USE CASE · PERSONAL INJURY INTAKE ONLY
Personal injury intake outsourcing that knows exactly where intake ends.
Dedicated bilingual intake operators, English and Spanish at native fluency, working under your supervising attorney with refusals we publish instead of bury.
This page describes one engagement and one only: personal injury intake. Not general legal reception, not paralegal work, not all-practice-area answering. If your volume is family, criminal, or general practice intake, we are not your vendor and will say so in the first ten minutes. If injured callers reach your voicemail, Spanish-language callers reach an English-only line, or intake notes arrive too thin for your attorney to act on, this is the engagement we built: one dedicated operator, your scripts, your Filevine or Clio, and a boundary list your supervising attorney signs before the first call.
We hold a capped number of concurrent personal injury engagements so supervision stays real. If the slots are full, we tell you on the call and book the next opening.
What a personal injury intake virtual assistant runs every working day.
Six lanes of intake work, executed bilingually, documented in your intake system the same day. Every lane has the same hard edge: the operator captures and coordinates, your attorney evaluates and advises.
Bilingual new-caller intake
The injured caller reaches a live operator who answers in the caller’s language and runs your approved intake script: what happened, when, where, who was involved, what insurance is known, how the caller found the firm. Facts captured as stated, never interpreted.
Screening against your written criteria
Your firm defines the acceptance checklist: incident types, date thresholds, jurisdictions, conflicts questions. The operator asks the checklist, records the answers verbatim, and flags the file for attorney review. The operator never decides, grades, or predicts what your attorney will think.
Consultation scheduling
Qualified callers get booked into the consultation slots your attorneys define, with confirmation in the caller’s language and a reminder cadence before the appointment. No-shows get a same-day reschedule call instead of a dead lead in the queue.
Unsigned-lead follow-up cadence
The lead that called Tuesday and went quiet gets a structured follow-up sequence in the caller’s language until the consult is booked or the lead closes out per your rules. The operator never discusses fees or terms to win the signature. Persistence, not persuasion.
Intake record hygiene in Filevine or Clio
Every call lands in your intake system the same day: complete fields, source attribution, verbatim checklist answers, and a next action your paralegal can act on without calling the lead back to re-ask. Your team teaches your setup during onboarding; the operator keeps it honest after.
Spanish-language parity, end to end
The Spanish-speaking caller gets the same script, the same screening questions, the same scheduling, and the same refusals as the English-speaking caller, from the same operator, with no transfer to a different queue. Parity is the product, not a translation layer on top of it.
A bilingual legal intake specialist, not a translation layer.
There are 44.9 million Spanish speakers in the United States (US Census Bureau 2024 ACS), and personal injury is the practice area where that number shows up on the phone. A person who just got rear-ended describes the crash in the language they think in. The firm that answers natively in that language, on the first call, signs the case. The firm offering a callback tomorrow loses it to the billboard down the street.
Spanish speaking legal intake at most vendors means a separate Spanish line, a transfer, or a premium tier. Here it means the same dedicated operator runs both languages natively on every call: same script, same screening checklist, same scheduling, same documented refusals. Because miscommunication risk is highest in the language the supervising attorney may not speak, the boundary discipline below is mirrored word for word in Spanish.
This is the same bilingual operating model we run across verticals. For the full category context, see the bilingual virtual assistant category.
Every caller wants to know what their case is worth. The discipline is in who answers that question.
FROM THE INTAKE BOUNDARIES NOTEBOOK
What our intake operators will never do.
Personal injury intake runs along the edge of the unauthorized practice of law, and most of the category handles that fact by not mentioning it. We handle it by enumerating it. These five refusals are written into the operator scripts, drilled during onboarding, named in the engagement letter your supervising attorney signs, and checked in weekly recorded-call review. They are the spine of the engagement, not the fine print under it.
If a vendor offers you more scope than this, contract signing on the intake call, records collection with interpretation, case-value conversations to boost sign-ups, that is not a richer feature set. That is your bar complaint, outsourced.
No legal advice
The operator never tells a caller what the law means for their situation, never advises on deadlines or filing requirements, and never suggests a course of action beyond booking the consultation with your attorney. A caller who asks a legal question hears, in plain language, that the operator is not a lawyer and that the question goes to the attorney.
No case evaluations or merit opinions
The operator never says a case sounds strong, weak, or worth pursuing, never scores merit, and never predicts whether the firm will take the matter. The intake record contains facts as the caller stated them. Evaluation is your attorney’s work, and the record is built so your attorney can do it fast.
No settlement discussion
The operator never estimates what a claim might be worth, never references ranges, multipliers, or past results, and never engages when a caller floats a number. Settlement value is the question injured callers ask most, which is exactly why the refusal is scripted rather than left to judgment in the moment.
No fee quotes
The operator never quotes contingency percentages, costs, retainer mechanics, or what the caller will or will not pay. Fee conversations belong to the attorney under your jurisdiction’s rules, and the script routes every fee question to the consultation without exception.
No medical record interpretation
The operator can log that records were requested or received when your checklist calls for it. The operator never reads meaning into a diagnosis, a treatment note, or a bill, never characterizes the severity of an injury beyond the caller’s own words, and never tells a caller what their treatment history means for their claim.
When the caller asks, “do I have a case?”
It is the most common question in personal injury intake, and the most dangerous one to improvise. So the operator does not improvise. The script pattern, in the operator's own words on a live call, runs like this:
“That is exactly the question the attorney needs to answer, and I am not able to answer it for you, because I am not a lawyer. What I can do right now is take down everything that happened, make sure it gets in front of the attorney today, and book the time for the two of you to talk. Can I start with a few details?”
“Esa es exactamente la pregunta que debe responder el abogado, y yo no puedo respondérsela porque no soy abogada. Lo que sí puedo hacer ahora mismo es anotar todo lo que pasó, asegurarme de que el abogado lo vea hoy, y agendar la cita para que hablen. ¿Le tomo los datos?”
Three moves, every time, in either language: name the boundary and the reason for it, capture the facts, route to the attorney the same business day. The intake record logs that the question was asked, so your attorney walks into the consultation knowing what the caller wants to hear and answers it with a license.
The supervising attorney letter
We do not start without one. Before Day 1, a supervising attorney at your firm signs an engagement letter naming the intake-only scope, the five refusals, the routing rules for legal questions, and consent to weekly recorded-call review. Firms that find the letter excessive are telling us something useful about fit, and we decline the engagement. We would rather be selective than explain to your bar why we were not.
The same refusals in Spanish
A boundary that only holds in English is not a boundary. The five refusals and the escalation script are mirrored word for word in Spanish, drilled in both languages during onboarding, and sampled in both languages during weekly call review. The Spanish-speaking caller hears the same honest refusal and the same path to the attorney as the English-speaking caller, from the same operator.
The cap is the quality control
We hold a capped number of concurrent personal injury engagements, because the supervision model that makes the refusals real, weekly recorded-call review in two languages, SOP upkeep, drift correction, does not scale past what a supervisor can actually review. When the slots are full, the fit call says so directly and books the next opening. The cap is what keeps the boundary list a practice instead of a promise.
Managed bilingual operator or another seat on your payroll.
PI firms post the bilingual intake role on the job boards on repeat, because hiring it in-house is hard and keeping it filled is harder. The honest comparison is a managed, supervised, bench-backed operator versus a salaried intake hire you recruit, train, supervise, and re-recruit yourself.
| Dimension | Managed bilingual intake operator (Assistiq) | In-house bilingual intake hire |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Flat subscription from published tiers. Operator tier is $1,497 per month for one full-time dedicated bilingual operator. No payroll taxes, benefits, equipment, or office space on your side. | Salary on your payroll, plus the employer load: payroll taxes, benefits, recruiting, equipment, office space, and the management hours the role consumes. |
| Bilingual fluency | Native Spanish and fluent English in the same person, on every engagement, as the baseline spec rather than a lucky hire. | Depends entirely on your local candidate pool, and bilingual intake talent is exactly what the job boards show firms competing for. |
| Boundary discipline | Scripted refusals drilled before Day 1, recorded calls reviewed weekly against the boundary list in both languages, supervisor escalation when drift appears. | Whatever training you build and keep current yourself, on top of running the firm. |
| Supervision | Embedded supervisor included in the tier, with documented SOPs that belong to the engagement rather than to one person’s memory. | You are the supervisor, the trainer, and the quality reviewer, or you hire another layer to be. |
| Continuity | A 3-operator warm bench behind every engagement and a 5-business-day replacement SLA, with SOPs that let a bench operator pick up the cadence. | A resignation means an empty intake desk for as long as the re-recruit takes, during your highest-volume stretch if the timing is bad. |
The operator extends your intake team rather than standing in for your judgment. If you are weighing the two routes in depth, the structural comparison lives on the in-house hire vs managed agency page.
Seven days, honestly described.
Operators arrive trained on bilingual phone work, intake documentation discipline, and the refusal scripts. They do not arrive fitted to your Filevine or Clio setup, your acceptance criteria, or your calendar rules, and you should distrust any vendor who claims theirs do. Your team transfers that knowledge once, during onboarding, into SOPs that outlast any individual operator.
Your intake manager or supervising attorney walks the operator through your Filevine or Clio setup, your intake script, your acceptance checklist, your consultation calendar rules, and your escalation contacts. Our supervisor sits in and documents every workflow into written SOPs for your account, including the refusal scripts in English and Spanish.
The operator shadows your current intake flow on live calls, runs role-plays on the hard moments under supervisor review, the settlement question, the fee question, the caller who pushes for an opinion, and drills the escalation script until the refusal is automatic in both languages.
The operator takes first live intake calls with the supervisor on the line. Anything ambiguous gets flagged, answered by your team, and written into the SOP the same day.
The operator runs the full intake cadence: new-caller queue, screening checklist, consultation scheduling, unsigned-lead follow-up, record hygiene. The supervisor stays in the background with daily check-ins and weekly recorded-call review against the boundary list.
THE BOUNDARY DISCIPLINE
The intake operation that signs the most cases is not the one that promises callers the most. It is the one that answers in the caller's language, holds the line on what an operator may say, and gets the file to the attorney while the caller is still deciding who to trust.
A narrow fit, honestly stated.
This engagement is deliberately narrow. It works when four things are true, and we check all four on the fit call.
- You run a personal injury practice. This is not a general legal intake offer. Firms whose volume is mostly other practice areas should not buy it, and we will say so rather than stretch the scope.
- Spanish-language inbound is a meaningful share of your intake. The bilingual operator is the point. If nearly all of your callers are English-only, you are paying for a capability you will not use, and cheaper options exist.
- A supervising attorney will sign the engagement letter. Scope, refusals, routing rules, recorded-call review consent. Without the letter on file, we do not start.
- Your firm has written acceptance criteria, or will set them during onboarding. The operator screens against your checklist, never against their own judgment. If the criteria live only in your head, Days 1-3 of onboarding is where they become a document.
And the constraint worth repeating: concurrent personal injury engagements are capped. Selectivity is not a marketing posture here, it is how the supervision model keeps working.
Flat monthly, not per lead, not per call.
Most firms start on the Operator tier: $1,497 per month for one full-time dedicated bilingual intake operator at 40 hours per week, working from our managed office on company equipment, with an embedded supervisor, a 3-operator warm bench, and a 5-business-day replacement SLA inside the price. Starter is $897 per month at 20 hours per week. Firms staffing more than one intake shift scope the Team tier, $3,497 per month for two operators with a stepped-up shared supervisor and a 6-month minimum, or a quote-based Custom configuration.
No annual contract. 7-day money-back on Starter and Operator. And no per-signed-case economics anywhere in the model: the operator has no incentive to push a caller toward signing, which is exactly how an intake layer with hard refusals has to be paid.
For the market-rate context across the bilingual VA category, see the Spanish-speaking VA cost guide. For the locked tier table across all verticals, see the pricing page.
Common questions from PI firm owners.
01Can a legal intake specialist give legal advice?
02What happens when a caller asks about settlement value?
03What does personal injury intake outsourcing cost?
04Do you handle intake in Spanish?
05Do your operators know Filevine or Clio?
06Why do you require a supervising attorney letter?
07What does a virtual intake specialist do at a personal injury firm?
See if Assistiq is the right fit.
On the first call we will learn how your business operates, what kind of bilingual coverage you need, and whether Assistiq is the right partner. If we are, we will explain the next steps clearly. If not, we will tell you directly.