Personal injury intake that doesn't stop at 6pm
The injured caller rings the evening it happens. Della takes the full intake at night and leaves a screened case on your desk by dawn, not a name and a number.
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?
Personal injury intake is the first call between an injured person and a law firm, where the firm records what happened, the injuries, treatment, fault and insurance. It matters most when the office is closed: 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 9pm injury call go now?
- Voicemail. The caller, often still in the ER car park, hangs up and tries the next firm on the results page.
- A message service, which passes on a name, a number and “car accident, please call”, and nothing about the case.
- Your intake coordinator's cell phone, with the facts on a notepad and half of them never reaching the file.
What does it cost when intake stops at 6pm?
Accidents happen on the drive home, at weekends and on holidays, and the caller is often at their most motivated that same evening. In a survey by the ABA Law Practice Division, reported by Lawyers Mutual NC (2019), fewer than 10% of callers reached a lawyer and 32% of calls went straight to voicemail. Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study, reported by the Oklahoma Bar Journal (2025), found only 40% of firms answered at all and 48% were unreachable, neither answering nor returning the message. Whatever the firm spent to make the phone ring is spent either way. What changes is who gets the case.
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 be worth if every overnight caller arrived already screened?
- If the facts were taken on the first call, how many callbacks would start with a decision instead of a repeat of the intake?
- How many more strong cases would you reach while the caller was still deciding?
- Who on your team gets their evenings back?
How Della meets it
| If this is happening | What Della does |
|---|---|
| Injury calls go to voicemail at night | Answers in your firm's name, every night, weekend and holiday |
| Messages arrive with no case detail | Asks the incident, injury, treatment, fault, insurance and prior-counsel questions on the first call |
| Facts go missing between the call and the file | Files every call as a dossier by dawn: summary, urgency score, recording and transcript |
| The urgent call waits with the rest | Scores every caller for urgency and alerts the attorney on call by email straight away |
What does a complete personal injury intake capture?
Enough on the first call for an attorney to judge the case without calling back to start again. That means the incident type, date and location; what the caller remembers about how it happened; the injuries and the treatment so far; who the caller thinks was at fault and whether police attended; the insurers on both sides; any witnesses; and whether the caller has spoken to another lawyer or given a statement to an insurer. The incident date matters most, because it sets the statute-of-limitations clock. Intake should not assess the claim, quote a fee or tell the caller they have a case. Those are decisions for the attorney. The free personal injury intake form gives every question in full.
| Field | Why the attorney needs it |
|---|---|
| Incident type, date and location | Case type, venue and the statute-of-limitations deadline |
| How it happened | The caller’s account, in their words, for the first fault read |
| Injuries and treatment | Severity, ER or urgent care visits, ongoing treatment |
| Fault and police report | Liability and whether a report exists |
| Insurance | Both sides’ insurers and any claim already opened |
| Witnesses and evidence | Names, photos, dashcam or video |
| Prior lawyer or statements | Whether another firm is involved or the caller has spoken to an insurer |
Should you hire a night personal injury intake specialist?
Hiring a night personal injury intake specialist works if you have the volume to keep one busy and the management time to train, schedule and cover them. A trained person can handle the hardest calls, adapt to anything and, under attorney supervision, take on tasks Della does not do. The costs are payroll and benefits for unsociable hours, plus cover for sickness, holidays and turnover, because the night shift is the hardest seat to keep filled. Della suits the opposite case: a firm whose night calls are steady but too few, or too spread out, for a full shift. Many firms end up with both: people in the day, Della at night.
| Night intake specialist | Della | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours | The shifts you staff and cover | Every night, weekend and holiday |
| Cost basis | Payroll, benefits, cover and training | Monthly plan from $329, month-to-month |
| Legal advice | Never, under attorney supervision | Never, and says so if asked |
| Spanish | If you hire a bilingual specialist | English only for personal injury today |
| Morning handover | Notes in your system | A dossier per call and a brief by 7am |
How is a personal injury intake service different from an answering service?
A personal injury intake service takes the case facts, while a general answering service takes a message. The difference shows up the next morning. A message gives the attorney a name, a number and a line such as “car accident, please call”, so the first callback is really the first intake, held hours later with a caller who may have moved on. An intake service asks the injury questions on the first call, records the answers in a fixed format and flags the urgent matters, so the attorney can rank the callbacks before picking up the phone. When you compare personal injury intake services, ask three things. Who writes the questions? What does the morning handover look like? How are urgent calls escalated, and to whom? The pricing page compares how the main services charge.
How does Della run personal injury intake at night?
By answering in your firm's name, opening with a recording disclosure set for your state and asking one question at a time. She covers the incident, injuries, treatment, fault, police report, insurance, witnesses and any prior lawyer, then confirms the callback details. She scores every caller for urgency and alerts the attorney on call by emailwhen a call cannot wait. Every call becomes a dossier with a summary, urgency score, recording and transcript, and the morning brief is on your desk by 7am. She never gives legal advice, never quotes fees and never says the firm has taken the case. If a caller asks whether she is an AI, she tells them. Call Della's personal injury page covers the flow in detail, and its playbook explains how to write a PI intake script and the red flags for declining cases. For what to automate and what to keep with people, see personal injury intake automation.
Hear Della take a call
Book a 30-minute demo and we run a live call while you listen: a caller hurt on the drive home, and every question she asks. Then we walk you through the dossier she files. 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
Personal injury intake: common questions
What does a personal injury intake specialist do?
A personal injury intake specialist answers new-case calls, asks a set list of questions, records the answers, flags urgent matters and passes each file to an attorney. A good specialist is calm with distressed callers and never gives legal advice or promises the firm will take the case. Della does this job after hours.
How long should a personal injury intake call take?
Long enough to capture the facts an attorney needs to judge the case, and no longer. Callers are often in pain or shaken, so the questions should come one at a time and in a sensible order. A clear incident date, injuries, treatment, fault and insurance matter more than a fixed number of minutes.
Does Della replace our daytime intake team?
No. Della covers the hours your intake team is not there: nights, weekends and holidays. She hands the team a sorted morning, with every overnight call filed as a dossier and the urgent ones already flagged, so they spend the first hour on the strongest cases instead of returning voicemails.
Can Della take personal injury intake in Spanish?
Not yet. Della takes personal injury intake in English today. Spanish-language intake is live on Call Della’s immigration flow only. If a large share of your injury callers speak Spanish, raise it in the demo so we can tell you where that work stands.
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.
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 every callback starts the intake from nothing. 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.