Our results
2 of the firms we have worked inside: a 100+ attorney personal injury firm and a 6-attorney Chicago family-law firm (anonymized).
$3.5M of profit added per year, and 11 receptionists moved onto billable work.
- 16 receptionists on 1,800 calls a day. Calls missed, abandoned in queues, or arriving after hours, while $200,000 a month of marketing kept the phones ringing.
- Staff on hold with insurance carriers for every claim, working phone menus by hand.
- A marketing team at capacity, with creative and content as the bottleneck.
- AI intake that answers the firm's calls end to end, across 15+ routing paths.
- An outbound claims agent that phones insurance carriers, works their phone menus alone, and comes back with the adjuster and claim number. Every call rewrites its own instructions, so no carrier menu is ever hand-coded.
- A 3-month AI plan for the marketing department.
The math
| Line | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Calls a day handled by people | 1,800 | 400 |
| Fewer calls needing a person1 − 400 ÷ 1,800 | 78% | |
| Calls a month fully handled by AI(1,800 − 400) × 30 days | 0 | 42,000 |
| Reception headcountNobody let go; 11 moved to billable roles | 16 | 5 |
Source: the firm's October 2025 operations data for headcount and call volume (1,600 to 2,000 calls a day; 1,800 is the midpoint), stated by Alejo Pijuan 3 September 2026. The monthly figure is arithmetic on those two numbers.
| Component | Per year | Share |
|---|---|---|
| IntakeMissed, abandoned and after-hours calls became signed cases; every lead called back within minutes | $1,468,000 | 42% |
| Staffing$86,000 a month of reception payroll and offshore call handling, redirected to billable work | $1,032,000 | 29% |
| Marketing3 hires the team no longer needed once Claude carried creative and content | $520,000 | 15% |
| TechVendors replaced by their own build on Claude, net of the new AI spend | $480,000 | 14% |
| Total | $3,500,000 | 100% |
| Return on $105,000 invested$3,500,000 ÷ $105,000 | 33x | per year |
Source: the engagement's figures, reconciled with the firm. Staffing is the $86,000 a month below, times 12. Tech is $140,000 a month of vendors cut (demand-generation and document-ingest platforms) less the firm's own AI spend, which rose by about $100,000 a month, per the firm's Director of Operations, August 2026.
| Stage | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing spend, per month | ~$200,000 | unchanged |
| Cost per lead, held constant | $27 | $27 |
| Lead reaches a consultation | 17% | 33% |
| Lead becomes a signed client | 8% | 19% |
| Cost per signed client$27 ÷ 0.08 and $27 ÷ 0.19 | $338 | $142 |
| Signed clients per 1,000 leads | 80 | 190 |
Spend didn't move; the gain is all after the lead arrives. Signing 19% of leads instead of 8% is 2.4x the clients on the same marketing.
Source: the engagement's funnel figures, as shared by Alejo Pijuan on the BE THAT LAWYER podcast, August 2026.
| Line | Per month | How it's built |
|---|---|---|
| 11 receptionists at about $7,000 fully loadedSalary plus payroll taxes and benefits; retrained into paralegal and higher-skilled roles | $77,000 | 11 × $7,000 |
| Offshore call handling, $15,000 down to $6,000 of AI cost | $9,000 | $15,000 − $6,000 |
| Total, per month | $86,000 | $77,000 + $9,000 |
| Per year | $1,032,000 | $86,000 × 12 |
$77,000 stayed on the payroll and changed job. $9,000 is a hard saving. Not part of the $3.5M. We don't add them.
Source: headcount from the firm's October 2025 operations data; $7,000 fully loaded per receptionist and the $15,000 to $6,000 offshore line from the engagement.
336 intake appointments booked by AI in 9 months, and 65% of the calls came in after hours.
- 118 of roughly 180 monthly calls went unanswered, most of them evenings and weekends, while Google Ads kept the phone ringing. Family-law callers rarely leave voicemail; they call the next firm.
- Web-form leads waited for a callback during office hours, and many had hired someone else by then.
- No one chased the callers who couldn't be reached, or the consultations that were booked and missed.
- An inbound AI receptionist, 24 hours a day, that checks county and fee fit, books the intake call straight into the calendar, and transfers live when the office is open.
- An outbound agent that calls every web-form lead back within minutes, qualifies, and books.
- A callback agent and a missed-appointment agent behind them.
The math
| Line | Inbound | Web leads called back | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls handled by the AI | 637 | 1,157 | 1,794 |
| People reachedDistinct callers; distinct leads worked | 469 | 792 | 1,261 |
| Consultations booked on the call | 109 | 227 | 336 |
| Booking rateBooked ÷ people reached | 23% | 29% | 27% |
| Also: booking link sent or callback scheduled | 69 | 28 | 97 |
| Transferred live to the firm | 125 | 14 | 139 |
Source: the firm's call log in our database (the inbound, after-hours, callback and outbound agents). Every row is a real call with a recording.
| Inbound calls, Chicago time | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Arrived outside Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 | 411 of 637 | 65% |
| Consultations booked outside those hours | 65 of 109 | 60% |
Source: the same call log, Chicago time. Before the agents, the firm estimated 40% after hours.
| Line | Figure | How it's built |
|---|---|---|
| Consultations booked by the agents | 336 | counted in the call log |
| Clients retainedAt the firm's own January rate, 5 retained of 51 booked | 33 | 336 × 5 ÷ 51 |
| Retainer to start, most cases | $2,500 | the firm's standard retainer |
| Retainers from those clients | $82,500 | 33 × $2,500 |
| Then billed hourly, on top of the retainer | $350 to $500 | an hour |
Source: the firm's partner on the retainer and hourly rates (November 2025); the January retained rate from the firm's marketing consultant (February 2026); bookings from the call log.
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