Legal answering service built for intake, not messages
When your office closes, Della answers in your firm's name, works through the intake and leaves you a qualified case by morning, not a number to call back.
Built for legal intake from the first call. Never gives legal advice. Month-to-month.
Last updated
Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night. Other driver at fault, police report filed. Other driver’s insurer named. Callback number captured.
What is a legal answering service?
A legal answering service answers a law firm's calls when the firm can't: after hours, at lunch, or when every line is busy. Most take messages. Legal intake services also screen the caller, capture the facts of the matter and route urgent calls to an attorney. Della is the second kind, an AI intake specialist rather than a call center.
The need is plain in the numbers: in Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study, only 40% of law firms answered a prospective client's call. (Oklahoma Bar Journal, 2025)
Answering service, intake service or AI intake specialist: what's the difference?
| Type | What you find in the morning | How it's usually priced |
|---|---|---|
| Message-taking answering service | A name, a number and a short message | Per minute or per call |
| Legal intake service with live staff | A screened intake, scripted per practice area | Per call or monthly |
| AI intake specialist (Della) | A full intake, an urgency score, the recording and transcript, by dawn | Flat monthly fee with minutes included |
A law firm answering service, an answering service for lawyers and an attorney answering service usually mean the first row. If you want the second or third, ask for intake by name. Legal intake services covers the difference in more depth.
Why message-taking falls short at night
- A message carries no case detail, so every callback starts from nothing.
- A caller who reached a message often rings the next firm before the office opens.
- You pay for the minutes and still have to chase the lead.
What does it cost when nobody takes the call?
An American Bar Association Law Practice Division study of calls to law firms found fewer than 10% of callers reached a lawyer, and 32% went straight to voicemail. (Lawyers Mutual NC, 2019) Clio's 2024 study found only 40% of firms answered at all. (Oklahoma Bar Journal, 2025)
What are missed calls costing your firm?
The cost of a missed call is the fee from the case that caller would have signed. Work it out for your own firm: missed calls a month × share that are new matters × your sign rate × your average fee. The sliders start on example figures. Move them to your own numbers.
For the method and what to count as a missed call, see the full missed-call cost calculator on calldella.com.
What would a qualified call be worth to you?
- If tonight's callers were screened and waiting for you at 7am, how much time would you save on callbacks?
- How many more cases would you take if the strong ones reached you while the caller was still deciding?
How Della meets it
| If this is happening | What Della does |
|---|---|
| You get messages, not cases | Works through the intake for your practice area on every call |
| Callbacks start cold | Delivers every intake as a dossier by dawn, with the recording and transcript |
| Urgent matters wait | Alerts the attorney on call by email straight away |
| Per-minute bills for messages | One monthly fee: $329 for 300 minutes or $598 for 600, with the dashboard and alerts included |
Della also covers nights, weekends and holidays, and the home page explains why she takes the intake rather than a message.
Answering service for lawyers: what to check before you sign
| Question to ask | Della's answer |
|---|---|
| Does it answer in your firm's name? | Yes |
| Does it take a full intake, or a message? | A full intake |
| How do urgent calls reach the attorney on call, and how fast? | By email, straight away |
| Does every call open with a recording disclosure that suits your state? | Yes |
| Can you hear it take a live call before you buy? | Yes, in a 30-minute demo |
| Is it month-to-month? | Yes |
| Where is call data kept, for how long, and is it ever used to train models? | In your portal, for the period you set, and never |
Hear Della take a call
Book a demo and we'll run a live new-client call for your practice area while you listen, then walk you through the dossier she files. Below is a sample, with a test caller.
Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night. Other driver at fault, police report filed. Other driver’s insurer named. Callback number captured.
Questions about legal answering services
How much does a legal answering service cost?
It depends on the model: per minute, per call, or a flat monthly fee. Della is $329 a month with 300 minutes or $598 with 600, both with the dashboard, urgent-call alerts and the morning brief included, and extra minutes are $0.50. The cost guide compares the models in detail.
Is a legal answering service available 24/7?
Most are. The better question is what happens at 2am: who answers, what they ask, and how an urgent call reaches an attorney. Della answers every after-hours call, takes the full intake and alerts the attorney on call to anything urgent by email, straight away.
Does Della give legal advice?
No. Della collects facts and never advises, quotes fees or implies the firm has taken the case. You decide what happens next. She is an intake specialist, not a lawyer, and every call opens with a recording disclosure set for your state. Call Della's compliance guides cover the bar rules in detail.
Do you answer in Spanish?
Yes, natively, on immigration intake: Della takes the call in English or Spanish and files the dossier for your team. Other practice areas are taken in English today, and this site will say so when that changes. The bilingual answering service page sets out the scope.
We already have an answering service. Why change?
Most answering services take a message. Della takes the intake: what happened, when, the facts your practice area needs, and an urgency score on top. Put your current service and a Della demo side by side, and compare what would reach your desk the next morning from each.
More on price in what a legal answering service costs, and on Spanish in the bilingual answering service page.
Hire Della
| Solo | Practice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $329 a month | $598 a month |
| Minutes included | 300 | 600 |
| Built for | Solo lawyers | Small and growing firms |
| Della answering in your firm's name, nights, weekends and holidays | Yes | Yes |
| The Call Della dashboard: every call as a dossier with summary, urgency score, recording and transcript | Yes | Yes |
| Urgent-call email alerts to the attorney on call | Yes | Yes |
| A morning brief by 7am in your time zone | Yes | Yes |
| Recording disclosure set for your state | Yes | Yes |
| Your own Della number, with forwarding and a test call before you go live | Yes | Yes |
| Extra minutes | $0.50 each | $0.50 each |
Group: custom minutes, priced to your volume, more than one practice area, crm webhook. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee.