AI phone assistant for family lawyers
Family callers are often in distress and sometimes unsafe. Tel-Agent asks about safety first and reaches a person before anything else.
- Safety first
- Other party name
- Safe to call back
Why a family law phone needs a safety question first
Family callers are often ringing on the worst day of a long situation, and some of them are not safe. A phone that rings out is bad; an assistant that works through an intake script with somebody in danger is worse. Everything about this page is built around one question coming before the others.
How the AI receptionist handles a family law enquiry
It answers and asks whether anybody is at risk right now.
On any answer other than a clear no, the script stops and the call reaches a person.
It asks the name of the other party, because the conflict check cannot wait.
It takes the type of matter in general terms, and any court date.
It asks for a safe number and a safe time - which for some callers is not their own phone.
What the agent is told to ask
Written by you, in your own words, as the assistant’s instructions.
What a family law phone assistant must never do
What it does
- Asks the safety question before anything else
- Stops the script on any answer but a clear no
- Runs the conflict check before the matter is described
- Records a safe callback number and time
- Keeps everything on the firm's own machine
What it never does
- Ask for the details of what happened
- Advise on children, finances or occupation of a home
- Say what a court is likely to decide
- Leave a message or a callback on an unsafe number
- Send anything a caller said to a third-party server
Questions
Should an assistant answer a family law phone at all?
Only with the safety question in front of it. Handled that way it reaches a person faster than a phone ringing out, which is the realistic alternative in a small firm out of hours.
What happens if somebody is at risk?
The script ends. The call goes to a person, or the caller is given the emergency number. Nothing else is asked and nothing is written down first.
Why is the callback number handled differently here?
Because a call from a law firm to the wrong phone can put a caller in danger. The assistant asks for a safe number and a safe time and records both, rather than assuming the number that rang in is usable.
Does it take details of the case?
No. Matter type, names for the conflict check, and any court date. What happened is a conversation with a solicitor, not an intake field.
Is the conflict check really that urgent?
In family work more than anywhere. A firm that has already spoken to the other party cannot act, and the sooner that is established the less anybody has said.
Does the EU AI Act allow an AI to answer a call about children?
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 a family law firm says on the phone?
You are. A call about children 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 a family 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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