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Texas, after hours

What a Texas caller hears, and the Texas rules you will want to check.

  • Forwarding only after hours is a choice you make with your phone carrier or phone system, not a setting here. You keep answering in the day and your agent takes nights and weekends.
  • Texas lets one party to a call consent to its recording (Texas Penal Code § 16.02), but a call to a Texas firm can come from a state where every party has to consent. So the opening is the same as everywhere: Every call opens with the same fixed disclosure, sent as the agent’s opening line: the caller is speaking with an AI assistant and not an attorney, the call is recorded and transcribed, staying on the line is consent, and anyone who would rather not be recorded can hang up (the exact words).
  • Rule 7.01 of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct bars false or misleading communications about a lawyer’s services. On fees, the agent says only the exact sentence you write for it, and it never quotes a percentage or estimates what a case is worth. How a Texas rule bears on the sentence you write is a question for you and your counsel.
  • Urgent transfers go to the transfer number you set, in the days and hours you allow them (all hours by default). To keep nights quiet, allow transfers only in your working hours: outside them the agent connects no one and flags the call for you, with a hot case named in the email’s subject line. Only a call already under way when your hours end may still be put through.

How to forward your firm’s calls

Not a message-taker

A generic AI receptionist takes a message. This one runs your intake.

Urgent cases offered a live transfer

A fatality, anything involving a city or a public body, an adjuster pushing for a recorded statement, evidence about to disappear: the agent recognizes the signs and offers to put the caller through to you live, in the hours you allow transfers. When it is unsure, it offers the transfer.

A callback promised, or a consultation booked or requested

Every routine caller is told the office will call them back, and gives the time that suits them. Connect a calendar and the agent books an ordinary case's consultation instead, from your real availability, while the caller is still on the phone, or requests one where your calendar asks you to confirm.

Real personal injury qualification

Any kind of injury, not just crashes: what happened and when, injuries and treatment, who is responsible, whether an adjuster has already called. Then the questions that only matter for what actually happened — a police report for a crash, how long the hazard had been there for a fall, who owns the dog, whether they still have the product. Asked as a conversation, not read as a form.

The whole call, step by step

Pricing

One plan. Every answered call included.

One plan, $149 a month, every answered call included. Fair use is a guide of up to 100 answered calls a month for one firm’s own line, not a cap: nothing meters your calls or cuts them off at that number. If you are consistently and substantially above it, we may get in touch to agree terms that fit that volume, and if we cannot agree any, the Terms of Service let either side end the plan.

Intake Gateway

$149 / month

  • Every answered call included — nothing is metered or billed per call
  • 24/7 intake in English, and in Spanish if you switch it on
  • Urgent cases are offered a live transfer in your hours; others get a callback, or a booked or requested consultation for an ordinary case once a calendar is connected
  • An email with the summary and intake after every call except one we are confident is spam
Get your number and hear your agent — no card yet

Everything about billing

Questions

What Texas firms ask about after-hours intake.

Texas only needs one party’s consent. Why does my line still open with a disclosure?

Because the people who call a Texas firm are not all in Texas when they call: a client who has moved away, or someone hurt while away from home, may be calling from a state where every party must consent. The disclosure is worded for that, for every firm and every state, and you can’t switch it off. Whether its wording meets your bar’s rules is for you to check.

What about Texas’s rule on soliciting clients by phone?

Rule 7.03(b) restricts solicitation by live or electronically interactive contact that a lawyer starts, a telephone call included, with exceptions such as family and a prior professional relationship. Intake Gateway answers the calls made to your line; how a Texas rule bears on the way you use it is a question for you and your counsel.

Will the agent tell a Texas caller whether they have a case?

No. Government Code § 81.101 defines the practice of law in Texas to include “the giving of advice or the rendering of any service requiring the use of legal skill or knowledge”. The agent never gives legal advice or predicts an outcome: that is a hard rule, not a setting. It takes down what happened, the injuries and how to reach the caller, for your attorney to review.

Has the State Bar of Texas addressed lawyers using AI?

The State Bar of Texas publishes guidance on lawyers’ use of generative AI; check its current version. Whether this product fits your duties under it is for you and your counsel.

What do I find in the morning after a busy Texas weekend?

Your inbox. The facts reach you by email after every call; only a call we are confident is spam gets none, and one we merely suspect arrives marked “Possibly spam”. The email for an urgent call shows whether its transfer connected and why it counted as urgent. A routine caller has been told the office will call them back, or, with a calendar connected, an ordinary case’s consultation is booked or requested.