Missed calls at law firms

The figures

The best data on unanswered calls at law firms comes from Clio's Legal Trends Reports. In the 2024 report, researchers secret-shopped 500 firms between 20 June and 5 July 2024. Only 40% answered the phone, 48% could not be reached by any channel, and 36% explained what the next step would be. The 2019 report found 39% of calls went to voicemail and over half of firms had not responded within 72 hours, while 79% of clients said they expected a reply within 24 hours.

Those are US figures used for context. The Australian picture on the phone specifically has not been published, which is why EzyBiz is running a one-month count with a pilot firm in Victoria, and we will publish what we find.

What a missed call costs

The arithmetic is simple even if the inputs vary by practice area. A firm that takes twenty new enquiries a month and misses a third of them has lost six or seven potential matters. If one in three enquiries becomes a client, that is two matters a month, every month. Against that, the cost of answering every call is a fixed number.

There is a second cost that does not show up as lost revenue. A client who cannot reach the firm calls again, emails, and then calls the principal's mobile. The same enquiry is now three interruptions and none of them is on the file.

Why voicemail does not fix it

Voicemail asks the caller to do the work: state the matter, leave a number, and wait. New clients mostly do not, and the ones who do have to be called back before they have found another firm. An answering service, human or AI, reverses that. The caller is greeted in the firm's name, asked what the call is about, and told what happens next. The firm gets a written summary rather than a recording to listen to.

Three ways to take the day's calls

EzyBiz Lex lets you choose how the line is handled, and you can change it in the app between a hearing and a meeting.

• Available. Calls ring straight to you, and before you answer the screen shows who is calling, which matter they belong to and the last thing they said to you.
• Screen. The answering service greets every caller first. Genuine enquiries are put through with a one-line summary, and if you cannot take the call they are booked or their message is taken. Cold callers stop at the front desk.
• Unavailable. In court, in a meeting or finished for the day, the answering service takes every call, answers as your firm, and never gives advice.

Start without changing anything

The lowest-risk way to stop missing calls is to forward your existing number on no answer. Your number stays the same, your receptionist keeps answering during the day, and EzyBiz Lex only ever sees the calls nobody took. When you are ready, move to a dedicated Australian business number for you or for the whole firm, or port the number you already have.

The record

Every call that EzyBiz Lex answers becomes a summary and a transcript, stored in Australia and searchable from the app. It files to the matter in Smokeball or Clio as a finished file note, or into your SharePoint library under the contact. Nobody types up a phone call, and a missed call is no longer a missing file note.