AI for Small Law Firms: Automate Intake and Free Up Billable Hours

There's a painful irony in running a small law firm. Your most valuable asset is your time — billed at $250 to $500 per hour — and you spend a shocking amount of it on work that generates zero revenue. Answering intake calls, scheduling consultations, drafting routine documents, chasing down clients for information you've already requested twice.

Every hour spent on admin is an hour not billed. For a solo practitioner or small firm, that lost billable time is the difference between a profitable year and a stressful one.

AI is changing this equation for small firms across every practice area. Here's how.

Client Intake That Works While You're in Court

The average small law firm misses 35 to 40% of incoming calls. When you're in a deposition, a hearing, or a client meeting, the phone goes to voicemail. And here's the thing about legal clients: they're usually calling during a crisis. A potential client who just got served divorce papers or arrested for DUI isn't going to wait for a callback. They'll call the next attorney on the list.

An AI employee answers every intake call — day, night, weekends, holidays. It doesn't just take a message. It conducts a structured intake conversation:

Captures the potential client's name, contact information, and basic case details
Asks qualifying questions specific to your practice area (date of incident, opposing party, prior representation)
Explains your consultation process and fee structure
Schedules the initial consultation directly into your calendar
Sends the potential client a confirmation with preparation instructions

The AI is trained on your specific practice areas and intake criteria, so it knows which cases to flag as high priority and which to decline politely (with referral suggestions if you want).

One personal injury firm we work with was capturing about 55% of inbound leads before AI. After implementing an AI intake system, they captured 94%. That 39-point swing translated to roughly 18 additional consultations per month — and at their 30% conversion rate, about 5 new retained clients monthly. At an average case value of $8,000 in fees, that's $40,000 in additional monthly revenue from calls they were previously missing.

Document Drafting That Saves Hours

Routine legal documents eat enormous amounts of attorney time. Engagement letters, demand letters, standard motions, discovery requests, basic contracts — these documents follow predictable patterns but still require an hour or more to draft from scratch or customize from a template.

Your AI employee can generate first drafts of routine documents based on your templates and the specific case details. You provide the inputs — client name, relevant facts, desired terms — and the AI produces a document that's 80 to 90% complete. Your job becomes reviewing and refining rather than drafting from blank.

This isn't about replacing legal judgment. Complex motions and novel legal arguments still require attorney brains. But the engagement letter you've written 400 times? The standard discovery request? The routine demand letter? AI handles those drafts in minutes instead of hours.

Attorneys using AI drafting typically save 5 to 8 hours per week on document preparation. At even a conservative billing rate of $300 per hour, that's $1,500 to $2,400 per week in recovered billable capacity.

Follow-Ups That Keep Cases Moving

Every attorney has a list of clients who owe them something. Medical records that haven't arrived. Signed retainer agreements that are sitting on someone's kitchen counter. Discovery responses that are two weeks overdue. Financial documents needed for a settlement demand.

Chasing this down is tedious, time-consuming, and absolutely necessary. And when it doesn't happen, cases stall.

Your AI employee manages client follow-ups systematically:

Document requests: Automated reminders at 3 days, 7 days, and 14 days after the initial request, with each message escalating slightly in urgency
Signed documents: Text reminders with e-signature links so clients can sign from their phone
Upcoming deadlines: Notifications to clients about approaching deadlines that require their action
Status updates: Proactive case status messages so clients don't call asking "what's happening with my case?" every week

This keeps cases moving forward without you or your paralegal spending hours on the phone. Clients appreciate the proactive communication, and your pipeline doesn't stall because someone forgot to return a signed form.

Scheduling Without the Ping-Pong

Scheduling a consultation shouldn't require four emails and two phone calls. AI handles it in a single interaction. The client states their preferred times, the AI cross-references your calendar, and the meeting is booked — with a confirmation, reminder sequence, and pre-meeting instructions sent automatically.

The Business Case

A two-attorney firm billing $350 per hour, where AI saves each attorney 5 hours per week in admin time, recovers $3,500 per week in billable capacity. Even if only half converts to billed work, that's $7,500 per month in additional revenue — before counting the intake calls you were previously missing.

Stoke's AI employee costs $2,000 for setup and $500 per month. For a law firm, that's roughly two billable hours per month — the easiest math you'll ever do.

Ready to stop losing billable hours to admin work? Contact us to discuss your firm's needs — we work with firms across practice areas including personal injury, family law, criminal defense, estate planning, and business law.