What does an answering service for solicitors do with a first call?
An answering service for solicitors picks up your firm's line, in the firm's name, while you are with a client, in court or halfway through a draft. The caller speaks to a person, their enquiry is written down, and it is sent to you by text and email. No legal advice is given, and nothing is confirmed about anybody's matter.
Answering a law firm's phone well is largely a question of knowing what not to say. You draw those lines at setup, and they are followed on every call.
Why is voicemail a poor fit for a law firm?
Think about what it took to make the call. Somebody ringing about a separation, a parent's estate or a letter from another firm may have carried the problem around for weeks before dialling. Asking them to explain it to a recording, after a beep, is asking a lot.
The messages that do get left are hard to use. "It's about my mum's will, can someone ring me" does not tell you whether you can act, how soon it matters, or who in the firm should return it. You find those things out on the callback, which is the expensive place to find them out.
What reaches you after a new enquiry?
On Light and Essential: the caller's name and number, what the call is about in their own words, and when they can be reached. On Growth and Premium, which include detailed enquiries and qualification, the questions go as deep as you set them. As an illustration, a call about a house purchase might arrive like this:
- Caller. Full name, mobile, email, free after four on weekdays.
- Matter. Buying a leasehold flat. First purchase. Offer accepted last week.
- Others involved. The seller's name as it appears on the estate agent's memorandum of sale, and the agent's name.
- Dates. Mortgage offer runs out at the end of next month. No completion date agreed.
- They asked. Whether you can act, and what it would cost.
- They were told. A solicitor will ring back tomorrow before midday.
The questions change with the work. A family enquiry needs the other party's name and whether court papers have arrived. A probate enquiry needs the name of the person who died and whether a will has been found. An employment enquiry needs the employer and the day the job ended, because gov.uk counts the time limit for a tribunal claim from that day.
Why take the other side's name before you ring back?
So the conflict check comes before the conversation. The SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors says you do not act where there is a conflict of interest or a significant risk of one, outside narrow exceptions. Ringing back, hearing half the story and then realising the firm already acts for the landlord, the spouse or the employer is a bad afternoon for you and a worse one for the caller.
With the names in the message, you check first. If you cannot act, the callback takes two minutes, and the caller has told you nothing they would not want the other side's solicitor to hear.
What is a caller never told?
Three things, whoever is asking.
- Anything about a client. The same Code requires you to keep the affairs of current and former clients confidential. On the phone, that starts with not confirming a named person is a client at all. Somebody who says they are a client's husband, landlord or new solicitor hears what every caller hears: the message will be passed on.
- What the law says. "Do I have a case", "can they do that" and "what should I write back" are taken down word for word and sent to you. Nobody on our side offers a view, however simple the answer looks.
- Your bank details. These get a section of their own.
What happens when somebody rings about your bank details?
The SRA's cybersecurity advice to firms is short: tell your clients that you would never change your bank details by email. The same page describes a property sale where emailed instructions were acted on without the spoken confirmation the firm's own policy asked for. By the time anybody noticed, the money had been withdrawn, leaving a shortage of £400,000.
So account details are not read out, not confirmed and not accepted as a change on a call we answer. A client who rings to query an email they do not trust is doing the right thing. Their call is flagged as urgent and the message is with you straight away. On Growth and Premium, where call transfers are included, it can be put through to you instead.
What does a caller hear when they ask what you charge?
Whatever you have decided. For some work, part of that decision is made for you. The SRA Transparency Rules require firms to publish price information for a list of services that includes residential conveyancing, uncontested probate, and claims for unfair or wrongful dismissal. Where the figure is already on your website, the caller can be given it, or told where it is. Where you price after a first conversation, they are told that, and when the conversation can happen.
Which plan fits a small firm or a sole practitioner?
Plans are priced on calls per month. Light is £59 for 30 calls and Essential is £129 for 50. Both cover business hours and answer identically: the message taken in full, routine questions dealt with from your notes, a text and an email after each call.
For a law firm, Growth is the one to look at first. At £249 a month for 100 calls it adds the detailed intake described above, enquiries qualified against the work you do and do not take on, first appointments booked into your calendar, call transfers and out-of-hours options. Premium, at £399 for 150 calls, goes further: outbound callbacks to your clients, follow-ups after them, your CRM kept up to date, and the two hours of monthly admin support that only Premium carries.
Setup is a one-off fee, from £49.50 at present where it is normally £99. Every figure is on plans and pricing, and the greeting-to-message basics are covered under our telephone answering service.
How do you try it on your own line?
The trial is seven days, with no card needed and no change to your number. Before it starts, write down the questions you want asked for each area of work you take on, and the handful of callers who should be put through. Our guide on how to write a call script shows what that looks like on paper.
Prefer to talk it over? The number is 01709 222834, and there is a form on the contact page. If your practice sits alongside an accountancy one, there is a separate page on a virtual receptionist for accountants, and the full list of businesses we answer for is on who we help.