Help
Everything below is the same answer we’d send if you wrote to us — most firms find what they need here faster than an email round-trip would take. If yours isn’t here, we’re a real email away at contact@intakegateway.com.
You keep your own phone number — nothing changes for the people calling you. Once you're signed in, the phone-line step of setup gives you a second, private number that belongs to your account, then shows the star codes to forward your own line to it.
Codes differ by carrier and by plan, so that step links each carrier's own instructions and gives you a quick way to check the forwarding took.
The phone-line step starts with nights and weekends: forward only after hours, only the calls you don't answer, or every call. Forwarding only after hours or only unanswered calls means you keep answering the calls you already do — that step lays out each way.
That's expected right after you finish the last step of setup — switching your number on runs automatically and is usually live within half an hour. There's nothing further to do, and no button to press to speed it up.
One thing worth doing while you wait: don't forward your office line yet. Until the page says you're live, a forwarded call would just go quiet.
If it takes more than about two hours, our systems have already been alerted — there's nothing you need to send us for that.
An office phone system sets forwarding in its own settings, not with the star codes the phone-line step shows. Those codes are for a carrier line and do nothing on most office systems.
For RingCentral, Dialpad, Vonage Business, Microsoft Teams Phone, Ooma Office, Zoom Phone, Grasshopper, Nextiva and 8x8, the phone-line step has the steps, taken from each vendor's own help page: pick your system there. Google Voice is listed there too, but with the reasons it can't forward to an agent rather than steps: Google's own page says forwarding calls from a Google Voice number to an automated system is unsupported.
For any other system, sign in to its admin settings (or ask whoever manages it) and look for call handling, answering rules or call forwarding on the number your clients call. Add a rule that sends calls to an external number, and enter the Intake Gateway number from your phone-line step.
If you choose the rule for calls that go unanswered, your phones still ring first. If yours rings too long before the agent picks up, the same rule usually lets you set how many rings or seconds to wait.
Then test it: from a phone that is not on your list of your own numbers, call your office number and let it ring. You should hear your agent's opening. If your voicemail answers instead, voicemail is taking the call before the forwarding rule does; turn it off for that number or shorten its delay.
If you forward only the calls you don't answer, a caller hears your own phone ring first, then your agent's opening, which starts with the notice that the call is recorded. The notice stays; the rings are what you can shorten.
On AT&T, T-Mobile and most other carriers that use the standard forwarding codes, the code for unanswered calls can carry a wait in seconds: dial **61*, then your Intake Gateway number, then **, the number of seconds, and #. Written out, that is **61*YOUR-INTAKE-NUMBER**15# for about 15 seconds, with YOUR-INTAKE-NUMBER replaced by the 10 digits of your Intake Gateway number, which you can find on the phone-line step. This is a different code from the one the phone-line step shows for its main busy-or-no-answer option -- only the no-answer-only code takes a wait. The wait is usually 5 to 30 seconds, in steps of 5. If your carrier refuses it, use the code without the wait, dialing **61*YOUR-INTAKE-NUMBER# on its own.
Verizon's code for unanswered calls has no ring setting of its own. Verizon's call-forwarding page, linked from the phone-line step, or Verizon itself can tell you whether your plan lets you change it.
An office phone system sets the wait in its own forwarding rule; see "We use an office phone system" above.
Whatever you change, test it with one call to your office number from a phone that is not on your list of your own numbers.
Check these in order.
If none of that explains it, email us the number the caller dialled from and roughly when, and we'll look into it.
We watch every call we let through to your agent. When at least two calls to your Intake Gateway number, ten or more minutes apart within one hour, go unanswered, and our voice provider's own records show it failing at least two of those calls, we try to email you (at the addresses in Settings, or your sign-in email if you set none) and your dashboard shows a red notice. The problem is on our side, not yours. That email is a courtesy, not a guarantee: it can be late, it can miss a problem, and it may never be sent, so do not rely on it alone.
What this cannot catch quickly: it needs calls to notice anything, so on a quiet line it can take hours before two calls arrive; it notices only calls that reach us; and callers who hang up before they are connected are not counted as a failure. If our voice provider stops passing calls to us at all, you may not get this email; we are alerted when it stops answering our own checks, and that alert comes to us, not to you; if we confirm a failure like that, we may send you the same email ourselves. If a caller tells you they got no answer, check your own line by calling your Intake Gateway number directly.
What to do until it is fixed:
We try to email you again once it is fixed: after a call to your line is answered, we wait 30 minutes to be sure it holds, then two more hours in case it fails again, so a brief recovery does not send you back and forth. Meanwhile your dashboard says calls are being answered again; keep your forwarding as it is until the email arrives or you have checked for yourself. You can check at any time by calling your Intake Gateway number directly: if your agent answers, it is working again, and that call tells us so too.
When that email arrives, or your own call to your Intake Gateway number is answered, point your forwarding back at your Intake Gateway number and place one test call to your office number from a phone that is not on your list of your own numbers.
A few things to check, in order.
If none of that explains it, email us with the caller's number and roughly when they called and we'll look into it.
A handful of reasons, and any one of them can explain a single call:
The call's page and email show whether a transfer connected, and the hot-case reason; the transcript shows whether one was offered.
Go to Blocked numbers in your dashboard — it lists every number our filter has screened out or flagged, including ones that never reached a call record.
Find the number and select "Not spam"; we'll stop screening it out for both calls that answer and calls we'd otherwise decline before the agent picks up. This can be undone the same way.
This option is available only to your firm's owner account.
Open the call from Calls and scroll to the bottom — there's a section for deleting that call's recording and transcript, with a typed confirmation.
That removes the recording, the transcript, the intake, and the conflict-check result for that call, both in your dashboard and at our voice provider, and removes the caller's name and number from any consultation booked from it. The booking itself, and the record that the call happened, are kept. This cannot be undone.
You don't have to do this yourself for it to eventually happen — everything is deleted automatically on a fixed schedule after each call in any case; this option is for a caller who asks you to delete it sooner.
One exception: a call you've put on legal hold can't be deleted, by either route, until the hold is lifted.
This option is available only to your firm's owner account.
If the caller already has a call in your dashboard, your firm's owner account can delete its recording, transcript, and intake, any time — see "How do I delete a call's recording and transcript?" above. That's the fastest path and doesn't need us at all.
If a caller would rather not contact you, they can use the "Called a firm?" page linked at the bottom of every page of our site. They give the number they called from, roughly when, and what they want, and we email the request and a link to the call to the addresses in your Settings (your sign-in email if you set none). We never act on it ourselves, and we never tell the visitor whether a firm was found. Nobody has verified who sent it, so reach the caller on the number from the call before you act. A request that reaches us by email instead is passed on to you as well.
Start in Calls. Type the number they called from into Search, typed as you have it, with or without spaces, dashes or brackets. Set Show to Calls and Status to All, then select Apply. Search matches any part of the number, so you don't need the country code, and it lists the calls from a matching number that we still hold, of any status. If the list runs past one page, use Next.
Search also finds the caller's name, the matter and words in the summary, so search their name too. If the caller may have phoned from another number, search that one too. A call whose number was withheld is listed as Unknown and can't be found this way.
Open each call. Its page shows the caller's details and the intake the agent took down, the summary, the recording, the full transcript, the conflict-check result and the Recording disclosure record. The transcript is text on the page, so you can copy what you need from it. A call's recording, transcript, intake and conflict check are kept for 30 days after the call, or longer while the call is on legal hold. After that the call is still listed, with when it happened, how long it lasted, its status and the number, for 13 months (7 days for a call marked as spam).
The call alert emails we sent you, and anything written to your own Clio or calendar, are in those accounts rather than in your dashboard, so look there as well.
If the caller then asks you to delete it, see "How do I delete a call's recording and transcript?" above. A call on legal hold can't be deleted until you lift the hold, in the Legal hold section of the same page.
Answering the caller is your firm's to do. Under our Data Processing Addendum your firm is the controller of your callers' information and Intake Gateway is your processor, and responding to a caller's request is your obligation as controller; the addendum has us provide reasonable assistance, at your request and your expense, in responding to data subject requests relating to your callers' information. Our privacy policy points callers with these requests to the firm they called. What you tell the caller, and when, is your firm's decision.
The intake asks what treatment the caller has had, because a firm evaluating an injury claim needs it. The agent takes what the caller chooses to say; it does not ask for medical records.
HIPAA governs health plans, health-care providers and their business associates. A law firm taking a prospective client's call, and Intake Gateway answering it for you, are neither, so HIPAA does not apply to this information. State health-privacy and general privacy law may; our privacy policy says what we collect and why.
What we do with it: it is in your call email and on the call's page, behind your sign-in. Recordings and transcripts are deleted on a fixed schedule, and you can delete a call's sooner yourself (see above). How your firm handles it after that is governed by your own professional obligations, as with any other intake.
Both live on "Your agent's rules," the agent-setup step of onboarding (also reachable from your dashboard).
The transfer number is where an urgent call gets connected live; the days and hours next to it control when that's allowed to happen — outside those hours the agent doesn't connect anyone, even on an urgent case, and instead books or requests a consultation, or promises a callback, and marks the email urgent. A call already under way when your hours end may still be connected.
The hours can run overnight: an end time earlier than the start time carries into the next morning, and the whole night counts as the day it starts. Friday 18:00 to 08:00 covers Friday evening into Saturday morning, even if Saturday isn't one of your days; Friday's early morning belongs to Thursday's night.
Change either one any time; it takes effect on the next call.
On "Your agent's rules," under Language — "Offer Spanish to every caller." It's off by default; that's entirely your call, since it only makes sense to turn on if someone at your firm can actually follow up with a Spanish-speaking client.
Once it's on, the agent adds one Spanish sentence right after the recording disclosure and, for anyone who takes it up, runs the whole intake in Spanish — including a full, separate recording disclosure in Spanish, since someone who didn't follow the English one hasn't really consented by hearing it.
With Spanish off, a caller who can't go on in English hears one sentence in Spanish saying this line can only help them in English and that the office will get their number, and the call ends. No intake is taken in a language they didn't understand, and you still get the email with their number.
Every call opens with the same fixed disclosure — an AI assistant, not an attorney, is speaking; the call is recorded and transcribed; talking to it doesn't make the caller a client yet; and they're welcome to hang up if they'd rather not be recorded. The only things that change between firms are your firm's own name being spoken in it, and, if you've switched Spanish on, one added sentence at the end offering Spanish.
This isn't customizable, on purpose — it's the same legal disclosure, worded the same way, for every firm and every state we operate in. It's public on our product page if you'd like the exact wording.
The agent reads your firm's name as it is written in your account, including in the recording disclosure at the start of every call. You can change how up to 3 words of the name sound under "How it says your firm's name" in Your agent's rules. Only the sound changes: the name stays as written in your emails and call records.
Write one word per line: the word, an equals sign, then how it sounds. Split the sound into syllables with hyphens and put the stressed syllable in capitals, for example Kowalski = koh-WAL-skee or Nguyen = nuh-GWEN. Spell sounds the plain way: ee as in see, oh as in go, oo as in moon, ay as in day, eye as in my, ah as in father, uh as in about, zh as in measure.
A saved change usually reaches your line within half an hour, like any other rule change. Please don't respell the name in your account itself: that name also appears in your call emails and in the record of what each caller was told.
No, never, on either count — that's a hard rule, not a setting. The agent never gives legal advice or predicts an outcome.
On fees, it will say only the exact sentence you write for it on "Your agent's rules," nothing more — it never quotes a percentage, estimates what a case is worth, or improvises if you leave that field blank (it falls back to saying only that the attorney will explain the arrangement).
On a call in Spanish, that sentence is withheld entirely — not translated, and not said in English either. Asked about cost, a Spanish-speaking caller instead hears only that the attorney goes over fees with them directly.
From "Connect Clio" in your setup. Once connected, the agent checks the caller's name — and the other side's name or company, if the caller knows it — against your own Clio contacts and matters, while the caller is still on the line.
A match on the other side stops the intake there when it is a Clio contact marked as a client, the client on a matching matter, or an earlier caller whose details Intake Gateway sent to your Clio in the last 13 months — and tells the caller someone from your office will follow up, without saying why. Any other match on the other side (a business you once sued, a witness, a shared name) is flagged in your email and on the call record, and the intake continues. A match on the caller alone (a returning client, a common name) just gets flagged to you and the intake continues normally. This is not your firm's conflict check — it's a deliberately conservative name match meant to catch the obvious case in the first ninety seconds, not replace your own review. It reads each matter's one client, not its other people: a co-client you hold in Clio as a relationship on a matter, rather than as the matter's client or a contact marked as a client, is only flagged, and the intake continues.
What it reads: your contacts and matters, by name and phone number. What it writes: one contact per completed intake, of any injury type — a caller's name, phone, email, and mailing address if given — linked to an existing contact rather than duplicated if the caller is already in your Clio. It never creates or touches a matter.
You can disconnect any time from the same setup step or from Clio itself. If Clio is unreachable, the write waits and retries for about two days, backing off as it goes, and is never sent twice; if it's still down after that, the write is recorded as failed rather than retried forever.
From "Connect your calendar" in your setup — paste in a Cal.com API key, then pick which event type consultations should book into (a brand-new Cal.com account has none yet, so you may need to create one there first; the setup step tells you if that's the case).
Once both are set, a caller who's ready to book hears your real open times and is booked before they hang up. If the event type is set in Cal.com to need your confirmation, a consultation booked this way can arrive as a request instead: the caller is told the time is requested and the office still needs to confirm it, and it waits in Cal.com until you accept it there.
One thing worth knowing: the categories we deliberately never qualify or book automatically — medical malpractice, any injury at work unless the firm has switched workers' compensation on, a government body involved, wrongful death, and an injured child, or an adult who can't speak for themselves — are always routed to a callback or live transfer instead, never straight onto your calendar, regardless of whether a calendar is connected. A call that is clearly time-barred from what the caller says is also never booked automatically; it closes with a callback promise instead.
A connection stops working when Clio or Cal.com starts refusing our access — for example, the app's access was removed in Clio, or the Cal.com API key was deleted. We find out when Clio or Cal.com refuses a request, usually during a call; for Clio, unless Clio says outright that our access was withdrawn, it can take repeated refusals, from about an hour to more than a day, before we treat the connection as broken. From then, your dashboard shows a warning saying since when, and your account's owner gets an email with a link to reconnect.
Calls keep being answered in the meantime, and the agent still runs the full intake:
To fix it, reconnect from the link in the email, the warning on your dashboard, or the same Clio or calendar step in your setup. For Cal.com, paste a working API key, and pick the event type again if it is a different Cal.com account. If the calendar step instead says your key is saved but Cal.com is not answering, and you deleted or replaced that key in Cal.com, disconnect there and paste a new one.
Intakes that could not reach Clio while it was disconnected are held for up to 30 days after each call, not lost. After you reconnect, if the Clio step says intakes are still waiting, make sure you connected your firm's own Clio account and choose "Send to Clio now"; a different account never receives them without that step. Nothing is booked after the fact: callers who were promised a follow-up still need that call from you.
Clio is the only case-management system we connect to directly. Everything else still works without it: the agent answers, runs the intake, books or requests a consultation or promises a callback, and emails you after every call except one we're confident is spam.
For any other system, turn on the webhook in Settings: after every call except one marked as spam we send the caller's details and the intake to an address you choose, and a Zapier "Catch Hook" address can pass them on to most case-management systems and spreadsheets (the help answer on Zapier and your own system has the steps). The email carries the same details, so you can also copy them in by hand; some systems can create a lead from an email forwarded to an address they give you.
Without Clio, the agent does not check callers against your existing clients and matters, and each email tells you to run your own conflict check before you contact the caller.
Step by step: Filevine, CASEpeer, Lawmatics, MyCase, SmartAdvocate, PracticePanther, Smokeball, Law Ruler, Lead Docket, Litify.
Yes. In Settings, under "Webhook", paste an address that starts with https:// and save. From then on, after every call except one marked as spam (even a suspected one), we send one POST request there with the call's details as JSON. "Send a test" sends one made-up call, marked as a test, so you can see the fields before a real call arrives.
With Zapier: make a Zap whose trigger is "Webhooks by Zapier", event "Catch Hook", copy the address Zapier gives you into Settings, send a test, then add the step that creates the lead or contact in your system (MyCase, Filevine, Lawmatics, PracticePanther, Google Sheets and so on) and map the fields. Webhooks by Zapier needs a paid Zapier plan.
What we send: "id" (the same on every retry of one call, so you can drop a repeat), "type" ("call.completed"; "form.submitted" for a message from your own website form, its "call" being the form, with no length; or "test"), "created_at", "call" (its id, start time, length in seconds, status, the caller's number and the link to the call in your dashboard), "intake" (each field the agent recorded, such as caller_name, caller_email, intake_type, urgency and the practice-area answers, flat, by its own name) and "summary". No recording and no transcript.
Checking it came from us: each request has an Intake-Gateway-Signature header like t=<the time in seconds>,v1=<the signature>. Compute HMAC-SHA256 of the t value, a full stop and the raw request body, keyed with the signing secret shown in Settings; it must equal the v1 value, and t should be within five minutes of now. Zapier users can skip this; your own system should do it.
Your call emails and Clio keep working exactly as before; the webhook is an extra copy. "Turn off the webhook" stops it, and "Start a new secret" replaces the secret at once if it was ever shared by mistake.
Yes. In Settings, under "Slack or Teams alert", paste the channel's webhook address and save. From then on, each new call or website chat (except one marked as possible spam) posts "New intake" in that channel, with a link that opens it in your dashboard. "Send a test" posts one right away so you can see it arrive.
Slack: at api.slack.com/apps, create an app for your workspace, turn on "Incoming Webhooks", select "Add New Webhook to Workspace", choose the channel, and copy the address that starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/.
Microsoft Teams: in the channel, open "Workflows" (the ... menu beside the channel name), choose the template "Post to a channel when a webhook request is received", finish its steps, and copy the address it shows at the end.
What we post: only the words "New intake" and the link. The caller's name, number and answers stay in your dashboard behind your sign-in, so nothing about the caller is shared with Slack or Microsoft.
Your alert emails keep working exactly as before; the Slack or Teams post is an extra nudge.
From Billing in your dashboard, select "Manage billing." That takes you to Stripe's own secure billing page, where you can update your card and billing details and see your invoice history; it sends you straight back to your dashboard when you're done.
This is available only to your firm's owner account.
Yes — a new firm gets its first month free: a 30-day free trial with a card on file and no call cap; fair use applies, as our Terms of Service set out: fair use is a guide of up to 100 answered calls a month for one firm’s own line, not a cap. Nothing is charged before day 31, and cancelling before then means no charge at all. One trial per firm and per payment card.
Before you add a card, you can hear your agent: once your number is switched on, call it from a phone on your list of your own numbers (your agent's rules page). Your line answers those phones for up to 15 minutes of test calls in all, one call at a time, and no one else until a card is on file. Your dashboard shows what is left.
After the trial, you're billed the plan's flat monthly price shown on our pricing page — no per-call charges, no metering. Your Billing page always shows your current status and, once you're on the plan, the date of your next charge — or, once you've cancelled, the date your subscription ends.
A firm that has already had its free trial and comes back is charged from the day it starts again; the Billing step says so before you enter a card.
You'll get an email saying so, with a link to pay the invoice. You can pay it there, or update your card from Billing → "Manage billing" in your dashboard: the unpaid invoice is then charged to your new card straight away (not while a payment dispute is open: see below). Either way, the card you paid with is the one charged from then on. Nothing else needs doing.
If a payment issue isn't fixed for a while, your dashboard will show a clear banner if and when your line actually stops answering — it says so outright, we don't let that happen silently — and once the payment goes through, your line answers again within a few minutes -- unless a payment dispute is also open, when it answers again once the dispute closes (see the next question).
If every retry of the payment fails, our payment provider may end the subscription itself. Your dashboard then says so and links to start a new subscription; until the 30 days in section 4 of the Cancellation + Refund Policy have run, your account is kept as it is.
Update your card as soon as you can to avoid any gap.
When a payment to us is disputed with your card issuer (a chargeback, or an inquiry from your bank about the charge), your service is suspended while the dispute is open, as section 6 of the Cancellation + Refund Policy provides. Your line stops answering, your dashboard shows a banner saying so, and we email you. No new charge is made for your subscription while the dispute is open. An invoice that was already due before the dispute may still be charged, and a card you add then is saved for later but not charged until the dispute closes. A new subscription can't be started while a dispute is open; that opens again by itself once it closes.
If the dispute was a mistake, ask your card issuer to withdraw it. When it closes in our favor, including when it's withdrawn, your line starts answering again, billing resumes from your next renewal, and we email you; nothing needs to come to us.
If the dispute is decided against us, the subscription the disputed payment was for is treated as cancelled. If that is your current subscription, your account ends and we email you to say so. If it was for an earlier subscription, your current one carries on, and nothing more is sent. If the payment was not for a subscription at all, nothing is cancelled and your line answers again.
If what you wanted was your first charge back, "Refund my first charge" on Billing is the direct route while you qualify. A charge under dispute can't also be refunded there.
Cancel any time from Billing → "Manage billing" — that opens Stripe's own billing page, and cancelling is one of the things you can do there yourself; nothing needs to come to us.
Your agent keeps answering calls through the end of the period you've already paid for — or, if you cancel during your free trial, until the trial ends, with nothing charged — then stops. Until then, Billing shows the date your subscription ends; afterwards, your dashboard says it has ended and links to start a new one.
One thing to do on your end afterward: your office line will still be forwarding to us, and once we stop answering, calls to it will just go quiet until you turn that forwarding off at your carrier — we'll also email you a reminder to do that.
Anything already in your own Clio or calendar stays there; cancelling here doesn't touch it.
Forgot to cancel your trial, and your line has barely been used? Billing shows "Refund my first charge" while you qualify — section 2 of the Cancellation + Refund Policy says when. It refunds that first charge in full and ends your subscription at once, rather than at the end of the period.
Both are in Settings. To change your sign-in email, enter the new address under "Sign-in email" and submit — we'll email a confirmation link to the new address, and nothing changes until you click it (your call-alert addresses, if you'd set your own, stay as they are).
To reset your password, use "Change your password" in the Security section of Settings, or the "Forgot password" link on the sign-in page if you're signed out — enter your email and we'll send a reset link if that address has an account.
You don't need a password to sign in: on the sign-in page, choose "Email me a sign-in link", enter your email, and open the link we send, on this device or another. Accounts created without a password sign in this way; to add a password as well, use "Change your password" in Settings.
Not yet: each firm has one sign-in, the owner's.
Others can still hear about every call. In Settings, list up to three addresses for call alerts, for example yours and whoever answers the phone. The alert carries the caller's details and what they told the agent; the recording and transcript stay behind the sign-in.
This is the one case we can't make fully self-serve, since a password reset link has nowhere to go without your inbox — so we verify it by hand, over email, plus a code you speak on a call you place from your transfer number to your own Intake Gateway line. Nobody from us gets on the phone.
Email us from an address you can reach, with your firm's name as registered, your old sign-in email, and the new email you'd like to use.
We'll verify you own the account before anything changes, and email your old address first, so a genuine account owner has a chance to notice and object if this wasn't them.
If you can't answer what we ask, we won't be able to proceed on that basis alone.
Go to Settings → Security and select "Sign out everywhere" — that immediately signs out every device on your account, including whichever one triggered the alert. Then change your password from the same section.
If you don't recognize the sign-in and suspect someone else has access, do this right away; there's nothing else to wait on us for.
Both are in "Your documents" in your dashboard — it shows exactly which version of each of our agreements your firm accepted, when, and by whom, with a link to the current text of each.
The same page has our full written description of the technical and organizational security measures we maintain, which our Data Processing Addendum promises in its own security section.
Nothing there needs a request to us; it's live for you to read any time.
Email contact@intakegateway.com with what you’re seeing — that reaches a person, and it’s the only way we take support requests. There’s no phone line and no support chat for this, on purpose: it’s part of why the price on our pricing page is what it is.