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The California family law firm employed 30 attorneys, paralegals, and legal administrators.
Its work involved custody disputes, visitation arrangements, and financial disclosures, with clients discussing private details about their children, relationships, and finances.
A significant number of its clients discussed deeply personal concerns with their attorneys over the phone and expected discretion throughout those exchanges.
The firm had three requirements.
- It needed to notify clients when calls were being recorded.
- It wanted to separate confidential client conversations from attorneys’ personal calls and texts.
- It needed to store recordings and messages securely so attorneys could refer to them when reviewing a case.
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4. Bring consistency to recording disclosures with iPlum
The challenge: no consistent recording notice or separation between client and personal messages
The firm needed a dependable process for recording sensitive discussions and storing case correspondence.
Its existing client communication process created the problems:
Recording notices depended on attorneys remembering them
First, the law firm depended on attorneys to explain to a client that a call would be recorded and obtain their agreement before recording.
But, clients sometimes began describing an urgent custody or visitation issue immediately. Attorneys could get drawn into the discussion and remember the notice partway through, leaving uncertainty about when they had informed the client.
Confidential texts mixed with personal messages
Because the attorneys were using their personal cell phones, client texts appeared alongside family conversations, dinner plans, and banking alerts. Their personal phones carried sensitive discussions about children, finances, and relationships.
As a result, attorneys had to search through client and personal threads to locate case instructions or confirm an earlier exchange.
Preparing case records required separating private correspondence
When the firm needed to review client messages, attorneys had to select the relevant conversation from their native SMS apps.
They then had to check that the selected messages contained the full discussion. Thus, preparing correspondence required additional work before anyone could review the case information itself.
The solution: standardize recording notices and separate client communication
The firm adopted iPlum to introduce a consistent recording notice and move client conversations onto firm-managed business lines.
With iPlum, attorneys continued to use their existing smartphones. However, they conducted professional calls and texts through the iPlum app.
iPlum allowed the firm to:
Play a recording notice at the start of calls
The firm enabled an automated call recording announcement on the attorney’s business lines.
The announcement informed callers that their conversation would be recorded. It played automatically at the beginning of calls, including when attorneys answered outside the office.
Move confidential calls and texts onto a separate line
Attorneys received a dedicated second phone line for client communication. The line had its own calling, texting, ringtone, and voicemail within iPlum.
They gave clients their business numbers for custody questions, visitation updates, and discussions about financial disclosures. Meanwhile, personal conversations continued through their existing personal numbers.
Preserve business conversations for later reference
The firm used call recording and text archiving under the Enterprise plan to retain conversations conducted through its iPlum lines. The plan provided up to 10 years of recording and text retention.
Now, attorneys could return to a recorded discussion or an archived message when reviewing a client’s instructions.
Manage attorneys’ accounts at the firm level
Through multi-user account management, administrators managed the attorneys’ lines and account permissions. Access to business communication formed part of the firm’s account administration.
For a case review, authorized users could examine the relevant business correspondence. While attorneys still needed to identify which exchanges belonged to the case, the starting point was a professional account that contained client communications.
The attorney also accessed the following features that made their work easier:
- SmartConnect to bring another attorney into a client call or transfer the conversation.
- Call forwarding to route calls to another designated number when an attorney was unavailable.
- Voicemail notes to document follow-up actions alongside a client’s message.
- Web session timeouts to end inactive portal sessions after a set period.
- Number blocking to stop calls and texts from identified spam numbers.
The results: 100% consistency in call recording disclosures
Within weeks of adopting iPlum, the firm reported that its recording announcement played consistently on calls through the configured business lines.
It also reported less administrative work and more complete billing records as follows:
- 100% recording disclosure consistency, with no missed notices reported after activation.
- 4–6 hours saved per week on administrative work involving call notes and message searches.
- Communication records retrieved in under a minute for routine requests.
- Over $50,000 in previously unbilled time identified during the first month.
- Client calls and texts separated from personal correspondence, giving attorneys a business account to consult during case reviews.
- Less uncertainty about recording notices, according to the firm’s account of the change.
With iPlum, attorneys could review client instructions and prepare relevant correspondence from their business accounts. In addition, the automated announcement made recording notification a standard part of the calling process.
Bring consistency to recording disclosures with iPlum
If your firm relies on attorneys to remember the recording notice each time a client calls, it’s time to switch to iPlum.
Our phone system for lawyers lets you automate that announcement and assign attorneys dedicated business numbers on their existing smartphones. With iPlum, client calls and texts are kept in a separate business account, with records available for later review.
And, your attorneys can use the announcement alongside your firm’s consent procedures, including during unexpected or after-hours calls.
