A phone, text and fax system that keeps client communications confidential and on the matter

Who ZentryVoice Law is for

ZentryVoice Law is a cloud phone system for solo, small and mid-sized law firms, roughly 2 to 50 people, in litigation, family, immigration, personal injury, estate, real estate and corporate practice. It gives the firm one number for calls, encrypted two-way texting with clients, eFax and transcribed voicemail, with every call and text linked to a matter, recording controlled per line, and an intake path that works at 9 p.m. on a Friday.

It is built for the receptionist who is also the intake coordinator, the associate who answers the firm line from a courthouse hallway on a soft extension, and the managing partner who wants to know how many prospective clients called this month and how many got a call back. ZentryVoice works alongside your practice management software; call logs, summaries and durations export so time is captured rather than reconstructed.

The compliance frame: Rule 1.6, Opinion 477R and recording consent

The duty that governs a law firm’s phone system is confidentiality. ABA Model Rule 1.6(c) requires a lawyer to “make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.” Comment 18 explains that reasonableness is a risk analysis: the sensitivity of the information, the likelihood of disclosure without added safeguards, the cost and difficulty of those safeguards, and whether they get in the way of representing the client. Every U.S. jurisdiction has adopted a version of Rule 1.6.

ABA Formal Opinion 477R (2017), “Securing Communication of Protected Client Information,” applies that rule to electronic communication. Its conclusion is that a lawyer may generally transmit client information over the internet where the lawyer has made reasonable efforts to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized access, but that some matters, because of a client agreement, a law or the sensitivity of the information, require special precautions such as encryption. It mandates no single tool; it asks lawyers to understand how client information travels and is stored, to use reasonable security, and to vet vendors.

Call recording adds a second frame. Federal law and most states allow recording with one party’s consent, but roughly a dozen states, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Washington, require every party on the call to consent. Ethics opinions on recording clients without telling them are divided, and the consistent advice is to disclose. Finally, a multi-extension firm phone is a multi-line telephone system: Kari’s Law requires direct 911 dialing and a front-desk notification, and RAY BAUM’S Act requires a dispatchable location with the call.

• checkA Confidentiality & Privilege Addendum, signed at signup: ZentryVoice treats all call content, recordings, transcripts, texts and faxes as confidential client information, accesses it only through time-boxed, audited support sessions, notifies the firm of legal process seeking its records where permitted, and returns or destroys content when you leave.
• checkEncryption on every leg: SIP over TLS with SRTP media on the Telnyx carrier network, TLS for texting, fax and the apps, and encrypted storage for recordings, transcripts and fax PDFs.
• checkPrivileged recording controls per line: record always, record with an announcement, record on demand, or never record. Lines set to never record stay that way until an administrator changes them, and every change is logged.
• checkImmutable per-firm audit log of every configuration change, export and support session, which doubles as evidence of the reasonable efforts Rule 1.6(c) and Opinion 477R describe.
• checkSOC 2 Type II controls, passkeys for ZentryVoice operators and role-based access per extension, so a paralegal sees the matters they work on and nothing else.
• checkDirect 911 dialing, front-desk notification and a validated dispatchable address on every number, and STIR/SHAKEN A-attestation so calls to clients and opposing counsel do not show as “Spam likely.”

How it works at the front desk and after hours

A week on ZentryVoice Law, from the front desk’s point of view.

1. 1A prospective client calls the firm numberThe call rings the reception ring group; if reception is on another line it waits in a queue rather than rolling to voicemail. New-caller intake can be prioritized.
2. 2The caller hangs up before anyone answersAn automatic text goes out from the firm number (“We saw your call and will call you back shortly”) and the call is tagged missed, then recovered when the consultation is booked.
3. 3The call is answered and tagged to a matterThe receptionist links the call to an existing matter or opens a new intake; the AI summary records the caller’s issue, urgency and next step while the call is still going.
4. 4An attorney takes a client call on a soft extensionThe call shows the firm’s caller ID, is recorded or not according to that line’s policy, and its duration is captured against the matter for billing.
5. 5A client texts a photo of a documentIt arrives on the firm number in the client’s thread, encrypted, visible to the assigned team, and not on anyone’s personal phone.
6. 6A court or opposing counsel faxes a filingThe T.38 eFax is stored as a PDF, tagged to the matter and routed to the responsible attorney.
7. 7Friday, 9 p.m., a new personal-injury caller24/7 intake routing sends the call to the on-call attorney’s soft extension or to an intake queue, with voicemail transcribed and flagged if no one picks up.

ZentryVoice vs a regular law office phone setup

Most firms run a desk-phone system, a fax line, personal cells for client texts and a separate recorder. For a law office, the differences that matter are confidentiality and the record.

What unanswered calls cost a law firm

Clio’s 2024 Legal Trends Report had a research agency phone 500 U.S. law firms as prospective clients in June and July 2024. Only 40% of firms answered the call, down from 56% in 2019; counting those that called back after a message, 52% were reachable, which means 48% of firms were effectively unreachable by phone. Only 33% responded to an email inquiry. Those are real calls to real firms, not vendor estimates.

Intake is where a phone system earns its keep. ZentryVoice queues new callers instead of sending them to voicemail, texts them back automatically when nobody can pick up, routes after-hours calls to a soft extension, and reports answered, missed and recovered calls per line so the managing partner sees the intake funnel rather than guessing at it.

infoThe Clio figures come from a secret-shopper study of 500 firms. Vendor claims about the share of legal calls that arrive after hours are estimates and are not cited here.

Pricing for law firms

ZentryVoice Law is $20 per seat per month. A seat is an extension with voicemail transcription, AI call summaries, live reporting, per-line recording controls and soft extensions on desktop, iOS, Android and web. Encrypted client texting is $15 per month per firm; Compliance eFax is $15 per month per firm. Desk phones are $119 each, optional, and arrive pre-provisioned.

Support is a flat plan by firm size. Technical Support (priority human line, about a 2-minute wait) is $15, $20 or $30 per month for up to 4, 8 or 16 extensions; Technical Support + Advanced Warranty adds next-day replacement of desk phones for $30, $35 or $40. The Confidentiality & Privilege Addendum, SOC 2 Type II controls, the audit log, E911 and STIR/SHAKEN are included at every size.

• check30-day free trial, month-to-month, cancel anytime, free port-out of your numbers.
• checkSoft extensions live in about 15 minutes; desk phones in 2–3 business days; number ports complete in 5–10 business days with a temporary number forwarding from minute one.
• checkVoice core availability target of 99.999% on the Telnyx carrier network.

Switching a law office without losing a call

You keep your numbers; ZentryVoice files and tracks the port and switches over with no downtime while a temporary number forwards from day one. Desk phones ship pre-mapped to each extension through Grandstream GDMS zero-touch provisioning. Recording policies, matter tags and intake routing are set before the port completes, so the first call is already on the record. Leaving is as simple: free port-out and return or destruction of your content under the Addendum.