Lorne & Vale
Family law · Intake

In family law, the enquiry arrives in the evening. The answer should not wait until Monday.

Separations, child arrangements, maintenance, domestic abuse: people write when the house is quiet, late, or at the weekend. Lorne & Vale captures the enquiry, structures it into a triage brief and puts it on the right lawyer’s desk, with a response target. You keep the decision.

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Charlotte Bennettcharlotte.bennett@example.invalid
Separation, two childrenHello, I am separating from my husband. We have two children and things are getting tense at home. I need confidential advice quickly. Could you call me back?
Direct e-mail · Saturday eveningThe office is closed
  1. Received
  2. Structured
  3. Routed
  4. Acknowledged
  5. On the iPhone
The Lorne & Vale iPhone app, Today screen: two enquiries waiting on the fictional firm, the first a family-law enquiry from a fictional prospect scored 8 out of 10, high urgency, past its response target.

Real platform and app, fictional firm and people.

A week in a family law firm

Three situations you will recognise.

Every enquiry arrives with a triage brief: summary, urgency, parties to check, missing information, documents to request. Here is what it would surface.

Saturday, 21:40Website form

Separation with children, on a Saturday evening

“I am separating from my husband. We have two children and things are getting tense at home. I would like to speak to someone quickly.”

What the brief would surface
Urgency
High. Priority P1, first-response target of 4 hours.
Parties to check
The spouse, for the conflict check. Watch point: children involved.
Missing information
Have proceedings already been issued? Is there a child arrangements order in place?
Documents to request
Any existing court order, correspondence from the other side’s solicitor.
Tuesday, 12:15Forwarded e-mail

Varying a child maintenance arrangement

“I lost my job in June. The maintenance we agreed in 2023 is no longer affordable. What are my options?”

What the brief would surface
Urgency
Medium. Priority P2, first-response target of 24 hours.
Parties to check
The other parent, for the conflict check.
Missing information
The current amount and whether it was set by a court order, a consent order or a private agreement. The date and nature of the change in circumstances.
Documents to request
The order or written agreement setting the maintenance, recent evidence of income.
Sunday, 23:10Missed call

Domestic abuse and a non-molestation order

“He left this evening but he still has keys to the house. I am frightened for the children. I do not know who to turn to.”

What the brief would surface
Urgency
High. Priority P1, first-response target of 4 hours. Watch points: children involved, personal safety.
Parties to check
The partner, for the conflict check.
Missing information
Has the incident been reported to the police, and is there a reference number? Are any proceedings already under way?
Documents to request
Any police reference, medical evidence, messages or letters received.

Illustrative examples, fictional people. What a brief contains depends on the enquiry received. The brief summarises, scores and flags; it does not advise and it decides nothing. Someone at the firm assesses the merits and replies.

Demonstration

A demonstration on a real enquiry.

Charlotte Bennett, a fictional person, writes to the demonstration firm at 22:47: a separation, two children. The enquiry is structured within the minute, the acknowledgement goes out in the firm’s name at 22:49, and the brief waits for the family team partner on the platform and on their iPhone.

The triage brief

What the lawyer reads before deciding.

The same grid at 2 pm and at 11 pm. Nothing is decided in their place.

  • Score 8 out of 10, hot, priority P1, with the score rationale in plain words: a clearly described situation, children involved, an explicit request for quick advice and full contact details.
  • Practice area, routing and next step. Family, separation and arrangements for the children; suggested first contact: the partner on the family team; recommended step: offer a confidential call within one working day.
  • Needs attention: children involved, safeguarding.
  • Missing information and documents to request. Have proceedings already been issued? Is there a current child arrangements order? Any existing court order, correspondence from the other side’s solicitor.
  • Counterparty and conflict check. The spouse is named for your own search, extracted by the model and requiring human verification.

The person’s identifiers are replaced by tokens before any model call. Names are restored only inside your firm’s database.

The triage brief on iPhone: watch points, documents to ask for, missing information and the recommended next step, on a fictional family-law enquiry.
Triage brief of a fictional enquiry on the platform: score 8 out of 10, family law, priority P1, recommended next step, score rationale, watch points and parties to check.
On the iPhone

The same brief, in the partner’s pocket.

What is waiting, with its countdown. A suggested reply, marked as a draft. Two buttons: Approve and send, Edit draft.

  • A countdown on the lock screen, if the partner asks for it, and a reminder half an hour before the response target runs out. The reminder names a practice area and a score, never a client.
  • A draft, not a send. The suggested reply only goes out if a lawyer approves or edits it. The only thing that leaves on its own is the acknowledgement, in wording approved at setup.
  • An append-only history: received, triaged and scored, routed to a fee earner, acknowledgement sent. Entries are never edited or removed.
  • Face ID locks the app as soon as it goes to the background.
The triage brief on iPhone: score 8 out of 10, a fictional prospect, family practice area, high urgency, summary, and the Approve and send, Edit draft buttons.
The suggested reply on iPhone, marked as a draft until it is sent, and the append-only timeline of the enquiry: received, triaged and scored, routed to a fee earner, acknowledgement sent.

Real platform and app, fictional firm and people.

What it is worth

A worked example, with its assumptions.

Not a promise: visible arithmetic, to redo with your own numbers.

Assumptions for a firm of 3 to 9 lawyers
£108,000of fees at stake a year, in this example, that is 27 matters
Enquiries received a month, all channels30
Share unanswered, answered too late or never read30%
Conversion of an enquiry handled in time25%
Fees on a family matter, an assumption to replace with yours£4,000
Annual subscription, Firm tier, list price£11,940
Break-even3 matters a year

30 × 30% × 25% = 2.25 matters a month × 12 = 27 × £4,000 = £108,000 a year

“At stake” means the fees of the matters concerned, not a forecast of instructions or guaranteed revenue. This example assumes a family matter of £4,000, the middle of the £2,000 to £6,000 range used here. The range is an assumption, not an average measured across firms; put your own figure in its place. The setup fee, refundable in full, is left out of the calculation.

What the research measures

67%

of law firms never reply to an enquiry sent by e-mail.

Source: Clio Legal Trends Report, secret-shopper study of 500 law firms, 2024. The figure describes observed response behaviour, not a result to expect from Lorne & Vale.

Security and confidentiality

Enquiries this personal, handled as such.

Four controls you can verify, described without superlatives.

Anonymised before any model

Names, e-mails, phone numbers and other identifiers are replaced by tokens before an enquiry reaches a model. The mapping is sealed under the firm’s key.

Isolated per firm

Every client-data table carries a per-firm access rule, checked by automated tests on every change.

Documents sealed in the browser

Every document is encrypted before upload under two key exchanges, X25519 and ML-KEM-1024. Uploads are bounded, type-checked and content-inspected: embedded programs are refused.

Chained, signed audit trail

Sensitive actions are hash-linked and the head of the chain is signed daily with ML-DSA-87. The iPhone app verifies the signature on the device.

What we do not claim: no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certification, and no external penetration test to date. Hosting on Supabase (EU, Ireland) and Vercel; the model is called through a server-side proxy, with no training on your data under OpenAI’s default policy.

See the security architecture
Pricing

A flat fee for the whole firm.

Family law is the practice area included. An additional practice area is £250 per month. No per-seat or per-enquiry charge. A one-time setup fee, refundable in full under the No-Miss Guarantee. Prices exclude VAT.

Live in 7 days, a 60-day pilot then month to month, cancel any time, export your data any time. Read the guarantee in full.

Intake audit · 15 minutes

See what this would change in your firm.

Fifteen minutes with a founder. Your channels, your volume, your family law enquiries. You leave with a costed estimate and a clear answer, including if it is not for you.

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