The safest pattern is AI-drafted, person-sent. Keep a short status note on every matter, let AI turn it into a plain reply when a client asks "where are we?", and send routine updates before clients need to ask. Only let an assistant answer clients directly once they log in securely and it reads from the matter record, never from memory.
The obstacle is rarely the AI. It's that the answer to "where are we?" usually lives in the fee earner's head, or is scattered across emails, file notes and a task list. An AI can write a clear, warm reply in seconds, but only from something written down. So the real work is a status note that takes a minute to update after each action. Get that habit in place and the drafting almost looks after itself.
The status questions clients actually ask
Write down what your clients ask before designing anything. For a typical small firm doing a mix of residential, probate and civil work, the list looks something like this, with the fact each answer depends on:
| Question | What the answer needs |
|---|---|
| "Is there any news?" | Last action and date; what you're waiting for |
| "When will it be finished?" | Expected date and how firm it is |
| "Have you heard back from the other side?" | Date of last chaser and any reply |
| "Do you need anything from me?" | Client actions outstanding |
| "Why is it taking so long?" | Who or what the delay sits with |
| "What happens next?" | Next step and who takes it |
| "How much has it cost so far?" | Costs to date against estimate (a person answers) |
| "Did you get my documents?" | Receipt date of each item |
Most of these need four or five facts. None of them needs legal analysis, which is why they're suitable for AI drafting at all.
A matter status note the AI can work from
Here's a filled-in status note for an illustrative probate matter. It sits at the top of the matter file or in a custom field in your case management system.
STATUS NOTE - Estate of [deceased], matter 4410
Updated: 18 Sept by RK
Stage: Collecting assets (stage 3 of 5)
Last action: 16 Sept - chased Bank B for closing statement
Waiting on: Bank B closing balance (requested 2 Sept);
valuation of the car from the dealer (requested 10 Sept)
Next step: once both received, prepare estate accounts (RK)
Expected: estate accounts to executors in about 4-6 weeks,
depending on Bank B
Client actions outstanding: executor to sign the share
transfer form sent 12 Sept
Do not say: nothing about distribution dates until accounts
are approved; beneficiary dispute (see file note 3 Sept)Two fields do most of the protective work. "Expected" carries its own uncertainty in words ("about 4-6 weeks, depending on Bank B"), so the AI has a range to repeat rather than a date to invent. "Do not say" keeps sensitive matters out of routine replies; here it stops a cheerful update mentioning the beneficiary dispute to one executor who may not know the detail.
The "Expected" field decides more about the quality of replies than any prompt. Three ways the same field gets filled in, and what the AI does with each:
| Expected field says | What the drafted reply tends to say | Problem |
|---|---|---|
| "Soon" | "We expect to complete this in the next week or two" | The model turns a vague word into a period, which the client then holds you to |
| "30 Sept" | "The estate accounts will be ready on 30 September" | A target becomes a promise; if Bank B is late, so are you |
| "About 4-6 weeks, depending on Bank B" | "We expect the accounts in about four to six weeks, depending on when the bank replies" | None: the range and the dependency both survive |
Write the range and what it depends on, every time. If you genuinely don't know, "Expected: can't estimate until Bank B replies" is a perfectly good entry, and the reply will say so honestly.
Updating it is part of each action, not an extra task: the fee earner who sends the chaser changes "Last action" there and then. If your case management system has stage fields and task lists, much of this can be pulled automatically, and only "Expected" and "Do not say" need a person.
Three levels of automation, from drafted replies to self-service
| Level | How it works | Tools | Main risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Drafted replies | A client emails asking for news; AI drafts a reply from the status note; the fee earner or assistant checks and sends | Copilot in Outlook, a chat assistant with the note pasted in, or your practice software's AI | A stale note produces a wrong reply |
| 2. Proactive updates | Updates drafted on a schedule or when the matter changes stage, approved in a batch | Practice software AI, or an automation reading status fields | Batch approval turning into rubber-stamping |
| 3. Self-service | Clients log into a portal and ask an assistant, which answers from the live record | Portal-based assistants | Answers without any person seeing them |
Level 2 is where most small firms get the best return, because it stops the calls before they're made. If you're on Clio, its Manage AI already works this way: it watches matter activity such as completed tasks, uploaded documents and stage changes, suggests when a client update is due, and prepares a draft populated with matter context for the responsible lawyer or staff member to review and send. Drafts are only visible to those responsible people and expire after a day, and the feature is on Clio's Essentials, Advanced and Expand plans. On Microsoft 365, Copilot in Outlook can draft replies (Microsoft 365 Copilot Business is $21 per user a month on annual billing); Copilot in Outlook for triage and drafting covers the practicalities.
The reply-drafting prompt
Draft a reply to the client's email below using only the status
note. Rules:
- Answer their actual question in the first sentence.
- Use the "Expected" wording as written; never give a firmer date.
- Mention client actions outstanding, with what to do.
- Say nothing covered by "Do not say".
- Don't comment on the likely outcome or on costs; if they ask
about either, say [FEE EARNER] will reply on that separately.
- Warm, plain, under 150 words.
Status note: {paste}
Client email: {paste}An illustrative client email: "Hi, it's been ages, is there any update? My sister says estates usually take six months and we're past that." An illustrative draft in reply:
"Hi [first name], thanks for checking in. We're at the stage of collecting the estate's assets. We're waiting for two things: a closing statement from Bank B, which we chased again on 16 September, and a valuation of the car. Once we have both, we'll prepare the estate accounts for you, which we expect in about four to six weeks, depending on the bank. There's one thing we need from you: could you sign and return the share transfer form we sent on 12 September? Every estate is different, but yours should be finished well within the usual timescale. Best wishes, [fee earner]"
One sentence has to go: the last. "Yours should be finished well within the usual timescale" isn't in the note, commits the firm to something, and answers the sister's comparison with a reassurance nobody authorised. Delete it. Everything else is accurate to the note, and the draft took seconds. After a few edits like this, add a line to the prompt: "don't compare with typical timescales".
The stale note is the other common failure, and it shows up in the client's reply. In an illustrative case on the same kind of matter, Bank B's closing statement arrived on 20 September and was saved to the file, but the status note still said "Waiting on: Bank B" from 18 September. The drafted reply told the executor the firm was still chasing the bank. The executor replied the same afternoon: "The bank told me they sent it last week." Nothing was wrong with the prompt or the model; the reply was faithful to a note that was out of date. The check that prevents it takes seconds: before approving any draft, compare the note's "Updated" date with the most recent document or entry on the matter, and if anything is newer, update the note and redraft.
Before and after: a terse note becomes a reply the client understands
Fee earners' own notes are usually written for themselves. Here's the difference drafting makes on an illustrative civil matter.
Before (the fee earner's file note): "Def sols chased 2x re disclosure, no resp. Consider app if nothing by 30th. Cl to send invoices Mar-May."
After (drafted reply, approved): "The other side's solicitors haven't yet sent the documents they're required to provide, despite two reminders from us. We'll give them until 30 September and then discuss next steps with you. In the meantime, could you send us your invoices for March to May? That will help us whatever happens next."
Notice the approved version doesn't say "we'll make an application". "Consider app" in the note is the fee earner's option, not a decision, and a client who reads "we will apply to court" hears a commitment. The prompt's rule about outcomes, plus the reviewer, kept it as "discuss next steps with you".
Proactive updates need the same care when nothing has happened, because a bare "no update this week" reads as "nobody's looked at your file". Compare two fortnightly updates on the probate matter:
- Before: "Dear [first name], there is no update on the estate at present. We will be in touch when there is news."
- After: "Dear [first name], a short update on the estate. We're still waiting for Bank B's closing statement; we chased again on Monday and will keep chasing weekly until it arrives. The car valuation came in at the figure the dealer indicated. Nothing is needed from you this fortnight. Next update: [date two weeks on], or sooner if the bank replies."
The second takes the same facts from the status note and shows the work: what you did, what's changed, what you need, and when they'll hear next. The AI can produce it every fortnight from a note that took a minute to update.
What an AI status reply must never do
- Predict the outcome. "Things look positive" is advice, however kindly meant.
- Give a date the note doesn't contain, or firm up a range into a date.
- Reply to an unverified sender. Check the email address matches the one on file. A realistic incident: an address one character different from the client's asks for "a quick update and confirmation of which account my share of the estate will be paid into". A drafted reply that helpfully restates the matter details is a gift to a fraudster. Status replies never include bank details, and any message mentioning payment instructions goes to a person.
- Disclose to someone without authority. Family members, co-executors or business partners asking on the client's behalf need to be authorised on the file. When a client's adult son emails asking how his mother's house sale is going and he isn't on the file, the draft should be a polite holding reply, and a person should approve it: "Thank you for getting in touch. We can only discuss a client's matter with people they've authorised us to speak to, so we'll contact [client] directly and, if she'd like us to keep you updated, we can arrange that with her." Put that wording in the prompt as the fixed response for any sender not listed as authorised.
- Discuss costs beyond pointing to a person, unless you've built a separate, checked costs summary.
A probate practice moves to proactive updates
To put numbers on it, take an illustrative two-solicitor probate practice with about 60 open estates. Before the change, the team estimates around 35 status calls and emails a week, each taking five to ten minutes to find the file and answer, or roughly four to five hours a week, much of it interrupting drafting work.
- Setup (a fortnight): a status note added to all 60 matters, about ten minutes each, so roughly ten hours spread across the team. A fortnightly update rhythm agreed and explained to clients by letter.
- Running: every other Monday, the assistant drafts updates for all matters that changed or are due one; a solicitor reviews them in one sitting, about 45 minutes for 30 drafts, and they go out. That's 90 seconds a draft, which is enough to read each one properly but not enough to reread the file, so the reviewer reads every date and every sentence mentioning another person, and trusts the note for the rest. In one illustrative batch, 26 went unchanged, 3 needed a one-line edit, and 1 was held back because it mentioned a property sale to a co-executor whose note said "Do not say: sale price until all executors agree".
- After three months: incoming status questions fall noticeably, because clients hear before they need to ask. The remaining questions are real ones, often about something the update revealed, and the drafted-reply process handles them.
These figures are illustrative. The measure worth tracking is status questions per open matter per month, before and after. It's also worth reading five sent updates a month to check the "Do not say" field is being respected; that's where a quiet failure would do the most damage.
In a family practice the mechanics are the same but the tone differs. Status questions there often carry anxiety, and "nothing new this week" can land badly. Family teams tend to keep level 2 updates short and factual, and put more effort into the first sentence of level 1 replies, which should acknowledge the question as well as answer it.
Measuring whether clients feel better informed
Track four things monthly: inbound status questions per open matter (for the probate practice above, 35 a week across 60 estates is about 150 a month, or 2.5 per matter; if proactive updates bring that to 60 a month, it's 1.0 per matter), time from a client's question to a reply, complaints or feedback that mention communication, and how many drafts needed more than a one-line edit. If edits stay high, the status notes aren't being kept up, and the fix is the habit, not the prompt. For triaging the inbox that these questions arrive in, see AI email triage for professional firms. Anything moving towards a client-facing assistant needs the handover rules in when an AI chatbot should hand over to a human, and the confidentiality questions in whether solicitors can use ChatGPT without breaching confidentiality apply to every level. If new enquiries rather than existing clients are the pressure point, AI client intake for law firms covers the out-of-hours side.
AI status updates: common questions
Can we let an AI chatbot answer status questions directly?
Only once clients log in securely, the assistant reads from the live matter record rather than from what it has been told before, and it is limited to stating what the record says. Even then, keep anything about outcomes, costs or deadlines with a person. Most small firms get most of the benefit from drafted replies and proactive updates without taking that risk.
How often should proactive updates go out?
Match it to how fast the matter moves and what the client expects. Weekly suits active transactional or probate work; fortnightly or at each stage change suits slower litigation. Tell the client the rhythm in your client care letter, then stick to it. A short 'nothing new this week, still waiting on X' is better than silence.
What if the matter status note is out of date?
Then the update will be wrong, so the note has to be updated as part of each action, not afterwards. A useful rule is that no status reply is drafted from a note older than the last recorded activity on the matter. If the note is stale, the fee earner updates it first; that takes a minute and prevents the most common error.
Further reads
- How Conveyancers Use AI to Cut Admin on Each Transaction — Status updates in the busiest status-question practice area.
- How to Write Reply Templates That Keep AI Replies On-Script — Templates that keep AI-drafted replies consistent.
- How to Add Human Approval Steps to AI Automations — Add approval steps without creating a backlog.
- AI for Small Law Firms: What to Automate First — Where status updates rank among first automations.
- Can AI Keep Mortgage Clients Updated During an Application? — The same problem solved in a neighbouring profession.
- ChatGPT or a Legal AI Tool: Which Should a Small Firm Use? — Which legal tasks a business ChatGPT plan handles safely, which need a legal research tool, and how a three-lawyer firm split the budget.
- How Small Law Firms Use AI to Draft Letters and Routine Documents — A precedent-first way to draft routine legal letters with AI: risk bands, a cleaned precedent pack, a fill-and-flag prompt and a fee-earner checklist.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Clio Help Centre, Manage AI: Draft Client Communications and Matter and Contact Summaries; Microsoft 365 Copilot Business pricing and Copilot in Outlook documentation.