What is an AI intake assistant for an estate planning firm?
An AI intake assistant for an estate planning firm is a written first responder. It picks up every missed call, web form, email and chat message, replies in under 60 seconds in the firm's own tone, asks the handful of questions that decide whether a matter is worth a partner's hour, and books the qualified families straight onto the calendar. It does not give legal advice, and it hands anything it is not permitted to answer to a named person at the firm.
Why estate intake is a different problem from ordinary lead response
- Deaths and hospitalizations do not respect a 9-to-5 intake desk. A large share of estate and probate enquiries arrive at night, on weekends, and in the days immediately after a funeral.
- A grieving executor works down the search results until somebody answers. The first real response usually gets the retainer, and the second-fastest firm never learns why it lost.
- The qualification gate is not budget. It is estate value, county, matter type, and whether probate has already opened — questions a generalist chatbot does not know to ask.
- The conversation is ethically constrained. Capacity, undue influence, unauthorized practice of law and conflict checks are live risks in the very first message.
What the assistant actually does
- Answers every inbound enquiry in writing within 60 seconds, day or night, in one thread. Voicemail is transcribed into the same thread; no synthetic voice is used with grieving families.
- Applies the firm's stated asset minimum, jurisdiction and matter-type rules identically every time. Families below the line receive a courteous referral out rather than silence.
- Books qualified families onto the right attorney's calendar and writes the full transcript into Clio, Lawmatics, Smokeball, MyCase or PracticePanther for the conflict check.
- Escalates anything edging toward legal advice to a person on the firm's team, with the transcript already written.
What it is forbidden to do
- Interpret a will, trust, deed or court document.
- Predict the outcome, cost or duration of a matter.
- Comment on testamentary capacity or undue influence.
- Quote a fee the firm has not approved in writing.
- Create or imply an attorney-client relationship, or solicit anyone who did not contact the firm first.
How a firm gets one
- A free 45-minute blueprint call reviews the last 90 days of intake and locks, in writing, exactly what the assistant may and may not say.
- The build takes about ten days against the firm's real, redacted enquiries.
- Two weeks of shadow mode follow: the assistant drafts every reply and sends nothing, while the intake team approves and sends. It answers a family directly only after the firm has read two weeks of its real work.