About SB Avocats

SB Avocats is a Bordeaux firm founded and led by Maître Sophie Benayoun. Four lawyers practise there day to day, with a clear focus on criminal law, complemented by civil law and general practice.

The firm built its reputation in Bordeaux through word of mouth and a demanding criminal practice: police custody, immediate-appearance hearings, investigations, criminal court sessions. Work driven by urgency, where the lawyers spend a large share of their days at the courthouse rather than at the office.

That reputation has a downside. Inbound demand is heavy — more than 200 calls a month — and in criminal matters a missed call never comes back: the caller simply dials the next firm. This volume, an engine of growth, turned into an operational constraint the day the firm's front-office resources were cut.

Visit the firm at sophie-benayoun.com

The challenge

When the firm's secretary went on sick leave, more than 200 inbound calls a month were left without a dedicated resource. An external call center had been set up, but it never managed to absorb the volume or deliver the quality of reception expected by clients in distress.

Two effects combined, and the second cost more than the first. On one side, the lost calls: the phone ringing out during a hearing, messages never returned, prospects gone elsewhere. On the other, the calls that were answered — but by the lawyers themselves. Picking up between two files, jotting a number down on the corner of a desk, calling back in the evening on the way home from court: several hours a week taken from advocacy, drafting and advisory time. A partner taking a message is not a partner pleading a case.

There was also a deeper reluctance, and it was a legitimate one. The firm's clientele is mostly criminal: people calling after police custody, a summons or an indictment. Calls loaded with anxiety, where the first contact sets the tone for the whole relationship of trust. Handing that reception to an artificial intelligence was far from obvious — on the face of it, it was the perfect counter-example. That objection is precisely what shaped the deployment.

Calls lost during hearings and police custody, with no structured call-back process behind them.
Several hours a week spent by the lawyers themselves picking up, screening and calling back, at the expense of billable time.
Sensitive information not passed on at the right moment: hearing dates, court registry calls, client emergencies.
No simple appointment-booking system and no prepayment: slots blocked for consultations that were never honoured.
No qualification form and no automated follow-up. Every new matter started from a blank page.

The solution

Dylaw deployed Donna, the voice phone agent, directly on the firm's number through a simple call-forwarding activation. Setup took a few days, with no technical work from the team and no change of number.

The work was not about «making a robot answer the phone». It was about mapping who actually calls a criminal law firm, then writing a distinct script for each caller profile. Three journeys were implemented, each with its own rules and tone.

The three call scenarios

Scenario 01

Court registries, judges and fellow lawyers

A clerk calling about a hearing date, a judge about an adjournment, a fellow lawyer about disclosure of documents: these calls are not meant to be commercially qualified, nor to end in an appointment. Donna identifies them within the first few seconds, collects the court, the case or docket number, the precise subject and the call-back details, then passes the information straight to the lawyer concerned along with its urgency level. No screening, no attempt to convert. This is the scenario that surprised the team most, and the one that spares them the most pointless interruptions.

Scenario 02

Existing clients

An existing client calls to check on the progress of their case, flag something new or ask to be called back before a hearing. Donna recognizes that this is an ongoing matter, identifies the lawyer in charge, captures the request precisely and classifies it: simple information, call-back requested, or urgent. One rule has been absolute since day one — the agent never gives legal information. It takes, qualifies and passes on; the lawyer answers.

Scenario 03

New prospects

This is the most complete journey. A new contact calls after police custody, a summons or an indictment. Donna listens, captures the nature of the matter, the court involved and the level of urgency, then offers an appointment by checking the firm's Outlook calendar in real time: no double bookings, no slot offered during a hearing. From that point on, the whole automated chain kicks in.

What is triggered as soon as an appointment is booked

01

Booking link and Stripe prepayment

As soon as the slot is agreed, the prospect receives a booking link and a Stripe payment link by SMS. The consultation is paid for before the meeting. That single measure almost eliminated no-shows: a prepaid slot is a slot that is kept. The agreed date is then locked into the client form, and the confirmation goes out automatically.

Call record in the Dylaw interface: appointment confirmation, booking link, SMS reply templates and one-click follow-up email.

02

Pre-consultation form

Before the appointment, the client fills in a qualification form: identity, account of the facts, available documents, procedural dates already set. The lawyer walks into the consultation with the matter already outlined. On a first criminal consultation, that is twenty minutes of reconstructing the facts that no longer needs doing.

03

Tracking interface

Every call is centralized in the dashboard with its summary, its type — message, appointment, call-back —, the caller's status — client, non-client, fellow lawyer — and its urgency level. Requests flagged urgent rise to the top of the list. The firm opens a record, reads the summary, replies or confirms, then marks the request as handled.

Requests sorted into three columns: messages, appointments and forms received, with urgent items flagged.

04

Confirmations, reminders and statistics

Appointment confirmations and reminders go out automatically, with no intervention. And for the first time, the firm has numbers: call volume, split between messages and appointments, confirmation rate, average call duration. A level of oversight that simply did not exist in the days of the external call center.

Overview: call volume, request statuses, breakdown by type and average call duration.

The whole setup replaced the external call center. Fee agreements are generated directly from the platform. And when the secretary came back, the role had changed in nature: she no longer absorbs the phone traffic, she works on the files.

The results

+100Leads captured since deployment

×3.2New clients per month between December 2025 and July 2026

New clients per month

December 2025 → July 2026

The plateau reached in spring 2026 reflects the firm's capacity to take on new matters, not a slowdown in inbound demand.

Today

Dylaw is now a permanent part of the firm's infrastructure. Donna answers calls around the clock, fee agreements are generated automatically and the vast majority of consultations are prepaid via Stripe before the first meeting. The secretary, who has been with the firm for more than fifteen years, now spends most of her time on cases and client relationships rather than managing phone traffic.