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.

Ruby Is Charging You $4.70 a Minute for Calls Your AI Should Handle

Ruby Receptionists starts at $4.70 per minute on its entry plan — $235/month for just 50 minutes of live coverage. A solo attorney averaging 150 calls a month would owe Ruby $7,056–$13,188 a year, still miss every after-hours call, and get no bilingual intake. Here is the full cost breakdown.

Ruby Receptionists starts at $235 per month for 50 minutes of live coverage — $4.70 per minute. A solo attorney who receives 150 incoming calls a month (the national average for a solo PI or family-law practice) and averages three minutes per call needs 450 minutes of coverage. That puts Ruby's monthly bill between $588 and $900 depending on the plan. Annually: $7,056–$10,800. And that is before accounting for the 28% of calls that come in after Ruby's receptionists go home (Clio Legal Trends Report, 2026).

AI legal intake costs a flat $679 a month with Presently. Unlimited calls. 24/7. Bilingual. No per-minute clock.

How Ruby's Pricing Works — and Where It Breaks

Ruby sells minutes, not coverage. Their plans as of 2026:

Plan	Minutes included	Monthly cost	Effective per-minute rate
Entry	50 min	$235	$4.70/min
100 minutes	100 min	$325	$3.25/min
200 minutes	200 min	$549	$2.75/min
500 minutes	500 min	$1,099	$2.20/min

The per-minute rate improves at higher volumes — but only because you are paying more in absolute dollars. A firm that needs 450 minutes a month must buy the 500-minute plan at $1,099/month ($13,188/year) or stitch together two plans. Neither is cheap.

More important: Ruby's coverage stops when their office closes. Evening calls, weekend calls, the 11:47 p.m. call from someone who just got arrested — those go to voicemail. The caller hangs up, dials the next attorney on the list, and is gone. The $4.70-per-minute service you are paying for was not there when it mattered most.

The Real Cost of Per-Minute Legal Intake

Ruby is not the only per-minute service. Abby Connect, PATLive, and similar virtual receptionist platforms all operate on the same model: monthly minute bundles, overage fees when volume spikes, and no coverage after hours. The industry average for live-receptionist legal intake runs $2.20–$4.70 per minute — and that rate applies to every call, including wrong numbers, spam, and the 45-second call from a past client asking for directions.

For a solo attorney who receives 12–15 new-client inquiries a week alongside routine calls from existing clients, per-minute billing has three failure modes:

Bill shock. A busy trial week drives call volume 40% over normal and triggers overage fees the firm did not budget for.
After-hours silence. 28% of prospective client calls come in evenings and weekends (Clio, 2026). No virtual receptionist service covers that window without an expensive 24/7 add-on.
No bilingual coverage. Standard virtual receptionist plans assume English-only intake. A caller who opens with Spanish is typically transferred, put on hold, or lost.

What AI Legal Intake Costs Instead

Presently is a flat monthly subscription. The price does not change when call volume spikes, when a call comes in at midnight, or when a caller speaks Spanish. Every call gets the same intake — questions, conflict screen, callback time, summary to the attorney within 60 seconds.

	Ruby (200-min plan)	Presently
Monthly cost	$549	$679
Annual cost	$6,588	$8,150
Minutes included	200	Unlimited
After-hours coverage	❌	✅ 24/7
Bilingual (English/Spanish)	❌	✅ Native
Intake summary to attorney	Email summary (human notes)	✅ Structured, within 60 sec
Overage fees	✅ Yes	❌ None
Practice-area scripts	Generic	✅ PI, immigration, criminal, family
Setup time	1–2 weeks	Under 30 minutes

At 200 minutes of Ruby coverage, a firm paying $549/month gets roughly 67 answered calls per month at the 3-minute average — leaving 83 calls unanswered or hitting voicemail. Presently answers all 150.

The Bilingual Gap Is a Revenue Gap

32 million people in the United States speak English less than "very well," and Spanish-speaking populations are the fastest-growing client base for personal injury, immigration, and criminal defense practices in Texas, Florida, California, and Illinois (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024). A caller who reaches a receptionist who cannot conduct intake in Spanish is a caller who moves on.

Presently conducts the entire intake conversation in Spanish — not a translation layer, not a hold-and-transfer — and delivers the summary to the attorney in English. A bilingual caller gets a bilingual firm, even if the attorney does not speak Spanish.

Virtual receptionist services charge a premium for bilingual coverage when they offer it at all. The per-minute rate rises. The pool of available agents shrinks. Coverage gaps widen.

When Ruby Makes Sense — and When It Does Not

Ruby is the right choice for a firm that primarily needs a warm, human voice answering high-prestige client calls in English during business hours, and where per-minute costs are predictable and affordable. A large firm with an existing receptionist who needs overflow coverage is a reasonable Ruby use case.

Ruby is the wrong choice when:

Call volume is variable or growing (per-minute billing punishes success)
The firm serves Spanish-speaking clients
After-hours intake is a real revenue issue (PI, criminal defense, immigration)
The goal is to recover clients being lost to voicemail, not to supplement an existing front desk

The 67% rule matters here: 67% of clients hire the first attorney who calls them back, not the most qualified one (Clio Legal Trends Report, 2026). A missed call is not a "missed call" — it is a case that went to the attorney who answered. A per-minute service that stops at 5 p.m. is a closed door during the hours when people are most likely to need a lawyer.

The Math a Solo Attorney Should Run

Take your monthly call volume. Multiply by 3 (the average call duration in minutes). That is your Ruby minute requirement. Find the plan that covers it. Multiply by 12.

Then add what Ruby does not cover: after-hours calls (28% of your total), bilingual calls, and any month where volume runs hot.

Now compare that number to $8,150 a year, flat, for every call answered, every night, in any language.

For most solo attorneys averaging 100–200 incoming calls a month, the numbers are within $1,000–$2,000 of each other annually. The difference is total coverage versus partial coverage, unlimited calls versus a minute clock, and a 30-minute setup versus a two-week onboarding with a staffing vendor.

One recovered client — a single personal injury case worth $5,000 or a family law matter worth $3,500 — closes that gap on day one.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Presently cheaper than Ruby Receptionists for a solo law firm?

At low call volumes (under 50 minutes/month), Ruby's $235 entry plan is cheaper. At 100 minutes or more per month, Presently's flat pricing becomes competitive and often less expensive when after-hours coverage and bilingual intake are factored in. Most solo attorneys handling 80–150 calls per month find Presently less expensive annually.

Does Ruby Receptionists handle after-hours legal calls?

Ruby's standard plans cover business hours. After-hours and weekend coverage requires a premium add-on at additional cost. Presently operates 24/7 at no additional charge.

Can Ruby Receptionists handle Spanish-speaking callers?

Ruby offers bilingual coverage on select plans at higher cost. Presently conducts full intake conversations in both English and Spanish by design, with the attorney summary delivered in English.

What is the setup time for Presently versus Ruby?

Ruby requires account setup, agent training, and onboarding that typically takes one to two weeks. Presently goes live in under 30 minutes — you describe your practice, upload your intake questions, and the AI is answering calls the same day.

Does Presently have overage fees like Ruby?

No. Presently is a flat annual or monthly subscription with no per-minute fees, no overage charges, and no call limits.

Sources: Ruby Receptionists pricing page (ruby.com, July 2026); Clio Legal Trends Report, 2026; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2024 (Language Use table); Best AI Virtual Receptionists for a Law Firm in 2026 — Technology.org.