AI phone assistant for a law firm: the checklist before you start

The contract decides this, not the product

Under professional rules the vendor is a service provider like any other. Section 43e of the German Federal Lawyers' Act allows access to privileged facts only as far as the service requires, and its third paragraph demands a contract in text form obliging the provider to secrecy after instruction about the criminal consequences. That covers the cleaning firm, the shredding company and an AI on the phone alike.

The sanction lands on the firm, not the vendor. Section 203(4) of the German Criminal Code punishes a professional who failed to ensure that an assisting person was placed under a duty of secrecy, with up to one year in prison or a fine. A contract in text form is unromantic, but it is the part a court reads later.

Six points the contract has to contain

This list goes to the vendor before any trial month. Five points come straight from the professional code, one from data protection law. If one is missing, change vendors rather than negotiate:

• Text form, an express duty of secrecy, and instruction about the criminal consequences of a breach.
• Need-to-know limit: the provider obtains only as much knowledge as performing the contract requires.
• Sub-contractor clause: whether further people may be brought in, plus the duty to bind them in text form as well.
• Foreign services: where the work is performed abroad, protection there must be comparable. That covers the language model behind the voice, not only the vendor's registered office.
• A processing agreement under Article 28 GDPR, in writing or electronic form, with prior authorisation for every further processor.
• A deletion period for recordings and transcripts, as a number of days. Neither LexDial nor JUPUS states one on its site, so it belongs in the contract.

When the client has to consent

Most vendor pages skip one line in the statute. Section 43e(5) permits access to privileged facts for services that directly serve one individual mandate only once the client has consented. Taking a first enquiry serves the office rather than a mandate, so paragraphs 1 to 4 cover it.

The second step is different. As soon as the same AI summarises pleadings from a live file, extracts deadlines from letters or drafts documents, it works on a specific mandate. Then you need consent, ideally one sentence in the engagement letter naming the purpose. Cover both in the same contract and you avoid arguing later about when consent went missing.

The script captures six fields, no more

The less a call records, the smaller the exposure. The script below is meant to be copied and captures only what the firm needs for the callback:

• A greeting with two mandatory sentences: the firm's name, and the fact that an AI assistant is taking notes rather than advising.
• Field 1 name, field 2 callback number, field 3 area of law in one word, say employment or road accident.
• Field 4 the opposing party's name, for the conflict check. Field 5 a yes or no on any running deadline, plus the date if yes. Field 6 a preferred time for the callback.
• Stop rule: once the caller starts setting out the facts, one sentence says the details will be discussed on the callback. No details recorded, no view on prospects, no statement about deadlines.
• Immediate transfer when a caller mentions a deadline inside 48 hours, an arrest hearing or a search warrant.

The conflict check needs exactly one extra field

Without the opposing party's name the note is worthless. Section 43a(4) bars a lawyer from acting where another client has already been advised in the same matter on the opposing side. If the name only surfaces on the callback, the firm has already listened, and withdrawing gets awkward.

The statute expressly allows this check. Under the seventh sentence of that paragraph, privileged facts may be disclosed to a lawyer even without client consent so far as checking a conflict requires it. For the assistant that means the opposing name is captured but never commented on, and a person in the firm runs the check before the callback starts.

What it costs and where the plan flips

One initial consultation pays for three months of assistant. Section 34 of the German lawyers' fees act caps the fee for a first consultation with a consumer at 190 euros, while LexDial's Starter plan costs 69 euros a month. The thresholds below were calculated with python3 from list prices, assuming three minutes per call:

• To cover the monthly fee: 0.36 first consultations at 69 euros, 0.94 at 179 euros, 1.73 at 329 euros, and 0.52 for the JUPUS phone assistant at 99 euros.
• Up to 237 minutes a month, Starter is cheapest, roughly 79 calls or a little under four a day.
• Between 238 and 537 minutes, Growth at 179 euros wins. At 504 minutes, eight calls a day, Starter costs 389 euros against 299 euros for Growth.
• From 538 minutes a month, Premium at 329 euros is the cheapest plan, because extra minutes are billed at 0.80 euros.
• The counter-sum: 0.80 euros a minute makes a ten-minute call eight euros. An assistant that listens at length costs twice over, in professional risk and on the invoice.

What I would do in your place

Yes, if your firm takes more than four first enquiries a day and nobody sits at the phone permanently. Start on the smallest plan, outside office hours only, with the script above and a seven-day deletion period written into the contract. After four weeks the call list shows how many enquiries landed there and how many turned into mandates.

No for a criminal or family practice with no back office. There the opening sentences of a call already carry things nobody outside the firm should hear, and better reachability does not outweigh that. No as well while the vendor names neither a deletion period nor its sub-processors. Our piece on removing customer data before a prompt and its free tool show what to strip in any case.

Common questions

• Does the caller have to be told it is an AI? Yes. Article 50 of the EU AI Act has required that at the first interaction since 2 August 2026. Our piece on the AI literacy obligation under Article 4 covers what else the regulation asks of small firms.
• Is a vendor's assurance about professional secrecy enough? No. The firm itself has to place the provider under that duty, in text form, with instruction. A marketing line does not replace the contract.
• May the assistant give clients a status update? Only against reliable identification, which a caller ID does not provide. Until then the answer is a callback from the firm.
• What does it sound like? Our free AI phone demo runs in the browser without signing up, and our piece on the AI phone assistant in property management shows escalation rules in another sector.

The next step

Send the six contract points to your preferred vendor before you open a trial account, and ask for an answer in text form. Once it arrives, set up the six-field script and put the assistant on the firm's number in the evening and at weekends only. If you would rather have the selection, the contract and the setup handled with you, the route runs through our services.