---
title: "AI secretariat for law firms"
description: "3,298 of the 5,494 Dutch law firms are sole practices. An AI employee handles intake, diary and inbox, never the advice."
url: https://vanborg.com/en/sectors/advocaten
locale: en
type: page
updated: 2026-08-28
author: "Nicolaas Sterenborg"
---

# An AI secretariat for a law firm

A small law firm pays €3,500 to €4,700 a month for a secretariat, or does it themselves alongside billable hours. An AI employee takes over the non-legal part: it answers, runs a first intake, books the introductory meeting and sorts the inbox. It never gives legal advice, and that is exactly where the line sits.

## The figures

| What | How much | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| In the Netherlands | 5,494 firms, 3,298 of them sole practices | NOvA, Advocatuur in cijfers |
| What this work costs today | €3,500 to €4,700 per month | Indeed Salarissen Nederland 2026 |
| One FTE secretariat | €56,197 a year, employer costs included | Indeed Salarissen Nederland 2026 |

## Where the line sits, and why it is hard

An AI employee at a law firm makes no legal statement whatsoever. No assessment of chances, no explanation of a limitation period, no advice on what someone should do. What it does do is everything around that: answer, ask what kind of case it is, check whether it is a practice area the firm covers, book an introductory meeting and tell the client which documents to bring. That line is not only prudent under professional rules but practical: the administrative shell is what eats the most hours and bills the least.

## The inbox is the biggest gap here

Unlike a practice or a garage, the volume at a law firm sits in email, not on the phone. Documents from the other side, court notices, clients asking where things stand, invoices. Part of that is done with a standard reply, part needs to go to a file, and part genuinely has to be read. The Email assistant separates those three streams, answers the first on its own from your knowledge base and queues the second as a draft with the file number attached. What is left is the inbox you actually wanted to read.

## Reviews and social: deliberately restrained

We do not switch on a Review agent at a law firm unless you explicitly ask for it. The professional rules on advertising and approaching clients leave less room than in most other trades, and an automated review request after a closed file is exactly the sort of thing you do not want running unnoticed. The same applies to social content. What does work is the findability of your practice areas on your own site, and for a small firm there is more to gain there than in reviews.

## What an AI employee takes over here

- **Email assistant** — Sorts the inbox, answers the standard questions and puts the rest in front of you as a draft.
- **Phone Agent** — Answers while you are in court and runs a first intake without becoming legal.
- **Reminder agent** — Tracks deadlines and appointments, and reminds the client of documents you are still missing.

## Where we would start

- **Email assistant** — €395 setup + €249/mo: Reads incoming mail, answers the recurring questions from your own knowledge base and forwards the rest to the right person with a short summary on top. Everything it writes lands in your inbox as a draft first; you hit send. Whatever proves itself often enough can go out automatically later.

## Frequently asked questions

### What about professional privilege?

We sign a data processing agreement and work with European or GDPR-compliant providers. What the agent processes we limit to what it needs: at intake that is name, contact details and the type of matter, not the contents of the file. Recordings and transcripts sit in systems under your name and you can export or delete them. Exactly what gets retained we agree before we build.

### Can it run a conflict check?

It can collect the details you need for one, and with a connection to your case system it can flag that a name already appears. The judgement on whether there is a conflict stays with you. That is the same rule as everything we build: the agent prepares, a human decides.

## Sources

- [NOvA, Advocatuur in cijfers](https://www.advocatenorde.nl)
- [Indeed Salarissen Nederland 2026](https://nl.indeed.com/career/salarissen)

## See also

- [Notaries](https://vanborg.com/en/sectors/notarissen)
- [Bookkeepers](https://vanborg.com/en/sectors/boekhouders)
- [Insurance advisers](https://vanborg.com/en/sectors/verzekeringsadviseurs)