Legal Virtual Receptionist and Answering Service for Law Firms
The client who called at 6pm won't wait.
Frontly captures the intake and, where your rules allow, books the consult before they try the next firm.
The short answer
What is Frontly's legal virtual receptionist?
Frontly is an AI legal virtual receptionist and answering service for Australian law firms and lawyers. It answers every new-client call 24/7, captures structured intake details, and books consultations where your workflow, calendar connection and approval rules allow, landing every matter in your Frontly dashboard for your team to action. Flat monthly rate, no commitment beyond the plan you pick.
THE PROBLEM
The Best Client You Lost Was the One Who Called After 5pm
21x
better odds of qualifying an enquiry when you respond within 5 minutes rather than 30. A prospective client is usually ringing several firms.
Source: MIT / InsideSales Lead Response Study, 2007
23%
of 2,241 US companies audited never replied to a web enquiry at all. A prospective client with an urgent matter needs an answer on the first call.
Source: Harvard Business Review, 2011 (US)
After 5pm.
Family law and personal injury enquiries often come in the evening, once the caller finally has the privacy to talk.
HEAR IT FOR YOURSELF
Your AI Legal Receptionist Is Ready to Talk
Call our AI agent right now. It'll handle a new client intake enquiry, just like it would for your firm. No signup required.
Test Call
Talk to the AI agent right now from your browser. Hear exactly how Frontly will sound for your business.
HOW IT WORKS
Built Around Your Practice Areas.
Connect Your Phone
Forward your firm's line or get a dedicated AI number. No hardware, no IT project.
Customise the Prebuilt Workflow
Start from the prebuilt receptionist workflow and configure your practice areas, matter types and intake questions in the visual builder. Test it before going live.
Go Live
Frontly answers intake calls 24/7, captures matter details and party names for your conflict checks, and books consultations where your calendar connection and approval rules allow, with every matter in your Frontly dashboard and in your practice management software once it is connected.
WHAT FRONTLY HANDLES
Every Client Call, Handled
Frontly answers intake 24/7 and captures the matter your team can't afford to lose to the next firm. Flat monthly rate, every intake in your Frontly dashboard, and your existing software connected during onboarding. The AI takes intake only and never gives legal advice.
New-client intake
Captures the matter type, key details, and contact information, and writes a structured intake summary into your Frontly dashboard with the full transcript. Missing or unclear details may need follow-up.
Consultation bookings
Collect booking requests or book consultations where your workflow, connected calendar and approval rules allow.
Practice-area routing
Directs family, property, personal injury, commercial, and other enquiries to the right team based on your rules.
First-pass conflict flags
Capture party names for your team’s conflict checks. Automated conflict flags require an appropriately configured connection to your records.
After-hours intake
Answers the personal injury and family law enquiries that arrive after 5pm, before the caller reaches the next firm on their list.
Visual Workflow Builder
Script Your Intake Around Your Practice Areas
Start With a Prebuilt Receptionist Workflow
Configure the prebuilt workflow with your practice areas, your matter types and the intake questions your firm actually asks.
Practice-Area Routing
Family, property, personal injury, and commercial enquiries each follow their own path to the right team.
Intake Only, Never Advice
The script is built to capture the matter and book the consultation. The AI does not answer legal questions, and the boundary is set by you.
Party Details for Conflict Checks
Capture the prospective client and any opposing party named to support your team's conflict checks. Automated flags require a suitably configured connection to your records.
Change It Yourself
Adjust the questions, the routing, or the after-hours rules as your practice mix changes, without waiting on us.
Cross-Call Memory
Your AI Remembers Every Caller
- Returning enquirers recognised on the next call
- Previous conversation recalled, so nobody retells their situation
- Earlier matter details carried across every call
- Full caller history ready before your team picks it up
Frontly Dashboard
Every Intake, Ready For Your Team
Structured Intake, Not a Message
Configure Frontly to collect your intake questions and prepare a structured summary for review. Missing or unclear information may require follow-up.
Full Transcript on Every Call
Read exactly what the prospective client said, in their words, before the first consultation.
Party Details Ready for Checks
The parties named on the call arrive with the intake, ready for your team's conflict checks, rather than surfacing later.
Cross-call History at a Glance
Every previous call from that enquirer, with the outcome already recorded.
Live Status Across the Firm
See which enquiries came in overnight and which consultations are already booked.
Outbound Campaign Manager
Follow Up Every Enquiry That Went Quiet
Re-engage Unconverted Enquiries
Frontly calls the enquiries that never booked a consultation, so a matter is not lost simply because nobody had time to follow up.
Consultation Reminders
Reduce no-shows by calling clients ahead of their booked consultation.
Same Builder, No New Tool
Script an outbound campaign with the same drag-and-drop builder you used for intake.
See What Landed
Track which callbacks converted into booked consultations.
INTEGRATIONS
Works with the software legal already runs on
Connect your AI receptionist to the software your team already uses, so Frontly can check availability, manage bookings and capture caller details as part of your reception workflow.
Legal practice
Team messaging
Integrations support Frontly's reception and caller follow-up workflows. Available actions depend on the connected software and your setup.
Integration allowances vary by plan. See Pricing for what's included.
Not on the list, or need a specific workflow? Tell us what you use and what you'd like Frontly to handle. We'll check what's possible.
WHAT USUALLY DECIDES IT
The three questions that come up every time
A real person, whenever the caller wants one
Every workflow can hand the call to the responsible solicitor or your intake team. The transfer carries a spoken briefing, so your team picks up already knowing who is calling and why. The caller never has to explain themselves twice, which is usually the moment a good call turns into a complaint.
More than one language, on the same number
Frontly takes intake in more than one language on the same firm number. For migration, family and personal injury work in particular, the enquiry often arrives from someone more comfortable explaining their situation in another language.
Flat monthly rate, and knowledge that costs nothing to grow
Your plan is a flat monthly rate covering a set number of call minutes, and there is no cap on how many questions the AI is allowed to answer. Adding another topic to its knowledge never adds a line to the bill, and every rate we do meter is published up front. See pricing for the current rates.
ANSWERING SERVICE OR AI
Do law firms need an answering service or an AI receptionist?
A legal answering service takes the caller's details and emails them to you. An AI receptionist runs the intake: it captures structured intake and collects a booking request or books within your configured rules, with a full transcript. For a firm the difference is whether tomorrow starts with a name and number or with an intake to review.
Where a staffed answering service still wins
Sensitive first calls. In family law, personal injury and criminal work, the first conversation can be the hardest one the caller has had all year. A trained operator manages that better, and some firms will always want a person on that line. Frontly transfers to your intake team on request.
Where Frontly wins
Intake is otherwise a structured interview, which is exactly what software is good at. Every enquiry gets the same qualifying questions in the same order, at 2am and on a Sunday, with the transcript attached. A transcript supports your team's review; unclear or missing details may need follow-up.
Most businesses end up running one or the other rather than both. If you are weighing it up properly, the full cost and capability breakdown is in Frontly against OfficeHQ.
WHERE INTAKE LEAKS
Legal intake leaks at the phone, not at the marketing budget
Legal is a high-value, low-volume phone business. One captured matter can be worth more than a year of the system, and the enquiry that reached voicemail was already paid for through advertising.
Bigger organisation?
Large firms and multi-office practices
Enterprise connects intake to your firm's own matter systems during the call, designed with your team. Own-cloud or on-premise deployment with local models, SLA-backed uptime and a dedicated account manager.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Straight into your practice management software once it is connected, and always in your Frontly dashboard with the contact details, the matter type, the qualifying answers and the full transcript. Your intake team reviews new matters there each morning, and optional email and SMS notifications push the intake summary straight to the duty solicitor. A summary may contain missing or unclear information that needs follow-up.
It supports them rather than running them. During intake, Frontly captures the prospective client's name and any opposing party mentioned, and those party details arrive with the intake in your Frontly dashboard to support your team's conflict checks. Automated conflict flags require a suitably configured connection to your records. Final conflict determination always rests with the firm.
Yes. Personal injury and family law enquiries disproportionately arrive after business hours when clients finally have time to phone. Frontly captures the intake, triages urgency, books a consultation where your calendar connection and approval rules allow, and SMSes the duty solicitor if the matter is time-sensitive.
No. Frontly handles intake only. It captures the matter type, the client's details, and the qualifying answers, then collects a booking request or books a consultation with a solicitor, depending on your workflow. It never provides legal advice or an opinion on a matter. Conflict checks and all advice stay with your firm.
Yes. Clio is available: you connect it with your permission, and the Frontly team can help set it up with you during onboarding. LEAP, Smokeball and Actionstep need the software company to approve the connection first, and we make that request with you. Nothing waits on it: every intake, booking and transcript lands in your Frontly dashboard from the first call. If your firm runs something not on the list, tell us what you use and we will check it for you.
Frontly is a flat monthly rate with a monthly call-minute allowance, not a meter running from the first call. Plans are month to month, with outbound campaigns on the Pro plan, and the current rates are on our pricing page. A heavy week of after-hours intake does not arrive as a per-call invoice: the allowance covers the month.
Four things decide it. It should run a structured intake with your qualifying questions, not just take a name and number. It should never give legal advice. It should capture any opposing party so your team can check for conflicts before the consultation. And it should hand over cleanly, with a full transcript and a warm transfer to your intake team when a caller needs a person. Frontly does all four, 24/7.
Frontly uses its own scheduling system inside the Frontly dashboard. You configure consultation types, durations, and solicitor availability. Where your workflow and approval rules allow, the AI checks availability and books the consultation during the intake call; otherwise it collects a booking request for your team. Confirmation SMS and email can go to both the client and the assigned solicitor.
Yes, when your rules say so. Frontly warm-transfers the call to the lawyer or intake team member you approve and briefs them first on the caller, the matter type and the urgency. Each transfer can try a preferred number and then a backup. When nobody is free, Frontly takes a message, or books a consultation where your rules allow, and sends it on straight away.
Frontly captures it rather than answering it. Questions outside the information you approve, such as fees you have not loaded or the progress of an existing matter, become a message for the right person or a transfer to your team. The question and full transcript appear in your dashboard, and you can add an approved answer in the visual builder.
Yes. Each Frontly agent speaks the language you set, such as a dedicated Mandarin line, out of more than 40 including Hindi, Arabic and Vietnamese, and on the Pro plan your front-desk agent can hand callers to a specialist in their language. It captures their details and the type of matter before a lawyer calls back. It handles intake only, never legal advice, and every call lands in your dashboard with a transcript.
In the gap between the phone ringing and a person being free to take it. Court, client meetings and hearing days take the whole team off the line at once, and the enquiry that lands then was already paid for through advertising. Capture is the cheapest lever in the funnel because nothing upstream has to change.
No, and the boundary is set by you during setup. Frontly captures the matter type, the key facts and the contact details, then books the consultation where your workflow, calendar connection and approval rules allow. Anything that calls for judgment is escalated to your team. That scope is exactly why the model is adoptable in a regulated profession, and it is enforced in the call flow rather than left to the agent.
KEEP EXPLORING
Keep exploring Frontly for Legal
Go deeper on the capabilities, comparisons, and guides that matter most.
24/7 inbound answering
How Frontly answers every call, qualifies the caller, and books the job in your dashboard.
How inbound worksOutbound campaigns
Recalls, follow-ups, arrears, and lead reactivation dialled automatically at scale.
Run outboundAfter-hours answering
New matters arrive at night and on weekends. See how after-hours intake works when nobody is in the office.
See after-hoursVirtual vs AI receptionist
They sound alike and work very differently. Where each one wins, side by side.
See the comparisonReady to Win Every Intake?
No commitment beyond the plan you pick. Flat monthly rate.