The brief
Both firms were losing enquiries overnight but would not put an AI in front of prospective clients if it could say anything resembling legal advice. The build had to be defensible before it was useful: prove what it refuses first, then make it fast.
What they bought
Votel AI Agent Setup
Agent scoped to intake only, hard refusal on legal advice, transcript-attached handover, adversarial testing, written escalation policy
View the full scopeVirtual Assistant Staffing
One trained intake VA covering the handover queue, 9am–6pm ET, working under each firm's name
View the full scopeWhat we built
- 01
Wrote the refusal rules before the answers
Case outcomes, eligibility, timelines, and fees are all off limits. It says so plainly, then offers the consultation instead of guessing.
- 02
Built intake as a form, not a conversation
Visa type, current status, country, and deadline pressure, collected in a fixed order so the attorney opens a complete record rather than a chat log.
- 03
Set the handover and staffed it
Anything outside intake routes to a named queue with the transcript attached. A trained VA works that queue in business hours and books the consultations the agent could not.
- 04
Tested adversarially, then got it signed off
We spent a day trying to talk it into giving advice, including indirect and hypothetical phrasings. Both firms reviewed the transcripts before it went live.
What they got
- An agent that takes case basics and books consultations, and refuses anything that would constitute advice
- A written escalation policy naming who receives what, signed off by both firms before launch
- A handover queue where every escalated conversation arrives with its full transcript
- One intake VA working that queue in business hours, under the firms' names
- A test log covering the cases we deliberately tried to make it answer badly
What their client sees
- An immediate, careful reply at any hour, in the firm's own voice
- A consultation booked with the intake details already attached to the record
- A real person picking up anything the agent declined, without repeating themselves
What we'd tell you on a call
In a regulated niche, what the agent refuses is the product. We scope the refusals first, and the client signs off on those before anything goes live.
How we document projects: white-label engagements are confidential (our name never appears on the client side), so each write-up covers the scope, the sequence, and the result by vertical rather than naming the agency behind it. Screenshots are taken from the real build and redacted accordingly.