AI & Innovation · 10 min read · Updated 24 October 2026

AI Voice Agents for Law Firms: SRA Duties and Risks

Where an AI voice agent helps a conveyancing firm, and where the SRA Code and UK GDPR say it must hand over to a person.

By Appan Pathmanathan, Chief Operating Officer, Lex Sentinel

An AI voice agent, sometimes sold as an AI receptionist, answers a law firm's incoming calls, reads routine matter information from the case management system, and hands everything else to a named person with the details attached. Used sensibly it answers the basic questions conveyancers otherwise spend their day fielding, and catches calls that would have gone to voicemail. Most of what follows is about where it must stop and hand over to a person.

This covers SRA-regulated firms in England and Wales; CLC-regulated firms work under the CLC's own code. Lex Sentinel sells an AI voice agent to conveyancing firms, so I have a commercial interest in this subject and you should weigh what follows accordingly.

Do unanswered calls cause conveyancing complaints?

The data can't tell you, but it shows where the pressure is. The Legal Ombudsman received 14,259 new complaints in 2025/26, up 37% on 2024/25, and accepted 8,412 for resolution. Of those, 3,039 were residential conveyancing: 36%, the largest single area of law. Across all areas, it reports poor communication as 24% of the complaint types selected and delay and failure to progress as 22%, together 46% (a complaint can carry more than one type). I found no conveyancing-only split or missed-call category in the headline data.

In my experience they start small. A buyer leaves two voicemails in a week, hears nothing, and the next contact is a complaint letter, by which point the file itself is rarely the grievance.

Where we've run a voice agent, the basic status questions that conveyancers were fielding now get answered by the agent, and out-of-hours enquiries that used to go unanswered every day are captured. I'm describing our experience, not a published study.

The SRA Code of Conduct for Solicitors expects a service that is competent and delivered in a timely manner (paragraph 3.2) and, where you act for the public, information given in a way clients can understand (paragraph 8.6). Neither mentions telephones.

What should an AI voice agent be allowed to handle?

It can read the file but must never interpret it. It's connected to your phone line and, usually, your case management system, and it gives one of a defined set of answers or passes the call on.

Call type	The agent may	It must hand to a person
General process questions (what a search is, what happens at exchange)	Answer from material the firm has approved	Anything about what this client should do
Stage of the matter, document received, next step, who is dealing	Read back what a fee earner has recorded, and say who recorded it	Anything not recorded
Completion or exchange date	Read back a recorded date	Any date it would have to work out, or any question about whether a date will hold
Money	Nothing beyond a recorded fact	All fund questions, and any request to give or change bank details
Advice	Nothing	All of it
Complaints	Recognise one and route it	The handling
Messages	Take one with the matter reference and callback number	The reply
Any call where identity is unverified	Give a generic status line at most	Everything else

What are the risks of AI voice agents in law firms?

Can it get dates or money wrong?

Yes. Tell a seller "completion is Friday" before exchange and you've misled them; with a chain behind them that's a lost removals slot and abortive costs. Keep the agent to recorded facts, and let it promise a callback only where a named person is assigned and the time is tracked.

How should it verify who is calling?

Caller ID proves nothing, voices can now be cloned, and fraudsters impersonate clients and firms in property transactions, so treat a phone call as low assurance. Don't let the agent verify on the property address; anyone running a fraud already has it. Ask for something only the client would know, stop at a generic status line if the caller fails, and send anything further to a call-back on the number on file or to a person. It should never give out or accept a change to bank details, because payment-diversion fraud is built on exactly that. Avoid voiceprint verification: used to identify someone it's special category data under Article 9 of the UK GDPR and needs a condition on top of a lawful basis.

Callers who aren't clients, such as lenders, the other side's agent or a client's relative, should get next to nothing. Paragraph 6.3 of the Code and the UK GDPR still apply to what you say about a client's matter.

Do you have to tell callers it's an AI?

The Code doesn't say so, and the SRA's warning notice on the misuse of AI (17 August 2026) says nothing on disclosure to clients. It isn't about voice agents, so I'm applying its principles by analogy. Paragraph 1.4 does the work: you must not mislead your clients, the court or others by your acts or omissions, and a caller who believed they were talking to a person could reasonably complain. Have the agent say what it is in its first sentence, and let any caller ask for a person at any point. That matters most for callers who are distressed or who have a hearing or speech difficulty, where the agent should hand over straight away; the Equality Act 2010 duty to make reasonable adjustments (section 20) is engaged too.

What if a caller complains?

A client who complains by phone to an agent that logs it as a "message" has put the firm out of step with its own procedure. Where you act for the public, paragraphs 8.2 to 8.5 expect a complaints procedure, written information at engagement and prompt handling. Under 8.4, if a complaint isn't resolved to the client's satisfaction within eight weeks, you must tell them in writing of their right to go to the Legal Ombudsman, the time frame and how to contact it. The agent has to recognise a complaint and send it into that procedure.

Who is accountable when it gets something wrong?

The firm. The SRA's notice says solicitors remain accountable for their work whether or not AI was used; my view is that your COLP should sign off what the agent is allowed to say. As controller you answer to the ICO and to your client.

What data protection work comes first?

Privacy information has to reach callers when you collect their data; the ICO says so for data collected from the individual. Open every call with a short spoken notice that points to your privacy notice, and update that notice to cover the agent. Data about someone else, given by a third-party caller, falls under Article 14, where you have a reasonable period and no longer than a month. Decide your lawful basis and how long you'll keep recordings and transcripts, and plan how you'll answer a subject access request that reaches a transcript. Recording business calls is separately governed by the Investigatory Powers (Interception by Businesses etc. for Monitoring and Record-keeping Purposes) Regulations 2018, which authorise it for purposes such as establishing facts and checking regulatory compliance, provided you've made all reasonable efforts to inform every person who may use the system that communications may be intercepted. Say so in that opening notice.

Then the DPIA. The ICO's screening list includes the novel application of existing technologies, including AI, and says a DPIA is required where that is combined with any of the criteria from the European guidelines. Those guidelines say that in most cases two factors together indicate a DPIA, though it's not a strict rule and one can be enough. Client calls about a purchase and its finances will often meet that test, in my view, because you'd have new technology plus at least one other factor. Screen, record your reasoning either way, and finish the DPIA before go-live, with your DPO's view or the view of whoever owns data protection if you have none.

If the vendor acts only on your instructions it's your processor and Article 28 of the UK GDPR requires a written contract. If it uses call data for its own purposes, training included, it may be a controller in its own right, which is why I'd want written answers to four questions before signing: where call audio and transcripts are stored and processed, who the sub-processors are, whether anything leaves the UK, and whether your calls train its models. The SRA's notice expects client data to go into AI systems only with contractual, technical and organisational safeguards, not to be used for training without authorisation, and not to be kept longer than necessary. It's aimed mainly at public AI tools, but the logic carries over. Keep logs of what the agent said; you'll want them the first time a client disputes a call.

How should a firm pilot an AI voice agent?

Start with out-of-hours calls only. They're the commercial case as well as the cautious one: prospective clients ring when they're free to, which is often an evening or weekend, and a call to voicemail is usually a lost lead. If you're missing calls at 11am on a Tuesday you have a staffing problem, and a voice agent will just take the first message more politely. Callers who are prospects get the same notice as everyone else, and the agent takes their details but gives no advice and accepts no instructions or identity documents by phone.

Record a baseline over a quarter before go-live: missed calls, time to callback and communication complaints.
Tell your professional indemnity insurer what you're doing.
Go live on one line with one job, overflow and out-of-hours calls, answering read-only status questions.
Listen to what it said, call by call, for the first month.
Widen the scope only when the numbers and the reviews justify it.

A voice agent won't fix a slow file; if completion is drifting, the client just hears about it sooner, and delay is a complaint about the work rather than the phone. I haven't seen published figures on what these tools do to complaint rates, so measure your own. I covered the wider picture in AI transforming conveyancing.

About the author

Appan Pathmanathan is a solicitor and Chief Operating Officer of Lex Sentinel, which sells an AI voice agent and other AI tools to UK conveyancers. He has worked in UK legal practice since 2001, has been managing partner of a law firm, and has built compliance and complaint-handling functions. Connect on LinkedIn.

Sources

Checked on 24 October 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do callers have to be told they are speaking to an AI?

The Code doesn't require it, but paragraph 1.4 bars misleading clients by act or omission, so I'd open every call by saying it's an AI and let callers ask for a person whenever they want one.

Can an AI voice agent give legal advice?

It shouldn't. Anything it says is the firm's own statement, which is why the table above keeps it to recorded facts and messages. Advice and anything about money stay with a person.

Is a DPIA required for an AI voice agent?

Probably. Client calls about a purchase and its finances will most likely meet the ICO's threshold once the AI is combined with another criterion, so finish the DPIA before go-live and record your screening either way.

Is it lawful to record calls handled by an AI voice agent?

Yes, with conditions. You need a lawful basis, all reasonable efforts to tell callers that calls may be recorded under the 2018 interception regulations, and a retention period you've set before recording begins.

What should I ask a vendor before signing?

Ask any vendor, us included, where the audio and transcripts are stored and processed, who the sub-processors are, whether anything leaves the UK, and whether the vendor trains on your calls. Put the answers in the Article 28 contract.

Will it reduce complaints?

Only those that begin with an unanswered call. Delay in the work is untouched, so track missed calls, callback times and communication complaints before and after.