Personal injury attorney intake: what Front Desk does for PI firms

Personal injury attorney intake is the first phone call, the one where a firm finds out whether there's a case to work at all. Most of the effort in a personal injury (PI) firm comes after the retainer is signed, but that first call decides whether a retainer ever happens. In a small firm it often comes in while the only person who could take it is standing in a courtroom.

azlabs Front Desk is building an intake service for that call. This piece covers what the call has to capture, where it jams in firms with one to ten attorneys, and what we're building Front Desk to handle for you.

What a personal injury intake call has to capture

A good PI intake is a real interview. Someone who was rear-ended two days ago is on the line, and before an attorney can decide anything, somebody has to find out:

• What happened and when
• What the injuries are, and whether they've seen a doctor
• Who was at fault, as the caller understands it
• Whether there's insurance, and whether an adjuster has already called
• Whether there's a police report
• Anything that suggests a filing deadline is close
• Who the other parties are, so the firm can run a conflict check

That's the personal injury intake process in short, and it takes a few minutes when it goes well. It goes well when the person asking knows the questions, isn't rushing to grab the next ringing line, and puts the answers somewhere the attorney will actually see them.

Where personal injury attorney intake jams in small firms

The phone rings when nobody is free

In a firm with one to ten attorneys, intake is often one person, or a paralegal who also has three other jobs, or the attorney's own cell phone. That works until the lawyer is in court all morning, the intake person is already on a call when a second one comes in, and then it's lunch. If the firm runs Google Local Services Ads (LSA) or TV spots, calls tend to show up in bunches after the ad runs instead of spreading neatly across the day.

The answers get typed in twice

The second half of the bottleneck gets less attention, and it's the re-keying. Even when someone does take the call, the answers often land on a notepad, in an email, or in a voicemail transcription, and somebody has to type them into the intake customer relationship management (CRM) system later.

Lead Docket, which is owned by Filevine, is built to carry a lead from first click to signed retainer with intake forms, automated text and email follow-up, and e-sign. That pipeline is only as good as the record at the top of it, and a lead that says "car accident, call back" doesn't move far.

How firms handle legal intake services today

There are real options already, and they deserve a fair description.

You can hire more intake staff. That's a salary, and that person still goes home at night.

You can use an answering service. Smith.ai, a long-standing name in legal reception, publishes its human and artificial intelligence (AI) receptionist plans along with per-call add-ons for things like extended intake and handoff to a live agent.

There are also newer AI voice tools built for PI firms. So legal intake services already exist as a category, and a generic AI receptionist isn't going to fix intake for an injury firm. We're not building a generic one.

Front desk services for PI firms: what Front Desk handles

Front Desk for PI firms is a service built around one job, which is answering inbound calls and turning them into complete intakes your attorneys can decide on. Here's what we're building it to do:

• Answer inbound calls 24/7, in English or Spanish (the Spanish flow is still in testing)
• Tell the caller up front that it's an AI assistant for the firm, and give no legal advice
• Screen the case with your firm's questions, asked as a normal conversation
• Capture the names you need for a conflict check
• Live-transfer serious-injury calls to a person at your firm under rules you set, and book an urgent callback when nobody is available
• Write the full lead, with a summary and the transcript, into Lead Docket or Filevine so nobody re-keys it
• Leave the e-sign retainer link to your CRM, sent after an attorney decides to take the case

Some of this runs on the Front Desk core we already use for other industries, which answers calls, warm-transfers, and produces transcripts and summaries. The PI pieces are new work: the Lead Docket and Filevine integration, PI screening logic, conflict-check capture, the Spanish flow, after-hours transfer rules, and recording notice by state. We're building those now and we'll describe them as planned until they ship.

What stays with your attorneys

A lawyer at the firm reviews every intake. The agent doesn't decide who gets signed, doesn't tell a caller whether they have a case, and doesn't send a retainer on its own. When the attorney says yes, the CRM sends the e-sign link the way it already does, and the transcript is there for anyone who wants the caller's exact words.

The goal is to move the bottleneck, so the attorney's time goes to the decisions that actually need a lawyer.

A note on compliance

The guidance we've read, including the State Bar of Arizona's frequently asked questions (FAQ) on ER 7.3 (Arizona's solicitation rule), treats inbound AI intake as permissible when the AI discloses that it's AI, gives no legal advice, and a lawyer supervises and reviews the intakes. Front Desk for PI firms is inbound only, which means it answers people who call you and never cold-calls accident victims.

Rules differ by state. This is not legal advice, so check with your state bar or your own ethics counsel.

Frequently asked questions

What is personal injury attorney intake?

It's the first conversation between a potential client and the firm. Someone gathers the accident details, injuries and treatment, fault, insurance, police report, anything that suggests a deadline, and the names needed for a conflict check, so an attorney can decide whether to take the case.

Does Front Desk decide which cases the firm takes?

No. Front Desk is built to screen the caller and record the intake. A lawyer at the firm reviews every intake and makes the decision, and the firm's CRM sends the e-sign retainer link afterward.

Which CRMs will Front Desk write intakes into?

We're building direct writes into Lead Docket and Filevine first, because many small personal injury firms already run on them. That integration is in development and not shipped yet.

Does Front Desk call leads back?

No. It's inbound only, so it answers people who call your firm and your staff make the callbacks. Outbound AI calls to accident victims raise solicitation and consent issues, which we cover in the pieces on after-hours intake for personal injury firms and a checklist for an AI receptionist for personal injury lawyers.

Where this goes next

We don't have injury-firm customers yet, and we won't pretend otherwise. We're building the PI intake service now and want to walk through it with a small number of firms that already run Lead Docket or Filevine and know they're missing calls. If your firm advertises in Spanish, our piece on bilingual legal intake covers how we're approaching that side.

If that sounds like your firm, we'd like to show you how it works. See Front Desk for personal injury firms.