After-hours inquiry triage with clear "not legal advice" handling
Overnight calls and web forms are sorted into queues, with deadlines flagged and a short acknowledgment drafted from the firm's approved wording.
Admin and operations help for solo attorneys and small firms. SI drafts and organizes; attorneys review and decide. No legal advice, no filing-ready work product, and client confidentiality comes first.
Worth knowing: Administrative support only: this is not legal advice and does not replace attorney judgment. An attorney reviews and approves anything client-facing or substantive, and client-confidential information is used only with the firm's agreements, access controls and consent. SI never answers legal questions, assesses a person's case, or tells anyone what to do. Auto-replies are limited to the pre-approved acknowledgment text.
The problem
Calls and web forms arrive at night and on weekends. Urgent matters get buried, prospective clients wait until morning, and staff worry about saying too much.
What SI does
SI sorts overnight messages into queues (new inquiry, existing client, vendor, opposing counsel or court, spam), pulls out the name, contact, matter type, and any dates the sender mentions, flags anything that mentions a deadline or emergency, and drafts a short, plain acknowledgment that the firm will follow up and that the message is not legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Examples
The same job looks different in different businesses. These are illustrations, not client results.
- Solo family-law practice
Overnight web-form messages are split into new inquiries and notes from people who say they are existing clients, and any message that mentions a hearing date is flagged for the morning queue.
- Two-attorney estate-planning firm
A weekend email is summarized with the sender's contact details and the kind of planning they asked about, plus a draft acknowledgment that the message is not legal advice.
- Small commercial-litigation firm
Messages that look like they came from opposing counsel or a court are placed in their own queue, separate from new inquiries.
What it takes to set up
GemmiSI sets this up on your own equipment and accounts; your data stays with you. Before connecting anything that holds client information, the firm reviews the vendor's terms, data retention and training practices, confirms access controls, and obtains any required client consent. Start with sample or de-identified material. Connect the inbox or web form with permission to read and draft, not to send. Save the acknowledgment the firm has already approved, the queue names, and what counts as a deadline or emergency. Setup is often a few days.
What a human still checks
- A person reads the queue first thing, decides who gets a callback, and sends every reply.
- An attorney decides whether to take the matter and whether anyone should be called right away.
- SI never sends, files, or posts on its own.
- Unsure items, including anything that looks like an emergency or a legal question, go to a "needs attorney review" queue.
Try it yourself
Paste this into your SI tool of choice and swap the [bracketed] parts for your own details. It asks SI to stop and show you before it does anything.
Sort these overnight messages [paste or export] into these queues: new inquiry, existing client, vendor, opposing counsel or court, spam. For each, pull out the name, contact, matter type, and any date the sender mentions. Flag anything that mentions a deadline or an emergency. Draft only this acknowledgment, which the firm has already approved: [paste]. Do not answer legal questions or say whether the firm will take the matter. Pause and show me before sending, filing, posting or changing anything. Use only the sample or de-identified information I provide; do not include client-confidential details.
Next step
Want this built? Book a free 30-minute consult
Bring one real example, such as an export, an inbox, or a spreadsheet. We will map the steps and decide what SI drafts and what you approve.