Missed-call text-back for law firms (Twilio + Clio)

The problem

A caller who can't reach you will often call the next firm. The research measures how often firms don't pick up; it doesn't give a dollar figure, so neither do we.

• In Clio's 2024 secret-shopper study, only 40% of 500 US firms answered the phone and 48% could not be reached by phone at all. Source: Clio press release on the 2024 Legal Trends Report (PR Newswire) (Vendor press release)
• The same study found 67% of firms did not respond to an email inquiry. Source: Clio Legal Trends Report 2024, secret-shopper study (500 US law firms) (Industry report by a practice-management vendor; read via search excerpt)

Background reading: Can lawyers text clients? A checklist for automated texts · Is missed-call text-back legal? · Missed calls at a small law firm: a text-back that doesn't solicit

Who it's for

Solo and small US firms on Clio where the attorney is often in court or with a client and there's no full-time receptionist.

Tools and monthly cost

Example month: Illustrative arithmetic, not a measured result. Assume 60 missed calls a month: 20 clients get a 1-segment text, 40 new callers get a 2-segment text, and 20 replies are forwarded (about 2 segments in and 2 out each): 180 segments x $0.0083 = $1.49, plus carrier fees of about $0.50-$0.90. Fixed: $1.15 number + $1.50-$10 campaign fee. Total about $5-$14 a month plus n8n and voice minutes for calls routed through Twilio. One-time: $19.50 A2P registration. No AI model is used.

Setup

1. Buy a Twilio local number and complete A2P 10DLC brand + campaign registration (texts to US numbers are blocked until it's approved).
2. Route your office line through the Twilio number: an incoming call <Dial>s your office phone, and the Dial action URL points at the workflow's 'call' webhook. No-answer, busy and failed count as missed.
3. Point the number's incoming-SMS webhook at the workflow's 'sms' webhook.
4. Create a Clio API app with read access to Contacts and Matters and write access to Communications; connect it in an n8n OAuth2 credential.
5. Set FIRM_SHORT, FIRM_TZ, office hours, ATTORNEY_PHONE, ATTORNEY_EMAIL, INTAKE_FORM_URL and BOOKING_URL from .env.example, then call your number from a second phone and let it ring out.

Download

Download law-firm-missed-call-text-back.zip

Contains the n8n workflow, the mock data, the test runner with its last results, and the mock server we tested against. All keys in .env.example are fake.

Test result

Every workflow was imported into n8n 2.45.4 and run end to end on our test machine. Clio Manage (API v4), Clio Grow, the email sender (Resend), Outlook (Microsoft Graph), Twilio and Stripe were replaced by a local mock server built from their official API docs: it checks the same request shapes and required fields, enforces Clio's rate limit (HTTP 429) and records every call. These recipes use no AI model; every decision is a written rule you can read. Matters, clients and invoices are invented. Nothing was sent to a real phone, client or account. The billing recipe was also run once against a real Stripe test-mode sandbox (no money moves).

Actual output from the test run

Texts sent in scenarios M2 (client), M4 (new caller, after hours) and M8 (plain-English opt-out). Names and numbers are invented.

M2: to +15555550141: Hi Maria, this is Harbor Point Law - sorry we missed your call. We'll call you back shortly. Reply STOP to opt out.

M4: to +15555550177: Hi, this is Harbor Point Law - sorry we missed your call. We'll call you back next business day. To get started: https://harborpointlaw.example/intake or book a consult: https://calendly.com/harborpointlaw-example/consult . Please don't text details about your case. Reply STOP to opt out.

M8: to +15555550190: OK - you won't get any more automatic texts from Harbor Point Law. You can still call us at +15555550160.