Automate personal injury intake without losing the caller
Automate the first call, the qualifying and the routing. Keep the advice, the fee and the sign-up with people. Della does the first three at night.
Built for personal injury intake from the first call · Never gives legal advice · Month-to-month
Last updated
Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night. Other driver at fault, police report filed. Other driver’s insurer named. Callback number captured.
What is personal injury intake automation?
Personal injury intake automation is using software to take the first call, ask the qualifying questions, score urgency and route the matter to the right attorney, so people handle only the decisions. It matters most after hours: in Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study only 40% of law firms answered a prospective client's call. (Oklahoma Bar Journal, 2025)
Where does the work pile up now?
- Overnight calls go to voicemail, and the morning starts with cold callbacks.
- A message service sends a name and a number, and someone retypes it into the CRM before the intake has even begun.
- The urgent call, a client in the ER with a clear liability case, sits in the queue with the rest until 9am.
- Follow-up happens when someone remembers, not when the caller is still deciding.
What does the manual version cost?
An ABA Law Practice Division survey, reported by Lawyers Mutual NC (2019), found fewer than 10% of callers reached a lawyer, 32% went to voicemail and 42% waited three days or more for a reply. Every one of those delays is a point where the caller rings the next firm. The marketing that made the phone ring is spent either way.
What are missed calls costing your firm?
The cost of a missed call is the fee from the injury case that caller would have signed. Work it out for your own firm: missed calls a month × share that are new matters × your sign rate × your average fee. The sliders start on example figures. Move them to your own numbers.
For the method and what to count as a missed call, see the full missed-call cost calculator on calldella.com.
What would it change if the first call ran itself?
- If every overnight caller were qualified and scored by 7am, how would your intake coordinator spend the first hour?
- If the urgent case reached the attorney on call at 9:45pm, how many of those would you sign?
- What would stop falling through the gap between the call and the file?
How Della meets it
| If this is happening | What Della does |
|---|---|
| Overnight calls go to voicemail | Answers in your firm's name, every night, weekend and holiday |
| Messages get retyped before intake begins | Takes the full injury intake on the first call and files it as a dossier with the recording and transcript |
| The urgent call waits until 9am | Scores every caller for urgency and alerts the attorney on call by email straight away |
| Follow-up depends on memory | Puts every call in the morning brief by 7am, and on the Group plan passes each dossier to your CRM by webhook |
What should you automate, and what stays with people?
The test is simple. If a step needs judgment, a fee or a signature, it stays with a person. If it needs the same questions asked the same way at any hour, it can be automated.
| Step | Automate? | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| Answering the first call, any hour | Yes | Della, in your firm’s name |
| Asking the qualifying questions | Yes | Della, the same questions every time |
| Scoring urgency and alerting the attorney on call | Yes | Della, by email |
| Filing the call: summary, recording, transcript | Yes | Della, by 7am |
| Follow-up sequences to callers | Yes, in your CRM | Your system, fed by the morning brief or the Group webhook |
| Legal advice and case assessment | No | The attorney |
| Quoting the fee and the retainer | No | The attorney |
| Signing the client | No | Your team |
How to automate personal injury intake in four steps
- Forward your office line after hours, when nobody answers, or both. Your number does not change.
- Della answers, opens with the recording disclosure for your state and takes the injury intake, one question at a time.
- Urgent callers reach the attorney on call by email straight away. Everything else is in the morning brief by 7am.
- Your team works the brief, and your CRM runs follow-up on the dossier, by hand or through the Group webhook.
The questions she asks are set out on the personal injury intake page and in the free intake form. Call Della's playbook covers the law firm client intake process end to end.
Is a personal injury intake AI agent the right tool?
For the first call, yes, if it is built for injury intake and never advises. A general-purpose AI receptionist takes a message in more words. Della asks what an experienced intake specialist asks: incident type and date, jurisdiction, injuries, treatment, fault, insurance, prior counsel and statute-of-limitations risk. For the decisions that follow, a person is the right tool, and the table above keeps them there.
Hear Della take a call
Book a 30-minute demo and we run a live injury call while you listen, then walk you through the dossier she files and where it lands in your workflow. Below is a sample, with a test caller.
- Caller
- Test Caller A
- Matter
- Rear-end collision, Tuesday 9:42pm
- Injuries
- Neck and back pain, ER visit the same night
- Fault
- Other driver at fault, police report filed
- Insurance
- Other driver's insurer named
- Urgency
- 4 of 5
- Callback
- Number captured
Questions about automating intake
Does Della do the follow-up?
Della automates the first call, the qualifying questions and the urgent-call alert. Follow-up runs where it should: in your team's morning brief and, on the Group plan, in your own CRM through the dossier webhook. She does not send texts or emails to callers on your behalf, and she never chases anyone to sign.
Will automating intake lose callers who want a person?
It loses fewer than voicemail does. Della answers every call, speaks calmly, asks one question at a time and tells callers she is an AI if asked. The callers you lose today are the ones who reach a recording at 9pm. Listen to a live demo call and judge the conversation against your current after-hours experience.
Will callers mind speaking to an AI?
Della introduces herself by name, speaks calmly and asks one question at a time. If a caller asks whether she's an AI, she tells them. Every call is recorded, so you can hear exactly how each caller was treated. Book a demo, listen to a live injury call, and judge the conversation for yourself.
Is this allowed under bar rules?
Della never gives legal advice, never quotes fees and never implies the firm has taken the case. She collects facts, and you decide what happens next. Every call opens with a recording disclosure set for your state. Call Della's compliance guides on calldella.com cover ABA Formal Opinion 512 and consent by state.
Does it work with our case management software?
Every call reaches you as a dossier in the Call Della dashboard and as an email summary, so it works alongside any system. There are no direct case management integrations yet. The Group plan includes a CRM webhook that can pass each dossier to your own system.
What does it cost?
Solo is $329 a month with 300 minutes, built for solo lawyers. Practice is $598 a month with 600 minutes. Both include the Call Della dashboard, urgent-call email alerts and a morning brief by 7am. Group is priced to your volume and adds custom minutes, priced to your volume, more than one practice area, cRM webhook. Extra minutes are $0.50 each. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee.
What you get
| Solo | Practice | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $329 a month | $598 a month |
| Minutes included | 300 | 600 |
| Built for | Solo lawyers | Small and growing firms |
| Della answering in your firm's name, nights, weekends and holidays | Yes | Yes |
| The Call Della dashboard: every call as a dossier with summary, urgency score, recording and transcript | Yes | Yes |
| Urgent-call email alerts to the attorney on call | Yes | Yes |
| A morning brief by 7am in your time zone | Yes | Yes |
| Recording disclosure set for your state | Yes | Yes |
| Your own Della number, with forwarding and a test call before you go live | Yes | Yes |
| Extra minutes | $0.50 each | $0.50 each |
Group: custom minutes, priced to your volume, more than one practice area, CRM webhook. Every plan is month-to-month with no setup fee.
Forward this to your managing partner
Our after-hours injury calls go to voicemail or a message service, and the intake gets retyped by hand the next morning. Della, from Call Della, answers them in our name, takes the full injury intake and has a dossier on our desks by dawn, with urgent cases sent to the attorney on call. From $329 a month with the dashboard and alerts included, month-to-month. See a demo: personalinjuryansweringservice.com
Sources
- Answering the Call: Why Responsiveness Is Critical for Law Firm Success, Oklahoma Bar Journal (2025). Checked 25 October 2026.
- How Your Telephone is Costing You Clients, Lawyers Mutual NC (2019). Checked 25 October 2026.