Answer · for law firms
The call you miss becomes someone else's client
Someone who was just arrested, served, or rear-ended does not leave a voicemail and wait. They work down the list until a human picks up. This answers on the first ring, at any hour, and runs your intake questions before they get bored.
from $1,500 setup + $350/mo
You are in court. The phone is not.
Legal intake is the least forgiving phone call in local business. The person calling has a deadline they do not understand, a problem they are frightened of, and a browser tab with four other firms in it. Research on legal intake has said the same thing for years: the firm that answers first usually gets the matter, regardless of who was the better lawyer.
The hours are the other half of it. People search for a lawyer after the arrest, after the argument, after the crash. That is evenings, weekends, and two in the morning, which is exactly when a small firm has nobody at the desk and an answering service is reading from a script that cannot tell a DUI from a boundary dispute.
A solo or small firm has the worst version of this. You are the marketing budget, the intake team and the attorney. Every hour in a hearing is an hour the phone is unattended, and the cases you never hear about are invisible. They do not show up as a lost client. They show up as a quiet month.
What people actually ask when they call a firm
None of this is legal advice and the agent never gives any. It collects what your intake form would collect, in a conversation, so you open a real matter instead of a phone number and the word "accident".
“Do you handle this kind of case?”
Answers from your own practice areas, and says plainly when something is outside them rather than booking a call you would have to cancel.
“How much is this going to cost me?”
Explains how your firm charges, whether that is a consultation fee, a retainer, or contingency, without quoting a number you have not authorised.
“I got served and I have to respond by Friday.”
Captures the deadline and flags it. Time-sensitive matters get marked as urgent in the summary so they are not sitting behind four other messages.
“Can I talk to someone tonight?”
Books into your real calendar for the next slot you actually have, and texts the confirmation before they hang up.
“Who is on the other side?”
Records the names given so you can run your conflict check before the consultation, not during it.
A Tuesday night at 9:40pm
A man was in a three-car collision on 35W this afternoon. He is home, sore, and searching on his phone. Your firm is the third one he calls. The first two rang out.
9:40pm
He calls. It answers on the first ring.
9:41pm
It confirms you handle motor vehicle injury, asks when the collision happened, whether anyone was treated, and whether a report was filed.
9:42pm
It takes the other driver's name and insurer so a conflict check can run before anyone speaks to him.
9:43pm
It offers your first genuinely open consultation slot and texts him the confirmation while he is still on the line.
9:44pm
Your intake summary arrives: name, number, date of loss, injuries, insurer, the deadline he mentioned, and a full transcript.
You read it over coffee. He has already told his family he has a lawyer.
Is an AI going to give someone legal advice?
No, and the instruction is explicit. It gathers facts and books consultations. When a caller asks what they should do, it says that is a question for the attorney and moves to booking. You review the prompt before it goes live and you can change any line of it.
My callers are upset. Won't a robot make it worse?
It is a natural voice, not a phone tree, and there is a real number you can dial to hear it before you buy anything. Call it, be difficult with it, and decide. Our honest position is that a calm voice at 9pm beats a fourth unanswered ring, and that a caller who reaches nobody is not preserved for later.
What about confidentiality?
Treat an intake call the way you would treat one taken by a receptionist or an answering service, because that is what it is: a prospective client's information collected before an engagement exists. Calls and transcripts route to your firm. What it must not be treated as is a system built for regulated health information, which is a different question we would tell you we have not solved.
How much does an AI receptionist for a law firm cost?
The same as every other version of this: a fixed setup fee plus a monthly, both published on the pricing page before you talk to anyone. There is no per-minute billing and no per-call surcharge, so a busy month does not produce a surprise invoice.
Can it run our intake questionnaire?
Yes. The questions are yours. Most firms already have an intake sheet, and that sheet becomes the conversation. If you do not have one, that is part of the setup call.
Does it book into our calendar?
Yes, into the real calendar your firm already uses, so it can only offer times that genuinely exist, and the caller gets a text confirmation before the call ends.
What happens to calls it cannot handle?
It takes the details and routes them to you rather than guessing. You decide which situations transfer to a person immediately and which ones wait for a summary.
Do you work with firms outside Minnesota?
Yes. The phone line does not care where anyone is. Hewstone is based north of the Twin Cities and most clients are in Minnesota, but nothing about this is geographically limited.
Hear it before you decide anything
This is the same Answer package every other business gets, set up around how a law firm actually takes calls. The number below is live. Call it, ask it awkward questions, and judge it on what you hear rather than on this page.