Playbook, law firm
The line where a legal enquiry stops being a conversation
Every trade has questions that need a person. This one has a question that needs a person before it has been fully typed. The moment a visitor starts describing what happened to them, three things are true at once: the assistant is being asked for advice, the channel it is being asked in is very unlikely to be privileged, and a wrong steer about time may not be correctable afterwards. The handover here is not a fallback, it is the primary behaviour.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for asking for a person holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The trigger is not a question the assistant cannot answer, it is a question it must not engage with at all, because engaging creates an expectation the firm never consented to.
- Legal professional privilege protects communications between a client and a lawyer for the purpose of advice, and a message from a non client answered by something that is not a lawyer is very unlikely to attract it, so the handover has to warn as well as route.
- A wrong steer here can carry a limitation consequence, which means the cost of a bad answer is not a poor experience but a claim that can no longer be brought.
- Handover in this trade is also the commercial outcome the firm wants, because an enquiry converted into a call is worth more than a question resolved away.
How it arrives
- my employer dismissed me last month can you help
- my landlord is refusing to return my deposit what are my rights
- how long do i have to bring a claim after an accident
- can someone call me about my divorce
- i need to speak to a solicitor today
- is this conversation confidential
What has to be indexed for this to work
| Your practice areas, and clearly what you do not take | A visitor who has just described a problem you do not handle should be told that in the first reply, with a suggestion to seek other representation. Firms lose more time to enquiries they were never going to take than to any other category. |
|---|---|
| How enquiries are triaged inside the firm | Which department picks up which kind of enquiry, how quickly somebody responds, and what happens outside office hours. The handover message can only promise what your process actually delivers, and a promise it cannot keep produces the next complaint. |
| Your statement that the chat is not a confidential legal channel | Written for a visitor rather than for a lawyer, and placed where it is read before somebody types. This is the sentence that stops people volunteering material about live matters into a widget, and it belongs in the opening message as well as in the handover. |
| Your urgent contact route | The number to ring when something cannot wait until an email is read, and when it is staffed. Somebody who believes they are running out of time should not be handed a form as the only option. |
The reply
I should stop you there, because anything I said about your situation would be advice and I am not able to give it, and this chat is not a confidential legal channel. We do handle employment matters, and the right next step is a solicitor calling you rather than anything I can do here. Leave your name, your email and one line about the type of matter, and I will pass it straight to the team.
It interrupts early and explains both reasons in one sentence, because a visitor who is only told no keeps typing. Confirming that the firm handles the area is the one useful fact it can give, and it turns a refusal into a reason to leave details. Asking for a line rather than the story keeps the facts out of the transcript while still capturing enough for a fee earner to route it.
Where it stops
The trigger. The first sentence in which the visitor describes something that happened to them, names another party, or asks how long they have to act.
I cannot advise on your situation and this is not a confidential legal channel, so I will stop rather than take the details here. Leave your name, email and the type of matter and a solicitor will call you.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm, calculate or reassure about a deadline for bringing a claim, even where the firm publishes general time limits.
- Never say the situation sounds like something the firm can win, or that they appear to have a case.
- Never invite the visitor to set out the full history so it can be passed on.
- Never imply the firm is acting or will act, before a conflict check has been run.
Questions
- Visitors type their whole story before the assistant can interrupt. What then?
- It should decline to engage with any of it, say the channel is not confidential, and take an enquiry. The material to get right is the refusal wording, since that is what appears, and a cautious setting so a described situation falls below the match threshold instead of reaching for the nearest service page.
- Somebody says they are running out of time. Is that different?
- It is the most urgent version of the same handover and it must not become an exception. The assistant does not confirm anything about a deadline, it says the date depends on the circumstances and must be checked urgently by a solicitor, and it gives your urgent contact route rather than only a form.
- Where do the handover details actually go?
- To an address you nominate, and they are stored as well, so an enquiry is not lost if the email fails. That matters more here than elsewhere, because the enquiry it captures may be the one with a clock running on it.
Keep reading
- Everything for a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- Handling asking for a person in generalThe design question at the centre of a support assistant. Offer early, offer once, collect what a reply needs, promise a time you can keep.
- 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.
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.