🎯 The business: small law firms lose people who call at 7 p.m. or fill in a web form on Sunday. You set up and run their intake front door: AI phone answering and web chat that say they are automated, take names for the firm’s conflict check, collect facts on a script the firm approves, and book a consultation, with everything landing in the firm’s own case software. You review the conversations every day. Neither you nor the AI ever gives legal advice.
At a glance
| Money to start | ≈ $840 to $2,240 |
| Time to the first paying firm | 3 to 8 weeks |
| Hours a week | 10 to 20 |
| Skills that matter most | Law office front-desk or legal assistant experience, writing scripts, setting up answering and case-management tools, discretion |
| What it can pay | About $2,550 a month before tax with five firms on care plans (worked below) |
Is this for you?
It suits someone who has answered phones or done intake at a law office and knows how fast a scared caller can go elsewhere. It also suits a technical person who will learn the legal side carefully. The work is setup, testing and daily review, plus regular calls with busy lawyers.
It is a poor fit if you are tempted to tell people whether they have a case. That is the line this business is built around. It is not a student job either: you handle confidential information under a lawyer’s supervision, and the firms carry the ethics risk for what you do.
Be plain about the competition. Answering services and legal intake software already exist, some with AI plans listed from roughly $95 a month (third-party price guides, November 2026), and the big case-management products have intake built in. A firm can buy a tool on its own. What it usually cannot do is write intake scripts per practice area, connect the tool to its case software, test it, and read the transcripts every day. That is what you sell.
Who pays, and what
Solo lawyers and firms of 2 to 10 lawyers in practice areas where new clients find them by phone or search: personal injury, family, immigration, criminal defense, estate planning and employment. The managing lawyer or office manager decides.
The pain is lost leads and wasted time. Calls after hours go to voicemail, web forms wait until Monday, and lawyers spend unbilled hours on calls about matters they do not handle. A firm that answers first, in the caller’s language, often gets the consultation.
What they pay: the tools themselves run from about $95 to a few hundred dollars a month, paid by the firm in its own name. Your setup and monthly care sit on top. There is no published survey of setup prices; the figures below are examples.
What it takes to start
| LLC and city or county license | $150 to $500 |
| One paid AI account for your own drafting, never client data (Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus or Gemini AI Pro) | About $240 a year |
| Trial or first-month accounts for an answering tool, scheduling and a legal CRM | $0 to $150 |
| Errors and omissions and cyber insurance (an estimate; get quotes) | $400 to $1,200 first year |
| Website, domain and business email | $50 to $150 |
| All-in | ≈ $840 to $2,240 |
The firm pays for its own answering, chat and case software in its own name. That keeps confidential information in accounts the firm controls and supervises, which is what its ethics rules expect. ChatGPT Plus prices are approximate; check the current price.
Start to finish: the steps
1. Learn how a law office takes a new client. If you have not worked in one, ask a lawyer you know to walk you through their intake from first call to signed engagement letter. Learn what a conflict check is and why it comes first.
2. Pick one or two practice areas. Family law callers need different questions, tone and urgency rules than personal injury callers. One practice area lets you reuse scripts and learn its emergencies (a protective order hearing, an arrest, an immigration court date).
3. Set up the business. Form it, buy errors and omissions and cyber insurance, and prepare a service agreement with a confidentiality clause. Firms will ask where data goes, so write that down too. See Choosing a legal structure and Business insurance.
4. Learn two or three tools well. One AI answering or chat product, one scheduling tool, and the intake side of the case-management software your target firms use. Build a demo firm with made-up callers.
5. Offer a paid intake review. Map how leads arrive and where they are lost, and hand back a one-page list of fixes with prices. Credit the fee toward the setup.
6. Write the script with the lawyer. Greeting and automated-system disclosure, names of all parties for the conflict check, contact details, then the fact questions. Write the firm’s approved answers to common questions (hours, location, whether it handles that type of matter, consultation fee if the firm wants it shared). Everything else gets "the attorney will go over that with you." The lawyer signs off on the script.
7. Test hard before launch. Run 30 or more test calls and chats, including an angry caller, a Spanish speaker, a caller in danger, and someone asking "do I have a case?" Fix anything that drifts toward advice. Set an emergency rule: anyone in danger is told to call 911.
8. Review every day. Read the transcripts each morning, flag urgent matters to the firm, and correct the script when the AI handles something badly. This daily review is the product.
9. Report monthly and expand. Leads, response time, consultations booked, and calls about matters the firm does not handle. Then add a second practice area or language.
Pricing
| Paid intake review (credited to the setup) | $300 to $500 |
| Setup for one practice area: answering, web chat, intake form, case-software handoff, booking | $1,500 to $3,000 |
| Each extra practice area or language | $300 to $600 |
| Monthly care: daily transcript review, script updates, monthly report | $300 to $600 |
| Extra work outside the plan | $60 to $100 an hour |
These are example prices. Charge flat fees for your work, never a share of legal fees and never a price per signed client. Lawyers may not share legal fees with non-lawyers (ABA Model Rule 5.4), and paying for recommendations is restricted (Rule 7.2), so a fee tied to cases signed can put your client in an ethics problem. More in Pricing AI and IT services.
The math
Take a solo operator with five firms on a $400 care plan, $2,000 a month, plus one $1,500 setup every other month, which averages $750 a month. Revenue is $2,750. Costs: about $50 for your own software and demo accounts, $70 set aside for insurance, $20 for AI, and $60 for marketing, $200 in all. That leaves about $2,550 a month before tax for roughly 20 hours a week: about 3 hours per firm on daily review and fixes, plus setup work.
That is about $30 an hour at first. It improves as scripts get reused across firms in the same practice area. Set aside a quarter to a third of profit for taxes; see Small business taxes.
Getting customers
Who to approach first. Lawyers who already trust you: the firm you worked at, lawyers among your family and friends, and lawyers you met through a past job. A lawyer is responsible for supervising you and for every word your system says, so the first yes comes from someone who knows you.
The first ten firms. List 40 solo and small firms in your one or two practice areas. Note what each site shows the public: chat, online booking, a response-time promise. Do not pose as a prospective client to test them. Send 40 short emails with three specific observations, make 15 follow-up calls, and ask your local bar association’s solo and small firm section whether you can co-present a short session with a lawyer on intake and AI. Meet three legal marketing agencies. Expect 4 to 6 meetings and 2 or 3 clients in three months; referrals bring the rest over the first year.
Hi Mr. Alvarez, I set up and run intake for small family law firms in San Antonio. Your site has a contact form but no way to book or reach anyone after 5 p.m., which is when many people facing a divorce finally make the call. I build phone and chat intake that says it is automated, takes names for your conflict check first, collects the facts on a script you approve, and books a consult in your calendar, in English and Spanish. It never gives legal advice, and I read every conversation each morning. I worked the front desk at a family law firm for four years. Could I show you a 15-minute demo? Lucia Gomez, 210-555-0119
Channels, best to worst for this customer:
1. Lawyers you have worked with, and their referrals.
2. Legal marketing agencies: they see firms waste their ad spend on missed calls.
3. Local bar association sections and events: solo and small firm groups, practice-area sections.
4. Consultants for the case-management software firms use: they set up the software but rarely run intake.
5. LinkedIn: short posts on intake mistakes, written for lawyers.
6. Google Business Profile: for lawyers checking you after a referral.
7. Upwork: some firms post intake setup jobs, at mixed rates.
8. Paid ads: last.
Turning clients into referrals. Measure two things from day one: how fast new leads get a response and how many consultations get booked. After three months, ask the lawyer for a quote and permission to name the firm, never any caller’s details. Ask which colleague in another practice area or town has the same problem. More in the launch and marketing playbook.
Running it week to week
Every morning, read the night’s transcripts, send the firm anything urgent, and fix the script if the AI answered something it should have handed off. Weekly, check that bookings, forms and the handoff to the case software all still work, and that texts are going through. Monthly, send each firm its report and review the script with the lawyer, especially after a change in the law or the firm’s fees. Keep a log of every script change and who approved it.
Rules to check
Unauthorized practice of law. Only a licensed lawyer may give legal advice. Your system and you may collect facts, give the firm’s approved information, and book appointments. Neither may tell a caller whether they have a case, what it is worth, which deadline applies to them, or what to do next legally. States define the practice of law differently, so have each firm’s lawyer approve the script for their state.
The lawyer supervises you. Under ABA Model Rule 5.3, lawyers must make reasonable efforts to ensure that non-lawyers working for them, including outside vendors, act consistently with the lawyer’s own duties. ABA Formal Opinion 512 (July 29, 2024) applies the duties of competence, confidentiality, communication and supervision to lawyers’ use of generative AI; it guides state bars but does not bind them, and many states have issued their own opinions. Expect firms to ask for a confidentiality agreement, a description of where data is stored, and the right to review your work.
Prospective clients. ABA Model Rule 1.18 makes what a prospective client tells the firm confidential, even if the firm never takes the case, and can bar the firm from the other side if it hears too much. That is why the script takes names for the conflict check before the caller’s story.
Money, advertising and calls. Charge flat fees, not shares of legal fees or per signed client (Rules 5.4 and 7.2). What the bot says about the firm is the firm’s own communication and must not be misleading (Rule 7.1). Never market the setup as an "AI lawyer": the FTC’s 2025 order against DoNotPay, with a $193,000 payment, was over exactly that kind of claim. Have every bot say it is automated. Business texts need A2P 10DLC registration, and in states that require everyone’s consent to record a call, the recording notice must play first. More in Contracts, client data and AI rules.
What goes wrong
The AI tells a caller "that sounds like a strong case"; test for it, review daily, and tighten the script. A caller describes an emergency at 2 a.m. and nobody sees it until morning; set the 911 rule and an urgent-alert path the firm agrees to. A lawyer approves a script and never reads another report; send a short monthly summary and ask for sign-off on changes. A firm wants to pay you a cut of fees from cases you bring in; decline and explain why. And a caller is in the firm’s conflict list but the check happens after a long story; keep names first, every time.
Questions people ask
Can a non-lawyer do client intake for a law firm?
Yes, under the supervision of a lawyer at the firm. A non-lawyer can collect contact details and facts, run the firm’s approved script and book consultations. They cannot give legal advice, assess whether someone has a case, or set fees.
Can a law firm use an AI receptionist or chatbot for intake?
Many do. The lawyer stays responsible for what it says and for protecting confidential information, as ABA Formal Opinion 512 and state bar opinions explain. The bot should say it is automated, stick to facts and booking, and hand anything else to a person.
How much does a legal intake service cost?
AI answering tools aimed at law firms list plans from roughly $95 a month, and human receptionist plans cost more (third-party price guides, November 2026). A custom setup by an independent operator might run $1,500 to $3,000 plus a monthly care plan, as an example.
What should a law firm intake form ask first?
The names of everyone involved, so the firm can check for conflicts of interest before hearing details. Then contact information, the type of matter, key dates, and how the person heard about the firm. The firm’s lawyer should approve the full list for each practice area.
Can I charge a law firm per signed client?
It is risky for the firm. Lawyers may not share legal fees with non-lawyers, and most states restrict paying anyone for recommending the lawyer. Flat setup and monthly fees avoid the problem. Your client should check its own state’s rules.
Free help
The ABA publishes its Model Rules of Professional Conduct and Formal Opinion 512 free online. Most state bars run an ethics hotline and practice-management advisors for their members, so your client can ask about your setup in their state. SCORE mentors and your local Small Business Development Center help with contracts, pricing and a first plan at no cost.
Tool prices, ABA rules and opinions and the FTC order were checked in November 2026. Re-check your state’s ethics opinions on AI and each tool’s price and data terms before you set up a firm; state bars are issuing new AI guidance often.