether another firm is involved, and how the caller prefers to be contacted. The receptionist works in the firm's own case management system and books consults directly into the right attorney's calendar. The script is written so facts are gathered without offering anything that could read as legal advice.
- What the client sees now
- Conflict-check names are captured at the top of the call and run before a consult is offered, so a conflict ends the call politely with a referral note and nothing further is discussed. Matter type maps to the right attorney and the right consult length, with buffer and travel rules respected, and the caller rings off knowing exactly what to bring. The attorney opens the day with complete notes rather than a name and a phone number. Evening and weekend inquiries get the same script and the same discipline, and the office opens to a written overnight summary. The team lead scores call recordings on greeting, script adherence, completeness and tone, and the weekly review turns any question the script handles badly into a script change.
What does the weekly review cover?
The same measures every week, read off the client's own systems with the team lead in the room. They are what this desk is answerable for, which is why they are named here.
- How quickly a new inquiry call was answered, and by whom
- New inquiries that reached voicemail instead of a person
- Intakes complete on the first call, scored against the script
- Consults booked, and how many of them were held
Measures, not claims. AssistBPO publishes a before and after value only once the owner has checked it against the client's own export, and this page shows the work instead.
How is this study verified?
The intake script, the conflict-check order and the escalation rule above are the partners' own and are what the desk runs on. No figure appears on this page, because AssistBPO publishes a number only once the owner has checked it against the firm's own phone and case records. Real client, anonymized at their request. Never marked up as a review or rating. See how we count.
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