Draft replies to new inquiries queued for same-day review, with the conflict check already run
A prospect leaves a voicemail after hours or forwards a demand letter from the other side. Someone has to read it, enter the parties, run the conflict search, get a lawyer to clear it and reply before the prospect calls the next firm. In the secret shop for Clio's 2024 Legal Trends Report, only 33% of 500 firms responded to an email. The agent prepares the intake record and runs the first search, and your intake team decides what happens next.
Examples use invented names and figures.
What the agent does
- Step 1Reads the inquiry
From the web form or the shared inbox, including voicemail transcripts. It pulls out the prospect, the other side, related companies and people, dates, county and practice area, and notes anything that sounds like a deadline so a lawyer sees it early.
- Step 2Runs the conflict search
Every name it found, and the obvious variants, is searched in your practice management system against current and former clients and past adverse parties. Prospects you declined are searched too. Hits are ranked and shown with the matter they came from.
- Step 3Drafts the next messages
A reply to the prospect in your firm's voice and a one-page intake memo for the lawyer. Once a lawyer clears the conflict, it prepares the engagement or non-engagement letter from your templates.
- Step 4Queues it for approval
Your intake manager sees the inquiry next to the search results and the drafts. Nothing reaches the prospect until a person releases it, and consult times are offered only after a lawyer clears any hit.
Clearing conflicts, accepting or declining the matter, fee terms and legal advice stay with a lawyer. Model Rule 1.18 addresses information from qualifying prospective clients even when no representation follows, and your state's version of the rule governs. The agent keeps that information inside your systems and limits who can see it.
- Time to first reply, before and after
- Share of inquiries answered the same business day
- Conflict checks per week and minutes each
- Hits sent to a lawyer, with the reason
Questions about this agent
Will prospects know they are dealing with AI?
Replies go out from your intake team after review, in your firm's voice. If you add a chat assistant to your website, it should tell visitors it is an AI program. Florida Bar Ethics Opinion 24-1 says lawyers must do so for chatbots, and the same practice makes sense in any state.
Does it work with Clio Grow, MyCase or PracticePanther?
The sprint checks how your system exposes contacts and matters, and the build quote says exactly how the agent will connect. Many firms start from the shared inbox and the web form, which needs no system access during the sprint.
What happens to information from people we turn down?
It stays in your systems under the same rules as the rest of your intake records. Model Rule 1.18 addresses information from qualifying prospective clients, and your state's version of the rule governs. A declined prospect can still matter for conflicts later, so the agent records them in the conflict database the way your intake team would.