ConnectBY JBRHSOLUTIONS · LEGAL · CONSULTING · ACCOUNTING
A firm's new work arrives while everyone is billing. Connect runs the front of the practice — answering the enquiry, taking intake down properly, qualifying the matter, booking the appointment and keeping the follow-up — and hands anything that requires professional judgement to the person qualified to give it. It does not advise, and it does not pretend to.
A new enquiry while the office is in meetings
Every step above is a real action in the product, written to the enquirer's record. Nothing in it constitutes advice, and the documentation names the screen each step lands on.
THE BUSINESS PROBLEM
New enquiries arrive during the working day, which is precisely when every fee earner is unavailable — and an enquirer who waits until tomorrow has usually called somebody else today.
Someone with a live problem contacts three firms on Monday. Whoever replies first is usually the firm they instruct, and it is rarely the best firm — it is the one that was free.
Instructions decided by availability rather than by fit.
A few details on the form, the rest in the first meeting. The first chargeable conversation is spent collecting facts a well-designed intake would already have.
Billable time spent on data entry, or written off.
Enquiries outside the practice's scope consume the same attention as the ones inside it, and are often declined days later, having occupied a partner twice.
Attention spent on matters that were never going to be taken.
A prospective client goes away to think and is never contacted again, because there is no follow-up list that survives a busy week.
Pipeline that depends on the client remembering the firm.
None of this is about the quality of the professional work. It is about the twenty minutes at the front of it that nobody owns.
THE CONNECT WORKFLOW
One chain from first contact to an instructed client — and a hard boundary running through all of it: process, never advice.
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A new enquiry from the website, email, the office line or WhatsApp is answered on the channel it arrived on, from the knowledge the firm approved: what the practice does, how it works, what happens next and what an initial meeting involves.
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The facts your intake form asks for, taken in conversation instead of a form nobody finishes: who is involved, what happened, what has been done so far, dates, documents and deadlines. It lands as structured fields on the record rather than as a paragraph in an email.
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Whether this is work the firm takes: the area of practice, the jurisdiction, the scale, the timing, and the parties involved so a person can run the conflict check. A matter outside scope is identified early and declined courteously, with the firm's own wording.
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A consultation is proposed against the availability the firm actually keeps, confirmed on the enquirer's channel and reminded before the day, with the intake already in front of whoever takes the meeting.
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An enquirer who went away to think, a quote awaiting a decision, an outstanding document — each carries a scheduled next action. The follow-up stops depending on whether the week was busy.
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When the matter is taken on, the relationship continues on the same record: the engagement, the agreed scope, the contacts and what was promised, all in one place rather than in the instructing partner's inbox.
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Status questions, document requests, scheduling and billing queries are answered from what the firm has recorded, with anything touching the substance of the matter routed to the person handling it.
There is no step in this chain where Connect gives an opinion on a matter. It explains process, gathers facts and arranges time; the professional judgement is the firm's, every time and without exception.
EMAIL · PHONE · WHATSAPP
A prospective client who emails, rings and then messages is one relationship with one intake, not three fragments.
The firm's real mailboxes — enquiries@, info@, the practice-area addresses — connected with the provider's own authorisation. Threads are read, understood and answered in context, and land on the enquirer's record whichever address they arrived at.
Inbound calls answered when the office is in meetings or closed, and follow-up calls placed on enquiries that are due one — with transcript and summary written back to the same record.
Increasingly how clients expect to reach a firm. Inbound messages and replies run through the same record, knowledge and approval gate as email.
Which channels are live for you depends on the accounts and provider numbers the firm connects during setup. SMS sending and call recording are carrier-dependent and confirmed in your pilot — and recording in particular is a decision to take with your own compliance obligations in view.
RELATIONSHIP MEMORY
A client who returns after three years should not have to re-explain the history to a firm that has it.
What a client record holds
RULES · PERMISSIONS · APPROVALS
Autonomy is configurable; the professional boundary is not. Connect explains how the firm works and gathers facts — it does not tell anyone what to do about their matter.
Connect prepares everything and sends nothing. Where nearly every firm starts, and where many stay for the whole pilot.
Process answers, intake questions and appointment offers go out; anything approaching the substance of a matter stops in Needs You.
It runs enquiry, intake and scheduling inside the boundary the firm defined, and escalates the moment a question asks what someone should do.
Every action Connect takes is recorded — what it did, on whose authority, and the evidence it used. The advice boundary is enforced by what it is permitted to speak from, not by asking it to be careful.
BEFORE VS WITH CONNECT
Nothing here is a claim about results. It is a description of where the work moves.
Today
A voicemail and a reply two days later. The enquirer has already instructed someone.
With Connect
Answered on process within minutes, with intake taken and a consultation offered.
Today
A form half completed, and the rest collected in the first chargeable meeting.
With Connect
Captured in conversation before the meeting, and read by the fee earner beforehand.
Today
Occupies a partner twice before it is politely declined.
With Connect
Identified at enquiry and declined in the firm's own words, with a record of why.
Today
Names arrive piecemeal, and the check happens late.
With Connect
Parties captured at intake so a person can run the check before the meeting is confirmed.
Today
Never contacted again.
With Connect
A dated follow-up carrying what they said the first time.
Today
Answered by whoever picked up, with varying levels of comfort.
With Connect
Not answered at all — routed to the person qualified to answer it.
BUSINESS OUTCOMES
Connect does not come with a number attached. These are the effects to measure against the firm's own baseline during a pilot.
New enquiries are answered while they are live, including during court, meetings and out of hours.
How you would measure it: Median time from enquiry to first substantive reply, by channel, before and during the pilot.
The consultation starts with the facts already gathered rather than spending its first half collecting them.
How you would measure it: Share of consultations that began with a complete intake record.
Matters the firm does not take are recognised at enquiry rather than after a partner has read the file.
How you would measure it: Time from first contact to a decision on whether the firm will act.
Enquirers who went away to consider are contacted on a date rather than remembered by chance.
How you would measure it: Share of open enquiries with a follow-up inside seven days.
Every one of these is measurable from the record Connect writes. Anything about instructions won takes a full cycle for your practice area, and we would rather say so than put a percentage on this page.
DEPLOYMENT
A pilot that starts across every practice area is one nobody can judge. This starts at the front door.
The general enquiries mailbox, the firm's identity, and — if you use them — the office line and WhatsApp number. Nothing is scraped and no password is shared.
What the practice does and does not take, how a matter starts, what a first meeting involves, and the intake questions each practice area asks. This is the only material Connect may speak from.
The explicit list of questions that must always go to a person — merits, prospects, fees, deadlines, anything regulated. Agreed with whoever carries professional responsibility.
Connect prepares every reply and sends none. The firm reads each one, corrects what is wrong, and sees exactly how the week's enquiries would have been handled.
Enable sending for process answers, intake and scheduling. Keep everything on the advice boundary gated — permanently, in most firms.
Response times, intake completeness and follow-up coverage against the numbers the firm started with — then a decision either way.
Existing email continues to work throughout. Connect joins the firm's mailbox; it does not replace it, and a fee earner can take over any conversation mid-thread.
TRUST & LIMITATIONS
A firm carries professional responsibility for everything sent in its name. So the limits below are stated plainly rather than buried.
QUESTIONS
It answers only from the knowledge the firm has approved, and anything on the advice boundary — merits, prospects, deadlines, fees, anything regulated — is a gate rather than a matter of tone. A question of that kind is escalated to a person with the conversation attached, and the escalation is recorded.
No. It captures the facts and the parties so that qualification and the conflict check can be done by a person, quickly and with everything in front of them. The decision to act is the firm's, and so is the wording when the answer is no.
Workspace data is isolated per business and the mailboxes remain the firm's, connected with the firm's own consent and disconnectable at any time. Retention, data rights and security are documented in the Trust Centre — that document, rather than this page, is what your risk partner should read.
That is the firm's decision and the firm's wording, set in the identity and knowledge you configure. What we will not do is claim it passes for a person: it is a digital employee at the front of the practice, with a person one step away at all times.
Yes — each practice area's own intake questions, routing and approved knowledge. Most firms start with one area and the general enquiries mailbox, then add the next once the drafts in the first are consistently right.
Not unless that integration is agreed separately in scoping. Connect holds the conversations, the intake and the records it is given; it is not a case management or billing system and does not claim to replace one.
There is no public price list. Commercial terms follow JBRH-approved commercial configurations based on the channels, volume and scope you actually need — the pricing page explains what drives the number and how in-policy pricing or owner review is produced.
START HERE
A pilot is the firm's real enquiries, its own intake questions and its own advice boundary — not a scripted demonstration. You will know inside a week whether the drafts are something you would put your name to.