Law firm calls answered, intake taken, consultations booked.

• A prospective client. Gets the intake script and a consultation booking. This is the call the firm most wants to catch.
• An existing client. Wants an update, wants to send a document or wants to ask the attorney a question. The front desk takes a message for the named attorney or paralegal, with the question in the caller's words.
• Opposing counsel or their staff. Calls to schedule, to confirm a filing or to reach the attorney of record. The message goes to the person on the matter, marked by the caller's firm.
• Court staff or a process server. Time-sensitive. These follow a rule you set, usually a direct handoff or an immediate alert.
• A vendor or a solicitor. Taken politely and logged, or declined, as you choose.

The front desk tells these callers apart in the first exchange. Opening with a question such as who is calling and how the firm can help usually does it. You review the sorting in the first weeks and adjust.

Some legal matters have a clock on them. Others can wait until the morning. The sorting is yours to define, and the front desk works down your list. The rows below are examples of rules a firm might write. Urgent matters reach the designated attorney immediately.

Where a case does not fit any row, the front desk collects the details and sends the call to a person on your list. It does not guess at urgency.

A law office is a place where an unguarded sentence can cause harm. Legal advice stays with your attorneys.

• No legal advice. It will not say whether a caller has a case, what a statute means, or what to do about a deadline.
• No promise of representation. A booked consultation is only a meeting. The caller hears that the attorney decides what happens next.
• No outcome talk. Predictions about case results, claim values and timelines stay with the attorney.
• Built to protect case details. The desk is set up to discuss an existing client's matter only after the caller is verified against your records. The desk is built to take opposing counsel's message without revealing client information. The check is described in how it works.

The firm decides the opening notice callers hear and whether it asks callers not to share sensitive facts before a relationship exists. Your own ethics rules and your state bar's rules on advertising and communications are for you and your counsel to apply to the wording. We write the setup to match what you decide.

The office opens to a list of new matters. Each entry has the caller's name, number, the practice area, the answers to your intake questions, the adverse parties named and the consultation booked. Existing-client messages are sorted by attorney. Court and urgent items were already sent as they arrived.

Paralegals spend the morning on conflict checks and follow-ups instead of listening to voicemail. By the end of the week, you scan the calls it could not settle, fix the answers it lacked and sharpen an intake question or two.

• Your practice areas. Which you take, which you refer out, and which you decline.
• Your intake script. The questions for each area and the order you ask them.
• Your urgency list. The table above, in your own words.
• Your people. Who covers which area, who is on call and who takes client messages.
• Your consultation format. Office, phone or video, how long each slot is and what you say about fees.
• Your opening notice. What callers hear first and any wording your counsel requires.

You then call the front desk yourself as a worried client and as a difficult one. Other professional offices set up in a similar way; insurance agencies use many of the same pieces.