What is an AI voice receptionist for attorneys?

An AI voice receptionist for attorneys is a system that answers your phone calls 24/7, conducts a professional intake conversation with callers, and emails you a full summary — including the caller's name, number, email, practice area, and preferred callback time — within 60 seconds. Presently is built specifically for solo and small law firms.

How much does Presently cost?

Presently is $8,150 per year for standard access. Founding firms who join during our early access period pay $4,000 per year — a rate that is locked in for life. There are no per-call fees, no overage charges, and no long-term contracts beyond the annual subscription.

Does Presently integrate with Clio or other legal practice management software?

Presently delivers intake summaries by email immediately after each call. Integration with Clio, MyCase, and other practice management platforms is on the product roadmap. Founding firms will be the first to access native integrations when they launch.

Can Presently answer calls in Spanish?

Yes. Presently conducts intake conversations in both English and Spanish. If a caller begins speaking Spanish, Presently automatically continues the conversation in Spanish and delivers the intake summary to you in English.

How quickly do I receive the intake summary after a call?

You receive a full intake summary by email within 60 seconds of the call ending. The summary includes the caller's full name, best callback number, email address, practice area, preferred callback time, urgency level, and any additional notes the caller shared.

What practice areas does Presently support?

Presently is trained to handle intake for estate planning, personal injury, employment law, family law and divorce, criminal defense, and general matters. For each practice area, Presently asks the right follow-up questions — for example, asking personal injury callers about treatment status and insurance contact.

How does call forwarding work with Presently?

You forward calls to your Presently number using your existing carrier's call forwarding feature — typically by dialing a short code on your phone. No hardware or app is required. Setup takes under five minutes and can be activated or deactivated instantly.

Is Presently compliant with call recording laws?

Yes. Presently discloses at the start of every call that the call will be recorded and transcribed for intake purposes, and identifies itself as an AI assistant. This disclosure satisfies federal one-party consent requirements and is designed to meet two-party consent requirements in states like California, Florida, and Washington.

Can Presently handle multiple calls at the same time?

Yes. Presently handles simultaneous calls — every caller reaches a live AI immediately regardless of how many calls come in at once. There is no queue, no hold music, and no missed calls due to the line being busy.

What happens after Presently takes a message?

As soon as the call ends, you receive an email with the full intake summary. The summary flags urgent matters and high-priority leads so you can triage quickly. You call the client back directly — Presently handles the intake so you can focus on the follow-up that wins the case.

AI Intake vs. a $37,131 Receptionist: Solo Firms With Automated Intake Earn 53% More Revenue

Solos with integrated intake tech earn 53% more revenue and 48% more leads (Clio 2025). A $37,131 receptionist covers 40 of 168 hours.

Solo law firms running integrated client intake technology earn 53% higher revenue and generate 48% more client leads than solos handling intake manually, according to Clio's 2025 Legal Trends for Solo and Small Law Firms Report. That lift is nearly double what the same tools deliver to small firms (28% revenue, 6% leads) — for one structural reason: in a solo practice, the attorney is the receptionist. Meanwhile the average U.S. law firm receptionist earns $37,131 a year, or $17.85 an hour (ZipRecruiter, June 2026), and covers roughly 40 of the 168 hours in a week.

This is not an argument for firing anyone. It's an argument about which 128 hours nobody is currently paid to cover.

What a Full-Time Receptionist Actually Costs a Texas Solo

The $37,131 is base pay only. Loaded with payroll taxes, benefits, PTO, and turnover, most small employers plan at a 1.25x–1.4x multiplier — putting real annual cost near $46,000–$52,000. (That multiplier is a planning assumption, not a sourced figure.)

For a Texas solo PI or criminal defense firm, that's a real hire with real value: someone who greets walk-ins, calms an anxious client in the lobby, chases medical records, and knows your docket. None of that is replaceable by software.

A Receptionist Covers 24% of the Clock — Your Callers Don't Keep Business Hours

A full-time receptionist covers 40 of 168 hours a week. That's 24% of the clock. The remaining 128 hours — 76% — are nights, weekends, holidays, lunch, and every hour your receptionist is on another line.

Criminal defense doesn't respect that schedule. A DWI arrest in Harris County happens at 2 a.m., and the family calls the first three firms Google shows them before sunrise. A rear-end collision on I-35 on a Saturday produces a claimant who calls on Sunday. The staffed 24% is not where those cases are won.

AI Intake vs. In-House Receptionist: The Side-by-Side

	In-house receptionist	Presently
Annual cost	$37,131 base; ~$46K–$52K loaded (1.25–1.4x assumption)	$799/mo, or $8,150/yr billed annually + $499 setup
Hours covered	~40 of 168 (24%)	168 of 168
After-hours capture	None	Every call, every night, every weekend
Documented lift	Not measured as a category	53% revenue / 48% more leads for solos using integrated intake tech (Clio, 2025)
Scales with volume	Adding hours means adding headcount	Flat fee, no per-minute clock

Presently at $799/month sits deliberately above the $25–$109/month commodity AI answering tier. Those tools sell minutes and voicemail transcription. Presently is built to qualify a legal matter, run conflict-relevant screening questions, and put a structured intake summary in your inbox before the caller dials the next firm.

Even the Staffed Hours Are Already Failing

Clio's 2024 Legal Trends Report ran a secret-shopper study across 500 firms: only 40% answered a live call, down from 56% in 2019, and 48% were unreachable entirely.

So the honest framing isn't "human vs. AI." It's: the human owns the 40 business hours and the relationships inside them; Presently owns the 128 hours nobody is paid to cover — and backstops the business-hours calls that ring through while your receptionist is already on the phone.

The Break-Even Math, Using Your Own Numbers

Break-even = annual plan cost ÷ your average revenue per retained matter.

At $8,150/year (annual billing):

PI solo averaging $6,000 in fees per retained matter: 1.4 new matters a year. One extra signed case every eight months.
Criminal defense solo at a $3,500 flat DWI fee: 2.3 new matters a year. Roughly one every five months.

Those numbers assume you retain 25% of the after-hours leads captured — a stated assumption, not a promise. Run it against your own conversion rate in the ROI calculator, and see full plan details on pricing.

FAQ

Does an AI receptionist replace my front-desk hire? No. It covers the 128 weekly hours your receptionist isn't scheduled for, plus overflow when the line is busy. Firms that keep both get full coverage; firms with no receptionist get their first coverage at all.

Is $799/month expensive compared to other AI answering services? It's above the $25–$109/month commodity tier, and intentionally so. Those services take messages. Presently qualifies matters. If one retained PI case is worth $6,000 to you, the comparison isn't monthly price — it's cases signed.

What does Clio's 53% figure actually measure? Solo firms using integrated client intake technology reported 53% higher revenue and 48% more client leads than solos on manual intake (Clio, 2025 Legal Trends for Solo and Small Law Firms Report). It's an association across surveyed firms, not a guaranteed outcome for any single practice.

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