By business type
An assistant for a law firm, and the line it cannot cross
Most enquiries a law firm receives are not requests for advice, they are requests for the information somebody needs before they are willing to ring: what it costs, whether the first meeting is chargeable, what no win no fee actually means, what identification to bring. An assistant is genuinely good at all of that. The moment a visitor describes their own situation, it is being asked for legal advice, and it has to stop.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- do you do no win no fee
- how much is the first consultation
- is the initial appointment free
- how long do i have to bring a claim
- how much does a divorce cost
- do you do fixed fee employment work
- what id do i need to bring
- can you help with a will and probate
- how much do you charge for conveyancing
- do you take legal aid
- how do i make a complaint about my solicitor
- can someone call me back about my case
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| Your fee structures, written out by work type | Hourly rates by fee earner grade, fixed fee ranges by matter type, and what sits outside the fee. Prospective clients ring to find out whether they can afford you before they will tell you anything, and a firm that answers that in writing gets the call it wants rather than the call it has to end. |
|---|---|
| What your conditional or no win no fee arrangement actually covers | This is the most misunderstood thing your firm publishes. Clients hear it as no cost at all, when in practice a success fee, disbursements, expert fees, court fees and an insurance premium may all still be payable, and the arrangement may only be offered on certain claim types. Index the honest version and the assistant repeats the honest version. |
| Initial consultation terms | Whether it is free or charged, how long it runs, whether the fee is credited against later work, and what will and will not be covered in it. Firms answer this differently by department, so index it per department rather than as one line. |
| Client onboarding requirements | The identification documents you accept, the proof of address, the source of funds evidence you require on transactional work, and the fact that no advice can be given before those checks and a conflict check are done. This is the material that turns a first call into a file. |
| Practice areas, and clearly what you do not do | Firms lose more time to enquiries they were never going to take than to any other category. A stated list of what you do not handle, with a suggestion to seek other representation, ends those in one reply instead of three. |
| Your complaints procedure | Regulators in most jurisdictions require a published complaints route and a defined response time. Complaints arrive through whatever channel is nearest, and a widget is nearest, so index the route and the assistant can hand somebody straight into it. |
What has to reach a person
Any question that carries the visitor's own facts
The pattern is unmistakable once you look for it. The message begins as a fee question and ends with a paragraph about a landlord, an employer or a former partner. The moment a specific situation appears, the visitor is asking for advice, and answering even a small part of it in the firm's name creates an expectation the firm did not consent to.
The correct behaviour is to say plainly that advice needs a solicitor and a conflict check, then take a name, an email and a summary so a fee earner can call. That is the better commercial outcome anyway: it converts an enquiry rather than resolving it away.
Anything touching a limitation period or a deadline
Time limits for bringing a claim vary by claim type and by jurisdiction, and the date they run from is itself a legal question that turns on facts. A wrong date is not a wrong answer, it is a lost claim, and it is the one mistake here that cannot be corrected afterwards.
Do not let the assistant confirm, calculate or reassure about any deadline, even where the firm publishes general time limits. The right reply is that the date depends on the circumstances and must be checked urgently by a solicitor, worded so the urgency is obvious.
Whether the firm can act for this person at all
Nobody can be advised until a conflict check has been run, and a conflict check requires knowing the names on both sides. The assistant knows neither, and must never imply that the firm is instructed, is acting, or will act.
Anything about an existing matter
Progress on a file, what a letter meant, when completion will happen, why a fee earner has not called back. The assistant has no case management access and must not appear to, because a confident guess about a live matter reaches a client who will rely on it.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot give legal advice or comment on your situation, and this is not a confidential legal channel. I can explain our fees, what an initial consultation involves, the identification we need and the areas we work in. If you would like a solicitor to call you, leave your name, email and a short summary and I will pass it to the team.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Legal professional privilege does not attach to a chat widget
Privilege in most common law jurisdictions protects communications between a client and a lawyer for the purpose of legal advice. A message typed into a widget by somebody who is not yet a client, answered by an assistant that is not a lawyer, is very unlikely to attract it.
That matters practically. Visitors will type things they would never say on a first call, sometimes about matters that are live. Say plainly in the opening message that this is not a confidential legal channel, and keep the assistant from inviting detail it has no business receiving.
Identity and source of funds checks gate everything
Anti money laundering regimes in most markets require a regulated firm to verify a client's identity, and on transactional work to understand where the money is coming from, before it acts. This is not paperwork that can be deferred in order to be helpful.
So the assistant should describe the checks as a step, never as a formality, and should never suggest that anything can start ahead of them.
Publishing in the firm's name is regulated conduct
Solicitors' regulators in most jurisdictions apply rules to how firms describe their services, their fees and their outcomes, and the firm answers for anything published under its name. An assistant answering as the firm is publishing as the firm.
The practical consequence is that indexed material should be material the firm would be content to see quoted back inside a complaint, because that is the form it will eventually take.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- Whether somebody has a claim, a defence or a good case.
- When a limitation period or any other deadline expires.
- What a document, letter or clause means for the person asking.
- Whether the firm can act, before a conflict check has been run.
- Anything about a live matter, a named client or the other side.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a law firm rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- What a law firm can say about cost before anybody is a clientHourly grades, fixed fee ranges and conditional fee terms are publishable. A figure for somebody's own matter is not, and here is the wording.
- Costs estimates, and why one cannot begin in a chat windowA costs estimate is a document with duties attached, not a number. What the assistant explains about how one is produced, and where it stops.
- The first appointment at a law firm, explained in advanceIdentification, source of funds, whether the first meeting is chargeable and what actually happens in it, answered before anybody has to ring.
- Routing a complaint into the firm's own procedure, quicklyA published complaints route, the response period attached to it and the ombudsman step, handed over without the assistant defending the firm.
- The line where a legal enquiry stops being a conversationPrivilege does not attach to a widget and a wrong steer can cost a claim. The trigger is anybody describing their own legal situation.
- A client is looking at our bill and wants to know whyTime units, the narrative, disbursements sitting apart from the fee, and why none of it can be checked against a live matter.
- Delete everything you hold about me, sent to a solicitors' firmRetention periods, conflict records and identity evidence outlive a matter, so this is the one request a firm cannot simply agree to.
- Can I book an appointment with a solicitor this weekA time with a fee earner depends on a conflict check, the right department and a court diary, none of which a chat window can settle.
- Office hours are the easy half of this questionReception opens before fee earners are at their desks, court takes a solicitor out for a day, and completion day runs on a banking deadline.
- Getting to the right building on the right dayDepartments sit in different buildings, originals have to be produced in person, and half these messages are really about a hearing venue.
- Reasonable adjustments at a firm, and where they stop being administrativeInterpreters, home visits and large print are arrangements a firm can make. Whether somebody can give instructions is a legal question.
- Cancelling a solicitor, and what the retainer says about itEnding a retainer is not cancelling an appointment. The client care letter sets the terms, work done stays billable, and papers may be held.
- Three different requests that all arrive as can I have my money backA balance in the client account is the client's own money returning. An abortive fee is not. A disputed bill is a third thing entirely.
- The questionnaire behind a corporate client's instructionPanel onboarding, outside counsel guidelines and data terms come from a client's buyers, not from consumers, and none can be agreed in a chat.
- The firm's insurance and the client's are unrelated thingsProfessional indemnity cover belongs to the firm. Legal expenses cover on a caller's own policy may fund the matter. Not the same question.
- Out of hours on a law firm site means something has happenedOut of hours here is rarely about opening times. It is an arrest, an injunction or a hearing in the morning, and a form is not enough.
- Locked out of the client portal, with a document waitingThe assistant cannot reset a login, confirm anybody is a client or say what is waiting inside. It can describe the route and take a name.
- What happens between sending an enquiry and having a solicitorConflict check, identity, the client care letter and money on account. The sequence that has to finish before any work happens on a matter.
Questions
- Is it safe to run an assistant on a solicitors' site at all?
- It is, provided the indexed material contains no advice to be repeated. Fee pages, service descriptions and onboarding requirements cannot be turned into legal advice, because there is none in them. The risk is not the assistant, it is indexing precedent or case material and then being surprised when it quotes it.
- Visitors describe their whole problem in the first message. What happens then?
- It should decline to engage with the facts and take an enquiry instead. Set the caution level higher so it refuses on a weak match rather than reaching for the nearest service page, and write the refusal so it says explicitly that advice requires a solicitor and a conflict check.
- Can it tell somebody whether we do legal aid or fixed fees?
- Yes. Whether you offer a funding arrangement, and on which work types, is a fixed fact about the firm rather than a judgement about the person. It is also the question that most often decides whether an enquiry is worth either side's time.
- Will it confirm whether somebody is already a client?
- No. It has no access to your case management system and cannot look anybody up, which given conflict and confidentiality duties is the only acceptable answer.
Keep reading
- For a accounting firmDeadlines drive the volume. What an accountancy practice can automate, and why no answer may touch a caller's own numbers.
- For a insurance brokerProduct information is safe ground. A personal recommendation is regulated, and no assistant may confirm whether a loss is covered.
- For a mortgage brokerProcess, documents and fees are safe to automate. Rates go stale fast and affordability cannot be answered generically.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.