A law firm chatbot is an integral legal tech tool designed to assist perspective clients, clients, and those who work in a law office. Of course, exactly what the chatbot does depends on how it is created. They can be designed to handle everything from interacting with website visitors to assisting with certain law office automation tasks such as taking input and creating commonly used legal forms. While chatbots can be a life changing tool for the law office. that change can be good or bad. The catalyst for determining whether the change is positive of negative depends on avoiding common mistakes. In this article, we’re addressing the four most commonly made law firm chatbot mistakes.

You Don’t Know What You Need It to Do

When law firms do not have a good understanding of what they need the chatbot to do, fertile breeding grounds for unhappiness and big problems. If you, your employees, or your clients aren’t happy because the chatbot isn’t working like they thought it should or would, it won’t be used. If it isn’t used, that’s an issue.

Before you invest in a law firm chatbot, you must have a clear idea about what you want it to do. Do you want it to engage with potential clients and basic questions or schedule appointments? Do you want it to interact with active clients to provide certain types of information? Is it a tool that takes information from clients, potential clients, or your employees to create certain types of basic legal forms? Will it be installed to run on your website? Are you looking for it to work inside of a social media private messaging system? Is it for internal use only?

Ask yourself:

• What do I need the chatbot to do?
• Where is the chatbot to be placed and used?
• How will the chatbot actually be used?

Related: Can Legal Chatbots Improve Access to Justice?

Depending on your needs, you may decide that you want a chatbot that interacts with website visitors that can answer basic questions and engage with visitors to increase the chance that they’ll schedule a consultation with your law firm. You may also decide that you want one that your staff can use to quickly create standard and commonly used documents to save time and effort. If you think you need more than one, do not try to implement them both at once. Implement the first one, learn to use it, get comfortable with the technology, and then plan to implement the second one.

Misuse of Language

Language is an important tool. Consider how you speak to another lawyer, a paralegal, a judge, or an officer of the court. Your language with people who are experienced with the legal industry is much different (or at least it should be different) than how you speak with clients or potential clients.

Talking to a lawyer can be intimidating. Law firm chatbots should use plain English. The goal of a chatbot placed on a website is to engage with people who may be interested in scheduling a consultation or contacting your law firm. For this to happen, chatbots should use the right language. It should present basic legal concepts in a way that is easy to understand.

Another misuse of language is making the chatbot seem pushy. It’s fine for a chatbot to let the user know that it exists. However, chatbots that overwhelm the user with notifications, pop-up, or messages could drive the user away.

The Law Firm Chatbot Doesn’t Give Enough Information

Websites are important for several reasons. One of those reasons is to showcase your legal knowledge to hopefully build a sense of trust. Being viewed as a trustworthy expert in your space is essential. Law firm chatbots represent your law firm and its capabilities just as much as when someone interacts with a member of your staff.

Since it is a direct representation of your law firm, it is important that it gives enough information to help website users better understand basic legal concepts. This doesn’t mean that it needs to answer every question by addressing every potential nuance. It does mean that you should consider giving enough information to help users. Sure, divorce is a legal process that ends a marriage. Yet, it could be contested or uncontested. What about divorce requirements? What about common law marriage? Think about the information your chatbot will provide and ask yourself it is really useful or if you should provide more information.

The Chatbot Isn’t Tested Before It Is Deployed

One of the biggest law firm chatbot mistakes is not testing it before it is deployed for use. Yikes. Allowing users or your staff to find out the hard way that the chatbot isn’t operational in the way that you’d hope is not a lot of fun. It’s downright frustrating.

Testing isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. Testing helps you find and fix any issues before the chatbot is deployed. Does it provide the proper information? Does it do what it is expected to do? Does it do something weird you didn’t expect? Is there a UX issue?

Chatbots for Your Law Firm

If you’re interested in getting a chatbot for your law firm, book your demo with LawDroid. We help law firms create chatbots that help them meet their needs!