AI receptionist for law firms

Rules that apply to you, not the vendor

• · Duties to a prospective client attach on the first call. Under Rule 1.18 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, a person who discusses the possibility of representation is a prospective client, the lawyer may not use or reveal what was learned even if no representation follows, and receiving a confidence from that person can disqualify the lawyer and, by imputation, every other lawyer in the firm from a materially adverse matter. This is why an AI intake agent must complete a conflict check on names before it takes facts. See ABA Model Rule 1.18 at https://www.americanbar.org/groups/professional_responsibility/publications/model_rules_of_professional_conduct/rule_1_18_duties_of_prospective_client/ and the DC Bar's adopted text at https://www.dcbar.org/for-lawyers/legal-ethics/rules-of-professional-conduct/client-lawyer-relationship/duties-to-prospective-client
• · Attorney-client confidentiality covers the recording, the transcript, and the vendor. Rule 1.6 bars revealing information relating to the representation and requires reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure, so call recordings, transcripts, and intake notes held on a vendor's servers are confidential client information and the engagement with the vendor needs confidentiality terms, access controls, retention limits, and a defined deletion path. See https://www.dcbar.org/for-lawyers/legal-ethics/rules-of-professional-conduct/client-lawyer-relationship/confidentiality-of-information
• · The firm is responsible for what the AI says. Rule 5.3 makes a lawyer responsible for the conduct of nonlawyer assistants, including outside vendors, where the lawyer orders or ratifies the conduct or fails to take reasonable remedial action. An AI receptionist is a nonlawyer assistant, so the firm owns its scripts, its escalation rules, and its errors. See https://www.dcbar.org/for-lawyers/legal-ethics/rules-of-professional-conduct/law-firms-and-associations/responsibilities-regarding-nonlawyer-assistants
• · Unauthorized practice of law: a nonlawyer, including a bot, may not advise on the merits, apply law to the caller's facts, predict an outcome, or tell a caller whether a deadline has run. California Business and Professions Code 6125 bars practicing law without active bar membership and 6126 makes it a criminal offense, and every state has an equivalent. Intake must gather facts and schedule, never interpret. See https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=6125
• · TCPA outbound limits: 47 CFR 64.1200(c)(1) bars telephone solicitations to a residential subscriber before 8 a.m. or after 9 p.m. local time at the called party's location, and the same section requires prior express written consent for autodialed or prerecorded calls that include an advertisement or constitute telemarketing. Missed-call text-backs and follow-up campaigns need consent and a quiet-hours guard. See https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/section-64.1200
• · AI voices are covered by the TCPA. On February 8, 2024 the FCC adopted a Declaratory Ruling holding that calls made with AI-generated voices are artificial under the TCPA, effective immediately, which puts synthetic-voice outbound calling and voicemail drops under the same consent, identification, and opt-out rules as prerecorded robocalls. See https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-400393A1.pdf
• · Call-recording consent: California Penal Code 632(a) makes it an offense to record a confidential communication without the consent of all parties. Other all-party consent states, commonly including Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Washington, apply similar rules, so a recording disclosure should be spoken at the top of every call in every market rather than configured per state. For a law firm the exposure is compounded, because a recording made without consent is both a statutory violation and a confidentiality problem. See https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=PEN&sectionNum=632
• · Advertising and solicitation rules apply to what the agent says. Statements about results, specialization, or certification are regulated attorney advertising in every state, and live telephone solicitation of a prospective client for pecuniary gain is restricted, so an outbound AI campaign to a purchased list is a bar problem before it is a TCPA problem.