Law Firm Intake AI Agent

The law firm intake AI agent is a pre-built Sawy template designed specifically for legal practices. It handles the entire client intake process over the phone — answering calls, qualifying potential clients, capturing case details, and booking consultations — 24/7, without your staff picking up the phone.

This page covers deployment: what the template ships with, the sample intake dialogues it handles (including after-hours criminal defense), the integrations and write actions it performs in each practice-management platform, the tuning tips that matter for legal intake, and where this template is the wrong fit. For the broader market case and ROI math, see the AI receptionist for law firms page.

What This Template Ships With

What the Law Firm Intake template adds over a generic install — practice-area branching, conflict-check integration, privilege-aware opening, and SOL triage that Customer Support and Lead Qualifier templates don't carry.

Sample Conversation Flow

Here's what a typical intake call sounds like with the law firm AI agent:

AI: "Thank you for calling Johnson & Associates. My name is Sarah. How can I help you today?"

Caller: "Hi, I was in a car accident last week and I think I need a lawyer."

AI: "I'm sorry to hear about your accident. I'd like to get some details so we can help. First, can I get your full name?"

Caller: "David Martinez."

AI: "Thank you, David. Where did the accident occur?"

Caller: "On Highway 101 in San Jose."

AI: "Got it. Were you injured in the accident?"

Caller: "Yes, I hurt my back and I've been seeing a doctor."

AI: "I'm sorry to hear that. Have you spoken with the other driver's insurance company?"

Caller: "They called me but I haven't said anything yet."

AI: "That's good — it's usually best to speak with an attorney first. I'd like to schedule a free consultation with one of our attorneys. I have availability tomorrow at 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. Would either of those work?"

Caller: "10 a.m. works."

AI: "Perfect. I've booked you for tomorrow at 10 a.m. with Attorney Johnson. You'll receive a text with the confirmation and our office address. Is there anything else I can help with?"

The AI captures all details — name, contact info, accident date, location, injuries, insurance status — and delivers a complete intake summary to the attorney before the consultation.

Practice-Area Intake Branches

Each practice area has its own screening flow, calibrated for the case facts that matter most:

• Personal injury: incident date (with SOL check), accident location, injury and treatment status, insurance contact status, prior attorney contact. Refuses to discuss settlement value.
• Family law: relationship status, children, jurisdiction, urgency (custody emergency vs. planning a filing), opposing-counsel name if known.
• Criminal defense: charges, arraignment status, jurisdiction, prior interrogation, blood-test consent. Routes immediately to on-call attorney for active arrests.
• Estate planning: family situation, asset complexity, urgency, prior will status.
• Immigration: current visa status, deadlines (work authorization, NTA dates), family ties, prior counsel.

Per-area flows editable in the rule editor — add custom questions or disable areas your firm doesn't take.

Integrations — Specific WRITE Actions

What the agent actually does in each connected system. These write actions are scoped to the legal intake workflow:

Calendar and Communication

• Google Calendar / Outlook: books the consultation with caller name + practice area in the title, intake summary in the description, opposing-party names in the location field for visual conflict awareness.
• Google Meet / Zoom: auto-generates the video link, attaches to both the calendar event and the SMS confirmation.
• Email: sends intake summary to assigned attorney within 60 seconds, conflict-check status flagged at top.
• SMS: confirmation with attorney name, time, address (or video link), and a privilege reminder. For criminal-defense urgent calls, also includes the on-call attorney's direct line.

Setup in 5 Steps

1. Select the template from your Sawy dashboard. This pre-loads the legal greeting, screening questions, and practice-area branches.
2. Customize your firm: firm name, address, phone, practice areas, attorney names and specialties, consultation availability.
3. Configure screening questions: review the per-practice-area defaults, add custom questions, set required vs. optional fields, define disqualification criteria (e.g., SOL exceeded).
4. Connect integrations: practice management software (Clio, MyCase, etc.), calendar, conflict-check database, notification preferences.
5. Forward your number and go live: forward your main line, run a test call, verify the greeting, screening questions, and appointment booking write correctly.

A Second Sample Call — DUI Arrest, Spouse Calling at 11 p.m.

A higher-stakes intake shape this template needs to handle: a panicked family member, criminal-defense urgency, conflict-check pressure.

AI: "Johnson & Associates after-hours line. This is Sarah."

Caller: "My husband was just arrested for DUI. He's at the county jail. We need a lawyer right now."

AI: "I understand — I'll get you to an attorney quickly. Can I have your name and your husband's full name?"

Caller: "I'm Janet Reyes. He's Marco Reyes."

AI: "Thank you, Janet. A few quick questions so the attorney can move fast. Has Marco been arraigned yet, or is this still booking?"

Caller: "He just got there about 40 minutes ago. They said booking takes a few hours."

AI: "Good — that gives us time. Two important things: do you know whether anyone from law enforcement has questioned him, and has he been asked to consent to a blood test?"

Caller: "I don't know. He called me from the car before they took his phone."

AI: "Understood. One last question — was the arrest in Santa Clara County?"

Caller: "Yes."

AI: "I'm running a quick conflict check and paging our on-call DUI attorney, Mark Ellis. He'll call you within 15 minutes. If you don't hear from him in 20, call this number back and press 9. Don't discuss the case with anyone — including jail staff — until you've spoken with him. Do you have a pen for one quick instruction?"

The AI captured the case-critical facts (arraignment status, interrogation status, blood-test consent), ran an automated conflict check against opposing parties in the firm's matter database, paged the correct on-call attorney by practice area, and gave the caller the one operational instruction that protects the matter (don't discuss with jail staff). Full intake summary lands in the attorney's Clio inbox before he calls back.

Legal-Intake-Specific Tuning Tips

Three tuning decisions that matter for legal intake more than for other verticals:

1. Conflict check before consultation booking, not after. Booking a consultation, then discovering on the morning of that the firm represents the opposing party in another matter, burns attorney time and creates an ethics problem. Configure the agent to capture opposing-party names early and check against your matter database before any calendar slot is committed.
2. Statute-of-limitations awareness in personal injury intake. Configure the agent to ask the date of the incident before anything else for PI calls — and to flag any incident older than your jurisdiction's SOL minus 90 days as urgent. A potential plaintiff calling 23 months after a California car accident is a 30-day-window matter, not a "we'll get back to you next week" matter.
3. Privilege language at the open, not the close. Many firms have the agent recite "this call may be recorded for quality" at the end. For legal intake, the privilege and confidentiality language belongs in the first 15 seconds — before the caller shares facts the firm might not want recorded if a conflict surfaces. Build it into the greeting, not the wrap-up.

When Not to Use This Template

This template is wrong for high-volume contingency-fee mills that need a pure conversion machine over thoughtful screening (a lighter Lead Qualifier template will move faster), and wrong for in-house corporate legal departments where every inbound caller is already a known stakeholder rather than a prospective client. Solo practitioners doing transactional work (wills, real estate closings) may also find this overbuilt — a basic Appointment Booker handles their flow with less configuration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where does the privilege language sit, and can I edit it?

By default, privilege and confidentiality language is in the first 15 seconds of the greeting — before the caller shares case facts. Editable in template settings, but we recommend against moving it to the wrap-up; that defeats the purpose of disclosing before the facts hit the recording.

How does the conflict check work, and what happens when it flags?

The agent captures opposing-party names during intake (PI defendant, divorce opposing spouse, criminal complaining witness). Names check against your matter database in real time. If a potential conflict surfaces, the agent does not book the consultation — it captures the intake, flags for partner review, and tells the caller "we need to check on something; you'll hear back within 24 hours."

Can I customize the urgent-call routing per practice area?

Yes — urgent-routing criteria are editable per practice area. For criminal defense, the default trigger is "active arrest within the last 24 hours" and routes to the on-call attorney's cell. Add or remove triggers (custody emergency, deadline within 72 hours) and configure separate on-call rotations per area.

How does the statute-of-limitations triage work for PI?

For PI calls, the agent asks incident date first. Any incident older than your jurisdiction's SOL minus 90 days flags as urgent and routes to partner review rather than routine consultation. SOL values configured per jurisdiction during setup.

How does intake summary get to the attorney before consultation?

Two paths: (1) practice-management write creates the matter record with intake notes attached, so the attorney sees them in Clio/MyCase; (2) an email lands in the assigned attorney's inbox within 60 seconds with full summary and conflict-check status flagged at top. Email destination is configurable per attorney (Slack DM or SMS also supported).