Custom agents for law firm intake
AI legal intake that screens, routes and prepares matters for attorney review
Vantage Systems builds artificial intelligence (AI) legal intake agents that read intake forms and the documents prospective clients send, gather the names a conflicts check needs and route each inquiry to the right practice group. The agent gives no legal advice, and an attorney reviews every matter before the firm accepts it or responds on substance.
What does an intake agent do before an attorney sees the matter?
It turns an inquiry into a file an attorney can assess without re-interviewing the person. From the web form, email or call transcript, the agent extracts the prospective client, opposing parties, related entities, key dates and the type of problem. Uploaded documents such as a termination letter, a commercial lease, a demand letter or a summons are read, dated and described factually, and any deadline they mention, like a response date on a summons, is flagged at the top.
Routing follows rules the firm writes: practice area, jurisdiction, matter size, language and which attorneys are taking new work. Matters outside the firm's practice receive a decline letter drafted for attorney approval, never an automatic rejection. Like every one of our custom AI agents, it shows its reasoning for each routing choice.
How are conflicts and privilege handled?
The agent prepares the conflicts search; it does not clear conflicts. Every party, former name, related company and adverse party is listed in the format your conflicts system expects, run against existing client and matter data, and possible hits go to the person at your firm who clears them.
Information from prospective clients deserves protection even when no engagement follows, which the American Bar Association's Model Rule 1.18 and the state versions of it address. Intake data is stored with access limited to the intake team and the reviewing attorney, and until the conflicts check is complete the agent asks only for what it needs to run that check and route the matter. That limits how much detail the firm receives before it can decide whether to take the matter.
What we build for law firms
Intake reader
Web forms, emails, attachments and call transcripts turned into one structured intake record with references to each source.
Conflicts preparation
Party lists normalized for spelling, maiden names and corporate affiliates, submitted to your conflicts database for a person to clear.
Practice area routing
The firm's rules applied the same way every time, with an explanation attached for the attorney who receives the matter.
Practice management sync
Accepted matters opened in Clio, Filevine, Litify or your existing practice management system with the intake record attached.
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How an engagement works
Map intake as it runs today
We interview the intake team and a partner from each practice group to document how inquiries arrive, who screens them and where they stall.
Write routing and conflicts rules
Practice areas, decline criteria and conflicts fields are written down and approved by the firm before any code depends on them.
Pilot with one practice group
One group receives agent-prepared matters first, and its attorneys mark what helped and what was wrong.
Roll out firm-wide
The remaining practice groups are added, and we maintain the agent as rules, attorneys and systems change.
Frequently asked questions
Does the agent give legal advice to prospective clients?
No. It collects information, confirms receipt and explains next steps in wording the firm approves. Any question about rights, deadlines or strategy is passed to an attorney, and the agent says so plainly.
Can it talk to callers, or only read forms?
Both. Phone inquiries are handled by our voice agents for law firms, which pass a transcript straight into the same intake record the written channels use.
Does it suit plaintiff and defense firms alike?
Yes, with different routing. Plaintiff firms usually screen many individual inquiries against case criteria, while defense and business firms more often receive referrals from in-house counsel, where entity relationships drive the conflicts search.
Where is intake data stored?
In the region agreed with the firm, behind the access limits described above, with every view logged. Prospective client information is never used to train AI models. How long declined inquiries are kept, and who may search them later, are questions we settle with the firm during discovery.
What if the agent misreads a document?
Every extracted fact links to the page it came from, so the reviewing attorney checks the source rather than the summary. Corrections are logged and used to refine the agent's instructions.
Does it fit professional services firms beyond law firms?
Often, yes. Accounting and consulting firms run similar engagement acceptance and independence checks, which our professional services industry page discusses.
Related
- ServiceCustom agentsVantage Systems builds custom AI (artificial intelligence) agents that read tenders, claims, loan files and leases, check them against your rules and post results into your systems.
- IndustryLegal and professional servicesAI intake agents, voice agents and document systems for law firms, accounting and advisory firms. Attorneys review every output; nothing gives legal advice.
- Voice agentsFor law firmsAn AI receptionist for law firms that runs intake by practice area, checks conflicts before hearing the facts, books consults and never gives legal advice.
- Custom agentsFor insurance claims teamsAI claims document processing that indexes loss packets, estimates and bills, then checks each file against the policy so adjusters decide with sources.
- InsightBuild vs buy for AI agents: a decision framework for operatorsBuy an AI agent when your workflow looks like everyone else's; build when it is yours alone. A six-factor framework, a comparison table and the real cost lines.
- PricingHow we priceFixed scope and a fixed price for each phase, and what drives the cost of a build.
Built for operators with real scale. Most engagements are scoped in the tens of thousands of dollars and up.
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