Legal Answering Service for Attorneys and Law Firms
New callers are asked who they are before your phone rings. Every call to your cell comes to VettedCalls first. We answer in your business name, put real callers through to you, and ring you right away when a caller says a priority word. On Receptionist, a call you don't pick up goes to an AI receptionist with instructions written for attorneys, unless it's a priority call or a saved contact, which go to voicemail.
Get started with VettedCallsWhere a caller's words end up
Before you put anything between a client and your office, you'll want to know what it keeps. Here is every point on an attorney account where what a caller says is heard, stored or sent, and what happens to it.
| When | What happens to what they said |
|---|---|
| The greeting | We ask who's calling and how we can help. An AI model (Claude, made by Anthropic) reads the answer and returns a name, a short topic, whether it's a priority call and whether it looks like spam. |
| You answer | You hear the caller's name and topic, then a beep, then the caller. On an attorney account the calls you answer are never recorded, and the recording switch in the dashboard can't turn recording on. |
| Voicemail | The message is saved for you to play. Transcription is switched off for attorney accounts, so there's no written transcript, and the text alert we send you never includes what the caller said. |
| AI receptionist (Receptionist) | The caller hears "Let me connect you to the receptionist. This call may be recorded." A summary and transcript of that conversation go into your dashboard's AI call history. |
| Texts to you | The AI receptionist can text you a message with the caller's name, number and a short summary, and it can send you an escalation text for something urgent. The 7am summary on Receptionist counts calls, spam blocked, voicemails and priority calls. |
Intake: which calls reach you, and when
Attorney accounts start with priority words built around calls that can't wait for office hours: "arrested", "in jail", "served papers", "court tomorrow", "restraining order" and the rest of the list further down. A parent who calls at 1 am and says their son was arrested is flagged, skips the press 1 or 2 question, and rings you right away for up to 40 seconds. You hear "Priority call," the caller's name and the topic. If you miss it, it goes to voicemail on every plan, never to the AI receptionist.
A new-client inquiry without those words hears the press 1 or 2 question and then rings you. If you're in court, your plan decides the rest. On Pro, the call rings for 25 seconds and then goes to voicemail. On Receptionist it rings for 12 seconds during your business hours before the AI receptionist answers, and outside your hours it goes straight to the AI. The AI's attorney instructions list what to gather (you'll see them further down). It asks what days work and tells the caller someone from your office will reach out to lock in a time. You set the consultation when you call back.
Existing clients shouldn't have to introduce themselves to a greeting every time they call. Make them saved contacts: they skip screening, ring you 24/7, and the whisper only tells you the caller is on your list, with no topic read out. On Receptionist you can set a saved contact, one at a time, to go to the AI after hours instead. Anyone who passes screening also skips it for the next 60 days, so a new client who called on Monday won't hear the greeting again on Wednesday. A court clerk or another firm calling from a number you haven't saved gets the same greeting as anyone new.
Picking a plan for a law practice
Both plans screen calls and use the attorney priority words, and neither records the calls you answer on an attorney account. They differ in what happens to a call you don't answer.
- Pro, $29.99 a month. There's no AI receptionist. A call you miss goes to voicemail, which on your account is saved for you to play and not transcribed. The only AI on Pro is the screening step that reads the caller's answer to the greeting, so if you'd rather no AI hold a conversation with a prospective client, choose Pro.
- Receptionist, $99.99 a month (coming soon). The AI receptionist answers the calls you miss, except priority calls and saved contacts, which go to voicemail. Its conversations carry the recording notice and appear in your AI call history with a summary and transcript. Time it spends on calls counts as AI minutes, and the plan includes 250 a month.
- Team answering, an add-on to Pro. Add up to 4 more people for $10 a month each. Everyone's phone rings together and you share the minutes. A partner or a paralegal can take calls too, and the first to answer gets the call.
Voicemail transcription is switched off when an account signs up as an attorney or changes its trade to attorney. For how voicemail works on other accounts, see voicemail to text. For the rest of what the AI does, see our AI receptionist page. Accountants, notaries and consultants are on our professional services page.
Priority Passthrough
Priority Passthrough lets customers who say one of your selected priority words ring straight through to you, regardless of the time of day. Every account starts with six priority words: urgent, emergency, help, asap, right now, today.
An account set up for attorneys also has these trade priority words, on by default:
- just got served
- served papers
- arrested
- detained
- in jail
- court tomorrow
- court date
- hearing tomorrow
- restraining order
- protective order
- warrant
- custody emergency
- just had an accident
- car accident
You can add up to 20 of your own in the dashboard, and the trade defaults stay on. When a caller says one, the AI flags it as a priority call. It skips the text question and rings you right away, for up to 40 seconds, in or out of business hours, on every plan.
Miss a priority call and it goes to voicemail, on Receptionist as well as Pro. You get a text alert. The caller isn't texted, because a priority call skips the press 1 question.
Common calls for attorneys
Each one tagged by how soon it needs you.
- Just arrested / in custody emergency
- Served with lawsuit / subpoena emergency
- Just in an accident, possible injury soon
- Custody emergency emergency
- Closing on real estate soon
- Need will / estate documents urgently soon
- Court date approaching, no representation soon
- New client inquiry routine
- Existing client matter follow-up routine
- Document review request routine
The work it knows about
On Receptionist, the AI receptionist answers with instructions written for attorneys. They cover this work:
Common practice areas
- Family law
- Estate planning
- Criminal defense
- Personal injury
- Real estate transactions
- Business and contracts
- Immigration
- Civil litigation
What it asks callers
The AI receptionist gets the caller's name and reason, confirms the callback number by its last four digits, and asks what days work. Its instructions for attorneys list more to gather:
- Existing client or new inquiry
- General nature of the matter
- For existing client: matter name only
- Geographic jurisdiction
- Any deadline
- Referral source
What the AI receptionist won't do
- It doesn't book appointments. It asks what days work, and you confirm the time when you call back.
- It doesn't ask callers for their email.
- If a caller asks whether it's an AI, it neither confirms nor denies.
- It confirms the callback number by its last four digits.
The AI receptionist comes with the Receptionist plan. Pro has no AI receptionist, so a call you miss on Pro goes to voicemail. Receptionist is coming soon, and Pro is available now.
Questions about VettedCalls for Attorneys
Can I turn call recording on for my firm if I want it?
No. The calls you answer on an attorney account are never recorded, on any plan, and the dashboard switch other accounts use can't turn it on for yours.
Why doesn't my voicemail email include a transcript?
Voicemail transcription is switched off for attorney accounts, both at signup and when an account changes its trade to attorney. You play the recording instead, and the text alert for a new voicemail leaves out what the caller said.
Can I add priority words for my practice area?
Yes. You can add up to 20 of your own on top of the attorney defaults, which stay on. A DUI practice might add "DUI", and an immigration practice "deportation". When a caller says one, the call is flagged as a priority call and rings you right away.
Does the screening step make callers describe their legal problem?
It asks one open question, the same one every VettedCalls greeting asks: "Who's calling, and how can we help today?" The caller decides how much to say. An AI model reads the answer for a name, a short topic and the priority-call and spam checks, and the name and topic are what you hear when you answer.
Can I keep the number on my letterhead?
If it's your cell number, yes. You keep it, and once you dial your carrier's forwarding code, it forwards every call to the VettedCalls number we set up for your account. We don't port numbers.
Related trades
The AI receptionist has instructions written for 58 trades and professions, plus a general set for everyone else. Here are a few of them.