A phone and answering service for sole practitioners
A sole practitioner is the lawyer, the receptionist and the person who writes up the calls. LEX Phone gives you a business number on your own mobile, answers in your firm's name when you are in court or with a client, and writes the file note for every call, so the phone stops being a second job.
Source: Urbis for the Law Society of NSW, 2024 National Profile of Solicitors, published June 2025.
Most Australian law practices are one lawyer. That lawyer cannot answer the phone in a hearing, in a client meeting or behind the wheel, and a new client who reaches voicemail has other firms to ring. A receptionist is rarely affordable for a practice of one, and a message-taking service passes on a name and a number that still has to be called back, written up and put on the file. LEX Phone is built for that practice.
A sole practitioner's answering service, across one day
In court, 9.30am
Your line is on Unavailable. A new enquiry rings,
With a client, 11am
Your line is on Screen. An existing client rings about a settlement date. The service finds out what they need and puts them through with a one-line summary, and you decide whether to step out or have it take a message.
On the road, 1pm
A lead seller rings. In Screen mode the call stops at the front desk and your phone never rings.
At your desk, 3pm
Your line is on Available. Calls ring you directly with the matter and the last note on screen. When you hang up, the call is written up and filed without you typing anything.
After hours, 7.40pm
A prospective client rings after work, which is when many of them can. The service answers, takes the intake, and the file note is waiting in the morning.
Three things a sole practitioner can stop doing
Checking voicemail
Every unanswered call is answered and written up, so there is no mailbox to listen through and no caller who hung up without leaving a message.
Giving out your personal mobile
Clients ring and text the business number. Calls you make from the app show that number, and your own stays private.
Writing file notes from memory
The summary and the transcript are written for every call, with any close date on the first line, and filed to Smokeball or SharePoint if you use them.
What it costs a practice of one
A$79.99 a month with GST included, bought in the app, with no contract. The number, the summaries and transcripts, the texts and the filing are in that price,
You can keep the number clients already have: port it in at no charge, and it keeps working with your current provider until the day it moves. Setup is a two-minute phone call, and there is no contract.
Questions sole practitioners ask
Your business number rings in an app on your own phone. When you can take a call you take it, with the client's matter on screen. When you cannot,
No. Port it in at no charge and callers never learn a new one, or take a new Australian number in the app.
Yes. Every summary is kept in the app, searchable alongside your texts, with the transcript there for three months, and a push notification arrives after each call. If you use Microsoft 365, each call can also be filed to a SharePoint library as a Word document under the contact, and the transcript is then deleted from our storage once it is filed.
It answers in your firm's name, says it is automated if asked, and offers a call back or a booking. What it replaces is voicemail. A caller who would have reached a recorded greeting reaches something that takes their details properly and tells them what happens next.
A$79.99 a month with GST included, bought in the app through the App Store or Google Play, with no contract, no setup fee and nothing charged per call, and
As a sole practitioner, you need whatever answers in your firm's name when you cannot and leaves the call on the file, and on LEX Phone that is the same line. The difference in the names is explained on the virtual receptionist for law firms and law firm answering service pages; this page is about what it means for a practice of one.
Add a subscription for them from the LEX Phone Teams web console. They get their own number and line, and both sit on the firm's account.
Port your number, or start with a new one
Try it for yourself, setup in minutes.