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Law Firm Answering Service Costs in 2026
What a small firm pays to have its phone answered, from a second receptionist to an AI on its own number, and what a first intake call has to capture.
The short answer
Remote receptionist services list at $130 to $1,725 a month for 50 to 500 minutes of calls (Posh and Ruby). Smith.ai’s live receptionists charge $300 for 30 calls, with legal extras such as conflict checks priced per call. AI receptionists run from free (Smith.ai, 25 calls) to a few hundred dollars. A legal secretary on staff earns a median $55,570 a year before benefits, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices checked 3 November 2026.
It is 12:40 on a Wednesday. Two of the firm’s three lawyers are in court, the third is with a client, and the receptionist is at lunch. The phone rings four times: a courier, an existing client asking about a hearing date, and two people who have never rung the firm before and have other firms’ numbers open in the next tab.
Firms buy answering services for that hour and for the evenings. This guide prices the options from public pages, sets out what a first call has to capture, and runs one invented firm through a month of missed calls. For what an AI front desk does in general, see our guide to AI receptionists for small business; for setting one up on a firm’s website, see AI chatbots for law firms.
Why a law firm’s phone is harder to answer
- The first call is long. A new enquiry is a story: what happened, who else is involved, what letter arrived. Six minutes is ordinary, and most services bill by the minute.
- Some of it is confidential, even if the firm never takes the case.
- Conflicts come first. Before anyone advises, the firm needs to know who is on the other side.
- Some calls cannot wait. A hearing tomorrow, a deadline in a letter, a son arrested tonight. Whoever answers has to spot those and get them to a lawyer quickly.
How quickly firms answer today
For its 2024 Legal Trends Report, Clio, the legal software company, had a research firm pose as prospective clients. Of the 500 US firms it phoned, 40% answered, down from 56% in 2019, and 48% neither answered nor called back. Only 33% of firms replied to an email (summarised by 2Civility, the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism, November 2024). It is a secret-shopper sample, but the message is plain: at three firms in five, a new client’s first call went unanswered.
What callers ask a law firm, and when
- New enquiries. Do you handle this kind of matter? What does a first consultation cost? How soon can I see someone? Do you offer fixed fees? These come in waves: at lunchtime, after 17:00, and on Monday morning after a weekend of worrying.
- Existing clients. Any news on my case? Did you get my documents? These need someone who can open the file, so they go to the team.
- Everyone else. Other firms, courts, couriers and sales calls. Short, but on a minute plan they still use up the allowance.
The first group is where an answering service earns its fee. The third is noise you should not pay full price for.
What a first call needs to capture
A good intake call ends with enough for a lawyer to decide whether to take the matter and for the firm to run a conflict check, and no more.
| Detail | Why the firm needs it |
|---|---|
| Name, phone and email | So whoever follows up can reach them without a second round of questions. |
| When it is safe to contact them | Some callers cannot take a call at home or at work, especially in family matters. |
| The kind of matter, in their words | It decides which lawyer sees it, and whether the firm takes that work at all. |
| The other people involved | The other spouse, the employer, the other driver: the names for the conflict check. |
| Any date they know is close | A hearing or a deadline in a letter. Write the date down; a lawyer works out what it means. |
| A consultation time | The best result a first call can have: a name in the diary rather than a note on a pad. |
What whoever answers must never do: give legal advice, say whether the caller has a case or what it is worth, or promise a fee you have not published. The answer to all of those is the same: a lawyer will go through that with you. Our posts on personal injury intake and immigration intake cover the triage questions specific to those fields.
Confidentiality starts before the client signs
Under ABA Model Rule 1.18 and the state rules built on it, someone who consults a lawyer about possibly hiring them is a prospective client, and the firm must keep what they shared confidential even if it never takes the case. A consultation is likely when a firm specifically invites the details of a matter without clear warnings that limit its obligations (Washington State Bar News, March 2025). In practice: take what you need for a conflict check and a booking, put a plain notice in front of the chat or form, and leave the full story for the consultation. Your own state’s wording is the one to check.
What each option costs
US dollars, monthly billing, read on each publisher’s own page. People-based services charge for minutes or calls; AI tools charge per call, per minute or as a plan.
| Option | How it charges | Entry price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Legal secretary on staff | Annual salary | $55,570 a year (median) | BLS, May 2025, before benefits |
| Receptionist on staff | Hourly wage | $18.27 an hour (median) | BLS, May 2025: $38,010 a year |
| Ruby (people) | Receptionist minutes | $250 for 50 minutes | $395 for 100, $720 for 200, $1,725 for 500. No setup fees. Live chat from $115 with a call plan |
| Posh (people) | Base fee plus minutes | $130 for 50 minutes | $215 for 100, $420 for 200, $700 for 350. Extra minutes $1.90 to $2.30. Time on tasks counts |
| AnswerConnect (people) | Minutes, rounded up | $350 for 200 minutes, plus $49.99 setup | $395 for 300 minutes, no setup fee, then $1.85 a minute |
| Smith.ai receptionists (people) | Calls | $300 for 30 calls | $810 for 90. Conflict checks $0.50 a call; six extra intake questions $1.50 a call |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | Calls | Free for 25 calls; Pro $150 for 75 | $2.50 a call over 75 on Pro |
| Rosie (AI) | Minutes | $49 for 250 minutes | $149 for 1,000 adds calendar booking and live transfers |
| Your own Twilio number, for an AI agent | Number plus minutes | $1.15 a month for a local number | $0.0085 a minute to receive calls; speech recognition $0.02 per use; AI software on top |
The sources: Ruby, Posh, AnswerConnect, Smith.ai receptionists and its AI Receptionist, Rosie, the BLS pages for legal secretaries and receptionists, and Twilio’s US voice prices.
Smith.ai has legal tools on its price list: conflict checks, longer intake, taking payments and a Clio integration. Posh puts 24/7 cover and English or Spanish on every plan. Two legal-only services, Answering Legal and LEX Reception, quote prices after a form or a call; Answering Legal offers a free trial of 400 minutes.
A hire costs more than the wage. Across private industry, wages are 70% of what employers spend on compensation (BLS, June 2026 data), so a receptionist on the median $38,010 costs about $54,300 a year with benefits, for 40 hours of a 168-hour week. What one front-line hire really costs adds hiring and training.
One intake call, priced seven ways
Headline prices hide what matters most to a law firm: how a long call is billed. Take one new-client call of six minutes, and divide each plan’s price by what it includes.
| Option | How we got it | Cost of the call |
|---|---|---|
| Ruby, 200-minute plan | $720 ÷ 200 = $3.60 a minute, × 6 | $21.60 |
| Posh, 100-minute plan | $215 ÷ 100 = $2.15 a minute, × 6 | $12.90 |
| Smith.ai receptionists, 90 calls | $810 ÷ 90 = $9.00, plus $1.50 extra intake and $0.50 conflict check | $11.00 |
| AnswerConnect, 300-minute plan | $395 ÷ 300 = $1.32 a minute, × 6 | $7.90 |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist, Pro | $150 ÷ 75 calls | $2.00 |
| Rosie, 250-minute plan | $49 ÷ 250 = $0.20 a minute, × 6 | $1.18 |
| Twilio, on your own number | 6 minutes × $0.0085, plus 8 speech recognition uses × $0.02 | $0.21, plus the AI software |
Per-minute plans charge most for the long calls a firm most wants answered well. Per-call plans suit firms whose calls run long.
Worked month: a three-lawyer firm
Fenwick Lane Law is a firm we made up for this example. Three lawyers cover family law, employment and wills; one receptionist works 09:00 to 17:00 on weekdays. About 380 calls come in a month and 95 go unanswered: 50 while the receptionist is busy or at lunch, 45 in the evening or at the weekend.
Say 40 of the 95 are new enquiries at six minutes each, and 55 are clients, other firms and couriers at two minutes. That is 240 + 110 = 350 minutes a month. The firm also gets about 60 enquiries a month through its website, two thirds of them after 17:00.
| Option | The maths | A month | Who answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| A second full-time receptionist | $38,010 ÷ 12 = $3,168 in wages, ÷ 0.70 for employer costs | About $4,525 | A person, office hours only |
| Ruby | 350 minutes needs the 500-minute plan | $1,725 | Remote receptionists |
| Smith.ai receptionists | $810 for 90 calls, 5 × $10.50 over, 40 conflict checks × $0.50, 40 extra intakes × $1.50 | $942.50 | Remote receptionists |
| Posh | The 350-minute plan, exactly | $700 | Remote receptionists |
| AnswerConnect | $395 for 300 minutes, plus 50 × $1.85 | $487.50 | Remote receptionists |
| Smith.ai AI Receptionist | $150 for 75 calls, plus 20 × $2.50 | $200 | AI |
| Rosie | Over 250 minutes, so the 1,000-minute plan | $149 | AI |
| EzyConn Starter on your own Twilio number | $25 plan, plus about $15 of Twilio charges | About $40 | AI, on the phone, website chat and WhatsApp |
The people-based services range from $487.50 to $1,725 for the same calls, and the spread comes almost entirely from how a call is counted. A second receptionist costs most and covers office hours only, so the 45 evening calls stay unanswered. The AI options cost a fraction of either.
The table cannot show how a call feels. Someone ringing about a divorce at 21:00 may want a human voice, and a good operator gives them one. A split often works: people for office-hours overflow, AI for the evenings.
Then there are the 60 website enquiries. Unless your service covers chat too (Ruby and AnswerConnect sell live chat; Rosie’s plans include a chat widget), they wait in a contact form until morning. See capturing website leads after hours.
Eight questions to ask any legal answering service
Who decides what counts as advice? Ask for the exact words used when a caller asks “Do I have a case?”
How is the conflict check handled? Do they take the other party’s name, and who runs the check?
How long is the included intake? Count the questions you need against what the plan includes.
How is a call counted? Per minute or per call, rounded how, and are spam and very short calls free?
What happens to an urgent matter at night? A hearing tomorrow or an arrest: who is told, how, and how fast?
Where do the notes go, and who can read them? Email, a shared inbox or your practice software.
What is recorded and kept? Where recordings and transcripts are stored, for how long, and how you delete them.
Can it book a consultation, and where? On the call, in the chat or by a link, and does it check your busy times?
Where EzyConn fits
EzyConn is an AI agent for a firm’s enquiries on the website chat, WhatsApp and Telegram, with an inbound phone line from Starter and AI replies on email from Professional, and every conversation in one inbox. For a firm like Fenwick Lane it takes the parts that repeat every week: the evening enquiry, the fee question and the booking.
- Answers from your content. It scans your website (you keep the pages you want) and reads PDF, Word, plain text, Markdown and CSV files, text you write, and exact questions and answers, which it uses first. It shows the source and replies in multiple languages. Write one line into its answers: questions about a specific case go to the team.
- Details first. A pre-chat form can ask for name, email, phone, practice area (as a department) and consent.
- Consultations booked in the chat. From Starter, on your website or WhatsApp, it offers open times from Google Calendar or Microsoft 365 and books one; the visitor gets a confirmation. See bookings.
- A lawyer on a yes. When your content runs out or the visitor asks for a person, it offers one. Once they accept, a teammate is assigned (manually, round robin, least busy or last active) and notified with the whole conversation in the inbox and Slack, and the AI pauses until one click hands it back.
- The phone line. From Starter, it answers inbound calls on a Twilio number you own, with your greeting and one of six English voices, from the same content. Each call is saved as a conversation in the inbox. See AI phone answering.
- Reports. Conversations handled by the AI, escalated and led by a person, first reply times and the reasons the AI could not answer, with CSV export. Zapier and signed webhooks copy conversations into the tools you already use.
Fenwick Lane at 21:10: a visitor asks whether the firm deals with settlement agreements and what a first meeting costs. The agent answers from the employment and fees pages and books Thursday at 14:00. Then: “Should I sign it?” That turns on the facts, so the agent offers a lawyer. Nobody is free at that hour, so the visitor sees “All our agents are currently busy. We’ll notify you shortly.” and the conversation waits for the employment lawyer in the morning.
The Free plan includes the AI agent, needs no card and does not expire: 2 people, 500 messages and 1,000 AI credits a month. Starter is $25 a month (₹2,499 at checkout) with 5,000 messages; Professional is $95 a month (₹6,499 at checkout) with 25,000. Pricing is per workspace, paid plans start with one month free, and checkout bills in Indian rupees. Even counting every turn of all 95 calls as a message, Fenwick Lane’s month is about 1,430 messages, inside Starter.
Every limit is on the pricing page; the page for law firms shows the flow, with versions for personal injury and immigration. You can start free on the website chat, which takes about 3 minutes to set up.
Law firm answering services: common questions
How much does a legal answering service cost?
Live answering starts at about $130 a month for 50 minutes (Posh) and runs to $1,725 for 500 minutes (Ruby). Smith.ai’s receptionists charge $300 for 30 calls, with conflict checks at $0.50 a call. AI receptionists start free: Smith.ai’s free plan covers 25 calls. Prices checked 3 November 2026.
Is a virtual receptionist or an AI receptionist better for a law firm?
They suit different calls. A remote receptionist is a person, better with a distressed caller, paid by the minute or the call. An AI receptionist costs far less per call, answers at any hour, and the better ones answer the website chat too.
Can an AI receptionist do legal intake?
It can take the basics (name, contact details, the kind of matter, the other people involved, any close date) and book a consultation. Advice and any view of the case belong to a lawyer. Test it by asking “Do I have a case?” and check that it offers you a person.
Is what a caller tells the answering service confidential?
Treat it as confidential. Under ABA Model Rule 1.18 and the state rules based on it, information from a prospective client is protected even if the firm never takes the case. Ask any vendor where notes and recordings are kept and who can see them, and keep first-call intake short.
How fast should a law firm respond to a new enquiry?
The same day at the latest, and at once if you can. In the secret-shopper study for Clio’s 2024 Legal Trends Report, 40% of the 500 firms phoned answered and 48% neither answered nor called back, so a firm that answers straight away is ahead of most of that field.
Do answering services charge for spam and wrong numbers?
It depends. Smith.ai says wrong numbers and spam do not count toward its receptionist quota when caller ID is passed. AnswerConnect gives 30 free interactions under 30 seconds each billing cycle. Ask every vendor for its rule in writing.