AI phone assistant for employment lawyers
An employment call usually has a deadline attached and a name on the other side. Tel-Agent takes both before anything is discussed.
- Employer name
- Date of dismissal
- Conflict check
Why an employment law enquiry cannot wait for Monday
Employment claims run on short statutory clocks, and a caller who has just been dismissed rarely knows what theirs is. They ring on the day it happens, often from a car park, and they will ring the next firm if nobody picks up - which makes the first answered call most of the intake.
How the AI receptionist handles an employment law enquiry
It answers and asks, in general terms, what the matter is about.
It asks who the employer is - the conflict question, before any detail.
It takes the date of the dismissal, grievance or letter.
It asks whether the caller is still employed, which changes the options entirely.
It takes a callback number and a time when it is safe to ring, because many callers cannot speak at work.
What the agent is told to ask
Written by you, in your own words, as the assistant’s instructions.
What an employment law phone assistant must never do
What it does
- Answers on the day something happens, including out of hours
- Runs the conflict question before the story
- Records the date every clock runs from
- Notes a safe callback time for a caller still in work
- Keeps everything on the firm's own machine
What it never does
- Say whether a claim is in time or out of time
- Advise on whether a dismissal was fair
- Estimate what a claim might be worth
- Accept instructions or confirm the firm is acting
- Send a caller's account to a third-party server
Questions
Can it tell a caller whether they are still in time?
No, and this is the single most dangerous thing it could get wrong. Employment time limits are short and the rules about when they start are not obvious. It records the date; a solicitor works out the deadline.
Why does it ask for the employer's name first?
Conflict. A firm that already acts for the employer cannot take the call, and a caller who has told their story before anybody checks has put the firm in a difficult position.
What about callers who cannot speak freely?
It asks for a safe time to call back. Many employment callers are still in the job they are ringing about, and a call from a law firm at the wrong moment is a real problem for them.
Does it give any advice at all?
None. It takes the matter type, the names, the dates and a number. Anything that sounds like advice from an assistant is a liability the firm carries.
Is what the caller says privileged?
A caller naming an employer and describing a dismissal has said something sensitive. Keeping the recording on the firm's own machine is what stops it also existing on a vendor's.
Does the EU AI Act allow an AI to answer a dismissal enquiry?
Yes, under Article 50 of Regulation 2024/1689, which asks that the caller be told they are speaking to a machine - that line belongs in the greeting you configure. Nothing about this work falls under Annex III, the list of high-risk uses. The distinction the Act draws is between assisting and deciding, and this agent assists: it never gives legal advice or runs a conflict check. Austria's KI-Servicestelle at RTR publishes the same reading of the transparency duty.
Who is the data controller for what a caller to an employment law firm says on the phone?
You are. A dismissal enquiry is material that is usually privileged from the first sentence of the call, and Tel-Agent is self-hosted with your own model keys, so the recording, the transcript and the record it writes stay on your server and never reach Dpro GmbH. There is no processor agreement to sign with us because we never receive the data, and the source is AGPL-3.0, so you can check that rather than take our word for it.
Can an employment law firm run this in the United States?
There is no single federal AI statute to comply with, but a phone line carries older rules. US state bar rules on confidentiality reach any vendor that can hear a client call, which is an argument for having no vendor at all. Consent to record is set state by state, and California and Illinois among others want every party to agree. Running the software yourself makes you the caller of record, so the disclosure and the recording switch are yours to set.
Not usable yet. The day it answers a real call will be a release, not a newsletter.
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