Legal intake services for the calls your team can't take
When the first call comes in after hours, Della takes the intake for your practice area and leaves a screened matter on your desk by dawn, not a name and a number.
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 are legal intake services?
Legal intake services take the first call, screen the matter against the firm's criteria and hand the attorney a qualified lead. An answering service takes a message; an intake service takes the facts. In Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study only 40% of law firms answered a prospective client's call. (Oklahoma Bar Journal, 2025)
Where does the first call go when your team can't take it?
- The intake coordinator is on another call, and the new caller reaches voicemail.
- After 6pm an answering service takes a name and a number, and the callback starts from nothing the next morning.
- The associate on call takes the facts on a notepad, and half of them never reach the file.
- A Spanish speaker calls at night and nobody can take the intake.
What does a missed first call cost?
An American Bar Association Law Practice Division study of calls to law firms found fewer than 10% of callers reached a lawyer, 32% went straight to voicemail, and 42% waited three days or more for a reply. (Lawyers Mutual NC, 2019) A prospective client who reaches voicemail is usually still on Google, and the next firm on the page gets the second call. The money spent to make the phone ring is spent either way.
What are missed calls costing your firm?
The cost of a missed call is the fee from the matter 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 it be worth if the first call were done by the time you arrived?
- If every overnight caller were screened and waiting at 7am, how many would you call back first?
- How many hours a week does your team spend on first calls that go nowhere?
- What would the intake coordinator do with the mornings that no longer start with a backlog of voicemails?
How Della meets it
| If this is happening | What Della does |
|---|---|
| New callers reach voicemail | Answers in your firm's name every night, weekend and holiday |
| The service only takes a message | Works through the intake for your practice area and files a dossier by dawn, with the recording and transcript |
| Facts go missing between the call and the file | Every answer is in the dossier, with the recording to check against |
| Urgent matters wait for the morning | Alerts the attorney on call by email straight away |
Answering service with legal intake, or a legal intake service: what's the difference?
| Type | What you find in the morning | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| Message-taking answering service | A name, a number and a short message | Every callback starts from nothing |
| Answering service with legal intake | A short screening script, the same for every practice area | Thin on the facts a case needs; urgent calls often wait |
| Legal intake service built for the practice (Della) | A full intake, an urgency score, the recording and transcript, by 7am | After hours only; your team takes the day |
A legal answering service usually means the first row. Ask for intake by name and ask what the morning file contains.
What does a qualified intake contain?
Enough for the attorney to decide whether to call back first, and enough for the paralegal to open the file without a second call. On a personal injury call Della captures:
- Incident type, date, time and place
- State and statute of limitations exposure
- Injury severity: ER visit, hospitalization, ongoing treatment
- Fault narrative and police report number
- Other party insurance carrier and contact
- Prior or current legal representation
- Caller name, callback phone, email and best time
- Urgency score
Criminal defense and immigration intakes capture the equivalents: the defendant, charges, holding facility, bond and hearing time; or the person's status, detention, family in the US and filing deadlines. Immigration callers are taken in English or Spanish.
What stays with the firm?
The decisions. Della collects facts and scores urgency; she never gives legal advice, quotes fees, runs your conflicts check or tells a caller the firm has taken the case. The attorney reads the dossier, decides, and makes the call that signs the client. Outsourcing legal intake should move the first ten minutes of every matter off your desk, not the judgment.
Outsource legal intake: what to ask a legal intake company before you sign
| Question to ask | Della's answer |
|---|---|
| Is the intake script built for our practice area, or generic? | Built for personal injury, criminal defense and immigration |
| What reaches us in the morning? | A dossier per call: summary, urgency score, recording and transcript, by 7am |
| How do urgent calls reach the attorney on call, and how fast? | By email, straight away |
| Which hours are covered? | Nights, weekends and holidays |
| Do you take Spanish callers? | Yes, on immigration intake |
| Can we hear a live call before we buy? | Yes, in a 30-minute demo |
| Is it month-to-month? | Yes |
Hear Della take a call
Book a demo and we run a live first 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 outsourcing legal intake
If we outsource legal intake, do we lose control of which cases we take?
No. An intake service collects and screens; the firm decides. Della asks the questions your practice area needs, scores urgency and files the facts. Whether to call back, run a conflicts check or sign the client stays with the attorney. You set what counts as urgent, and you can hear every recording.
Do legal intake phone services cover daytime calls?
Many do, and if your team cannot take the first call at 11am, look at a service that covers business hours. Della covers nights, weekends and holidays only: your team takes the morning. If you need day and night from one vendor, the comparison page names the live services that publish 24/7 coverage.
Will callers mind speaking to an AI?
Della introduces herself by name, speaks calmly and asks one question at a time. If a caller asks whether she's an AI, she tells them. Every call is recorded, so you can hear exactly how each caller was treated. Book a demo and judge the conversation for yourself.
Is this allowed under bar rules?
Della never gives legal advice, never quotes fees and never implies the firm has taken the case. She collects facts, and you decide what happens next. Every call opens with a recording disclosure set for your state. Call Della's compliance guides on calldella.com cover the detail, including ABA Formal Opinion 512 on lawyers' use of AI.
Does it work with our case management software?
Every call reaches you as a dossier in the Call Della dashboard, so Della works alongside any case management system. There is no direct Clio, MyCase or Filevine integration today. The Group plan includes a CRM webhook that can pass each dossier to your own system, and the demo is a good place to ask which fields you need.
What does Della cost?
Solo is $329 a month with 300 minutes, built for solo lawyers. Practice is $598 a month with 600 minutes. Both include the Call Della dashboard, urgent-call email alerts and a morning brief by 7am. Group is priced to your volume. Extra minutes are $0.50 each. Month-to-month, no setup fee.
See also the 24/7 answering service for lawyers page on the hours covered, and what a legal answering service costs.
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.