What this covers

These terms apply between OB Automation and the law practice subscribing to our phone intake service (“you”, “the firm”).

OB Automation is a registered business name of Bramley Nicholas Kayler-Thomson, ABN 51 705 846 965. We are not a law practice and we do not provide legal services.

Contact: bramley@ob-automations.com · 0485 074 874

What we provide

We answer your firm’s phone calls with Lucy, our AI receptionist, and handle the enquiries she takes. Specifically:

• AI disclosure. Ask Lucy whether you’re speaking to a person and she’ll tell you she’s an AI assistant.

• Live transfer. On request, or if the caller sounds frustrated, she’ll try to put them through to a person, inside the hours you set.

• Enquiry handling. Calls are answered, the caller’s contact details and matter category are captured, a first-pass conflict check runs in code against a list you supply if you choose to use one, and, where you’ve set one up, a booking link is texted.

• Data minimisation. By default, a legal enquiry is captured as seven fixed fields. There’s no free-text field, so a caller’s disclosure can’t end up in a log, a text or a CRM. A firm can choose to add its own intake questions; anything beyond the seven fields is something the firm asked for.

During setup we build your firm’s details into the system: your practice areas, your consultation fee, your hours, your conflict list, and the rules you want applied to enquiries.

What the enquiry handling will never do

This matters more than anything else in these terms, and it is deliberate.

Under section 10 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law, an entity must not engage in legal practice unless qualified. The enquiry handling is not a legal practice and it does not give legal advice. It is built to refuse, and is tested against, these categories of question:

• tell a caller whether they have a claim or a case

• mention limitation periods or time limits

• explain a caller’s rights or their options

• estimate what a matter is worth, or how long it will take

• comment on prospects, strength, or likely outcome

• discuss the substance of an existing matter

• describe how any legal process works, even in general terms

Two layers enforce this. A code-level check tests caller questions against these categories and returns a fixed refusal before the AI is involved, and the AI itself is instructed and tested to refuse the same categories however they are phrased. We test this adversarially before every change to the model or the script, and keep the transcripts. We will show you the transcripts, and we would rather you tried to break it on a demo call than found the edge on a client’s.

If a caller asks any of those, the enquiry handling declines and takes a message for you instead. It quotes only the consultation fee you have published to us, and it does not negotiate.

Family law and other distressing enquiries. Where a caller’s words match a fixed set of patterns, the enquiry handling stops the intake and gives a safety referral: triple zero every time, plus 1800RESPECT for signs of danger from another person or Lifeline on 13 11 14 for signs of self-harm or suicide, then offers to take a callback number. This is a keyword match on what was said, not a full understanding of it, so it won’t catch every disclosure. It does not continue qualifying that caller.

We don’t advertise personal injury or compensation services, or solicit claims, for any firm. A practice that does personal injury work can use the enquiry handling, but we won’t run ads, campaigns or landing pages for that work. This is a condition of service, not a preference.

What you are responsible for

• Your own professional obligations. You remain responsible for compliance with the Solicitors’ Conduct Rules, including rule 36 on advertising, and for anything published in your firm’s name. We will not knowingly produce non-compliant advertising, but the practising certificate is yours and the final approval of marketing material is yours.

• Giving us accurate information. We repeat what you tell us. A wrong consultation fee or a wrong practice area becomes a wrong answer to a prospective client.

• Your conflict list. Conflict checking is only as good as the list you give us, and it is a first-pass filter, not a substitute for your own conflict process. You must run your own check before accepting a matter.

• Telling us when things change, particularly fees, availability and practice areas.

• Calling your enquiries back. We capture them and, where you’ve set one up, text a booking link. Converting them is yours.

Fees

Fees are as set out in your written quote, billed monthly in advance from day 31. A one-time setup fee applies as set out in the quote, covering onboarding, number provisioning, voice configuration and testing, and is billed on your first invoice.

A card on file starts the 30 free days. We place a $0 authorisation to verify the card when you sign up. Nothing is charged until your first invoice on day 31.

The first 30 days of the service are free of charge. If you cancel before day 31, you pay nothing.

All fees are in Australian dollars. No GST is charged, because OB Automation is not registered for GST. If that changes we will give you notice before any GST applies.

You can cancel at any time. Service continues to the end of the paid period. If we change the fees we will give you 30 days’ notice, and you can cancel before the change takes effect.

If Lucy misses more than 5% of the calls that reach her in a month, we refund that month’s monthly fee (not the one-time setup fee). A call is missed if it reaches Lucy’s number and isn’t answered, or drops because of a fault in our system. It isn’t missed if the caller hangs up during the greeting, if the fault is on your own phone line or call forwarding, or if the call never reaches us. We work this out from our call records, and you can ask us to check any month.

What we do not promise

We do not guarantee results. We do not guarantee a number of enquiries, a number of signed matters, or revenue. Anyone who guarantees those things for a phone intake service is misleading you.

What we do commit to is running the work competently, reporting honestly on what it produced, and telling you plainly when something is not working.

Call handling quality depends on things outside our control too, including phone carrier issues, speech recognition on unusual names or accents, and outages at our providers. Our guarantee on answered calls is set out under Fees.

Things that will go wrong sometimes

The service depends on providers we do not control, including GoHighLevel, Twilio and Anthropic.

Outages happen, and calls Lucy can’t answer during one count toward the 5% in our missed-call guarantee. Speech recognition mishears things, particularly names, addresses and numbers.

Every captured enquiry is texted to your phone when the call ends. That text is the record of the enquiry, not just a notification of it, since there’s no separate dashboard to check.

Apart from the missed-call guarantee, we are not liable for business lost through a missed or misunderstood enquiry. If that risk is unacceptable to you, this service is not a fit.

Your data, and where it lives

By default we do not hold the substance of a matter. The enquiry handling captures contact details and a matter category. By default it does not take case facts. If your firm adds its own intake questions, it holds what you chose to ask, and you’re responsible for those questions. Anything of substance belongs in your own practice management system.

Our systems are hosted overseas, principally in the United States. That means enquiry contact details are disclosed to overseas recipients. This is set out in full in our Privacy Policy, and it is the reason the intake is designed to hold no case facts by default. You should satisfy yourself that this arrangement is consistent with your own confidentiality and privacy obligations before you engage us, and your own privacy policy should disclose it.

Your client records and captured enquiries belong to you. You can request an export at any time. If you cancel, tell us within 30 days if you want your data deleted and we will delete it. Otherwise we may remove it after that period.

Liability

To the extent permitted by law, our total liability in any 12-month period is limited to the fees you paid us in that period.

Nothing in these terms excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot be excluded.

Ending the agreement

You can cancel at any time by emailing us.

We may suspend or end the service if fees go unpaid, if the service is used unlawfully, or if continuing would put our platform or carrier relationships at risk. Where practical we will give notice first.

Changes to these terms

We will let you know by email before material changes take effect.