How do I answer this inquiry without taking the case?
A first-reply email template with a no-advice notice and a clear conflicts status. Free, no sign-up, and the inquiry never leaves your browser.
This page needs JavaScript to build a draft. Everything it would say is below: the notices it always includes, the questions it asks for each matter type, and the four things it must not write.
What you paste stays on this device. It is never sent anywhere, and we cannot see it.
Pick a province and a matter area first.
Nothing here is saved, so bookmark the page rather than the draft.
How the law firm email template works
Every reply on this page is built around a fixed set of sentences we wrote once and check on every run. A model doesn't write it from scratch. The parts that carry the weight aren't written by a model at all.
Your browser reads the paste first, on your device, and a keyword pass suggests a matter area. Next, a rule engine looks at your province, the matter, whether conflicts have been run and whether the file is time-sensitive. From those it picks the notices this reply has to carry and three or four screening questions for that matter type.
Then, and only if you press the button, a request goes out carrying settings. Not sentences. A common-law-or-Quebec key, the matter and tone you picked, other short keys, and lists of selected notice and question ids. Our endpoint passes the model the short settings, boolean slot flags and the question count. It does not pass the actual province or the ids.
The model writes the joins, and only the joins. The greeting, the line that introduces the questions, the line that hands over to your next step, the sign-off. It writes them with placeholders where your words go, and your browser puts your words in afterwards. So the fee sentence in the finished email is the fee sentence you typed, character for character. Nothing rewrote it, because the model never saw it.
Then a checker runs. It refuses any model-written field containing a digit. The request carries ids and a question count, but the model is instructed not to repeat or invent a number in the prose. It also refuses the phrases on a list we keep: "your case", "we represent", "we'll fight", "limitation period". It confirms each locked notice is present word for word.
If a draft fails once, you get the plain version instead, assembled without the model. You have already seen it: the example reply is built that way, before you press anything.
Who this is for
It's for Canadian solo and small-firm lawyers, and for the legal assistant or intake coordinator who owns the shared inbox and gets there first. In Ontario, the person replying may be a paralegal: a licensee of the Law Society of Ontario in their own right, with a scope that differs from a lawyer's.
It's 8:40 on a Tuesday. Six inquiries came in overnight, each one needing a prompt first response, and the old Word snippet says "your case" in its second sentence.
Use it when you haven't decided whether to take the matter, the conflicts check hasn't been run yet, and the reply still has to go out today.
Canadian law firm questions about the first reply email
How quickly should a firm reply to a new inquiry?
Promptly enough to keep the intake moving, and not so fast that speed replaces the checks your firm needs. The tool drafts the acknowledgement and the screening questions in the time it takes to read the inquiry. Then it puts the conflicts position, the urgency prompt and your regulator's name beside the result, so the last look before you send is a real one.
Does the inquiry text leave my browser?
No. Not redacted, not summarized, not hashed. It is read on your device to suggest a matter area, and nothing else. When you press the button, the request to our endpoint carries a common-law-or-Quebec key, the matter, the tone, other fixed settings and derived ids. Not the actual province, and nothing you typed. Our endpoint passes the model only validated settings, boolean slot flags and the question count. A check refuses to send if anything you typed turns up.
Is this a non-engagement letter?
No, and the difference matters. A non-engagement letter says you are not taking the matter. This is the reply you send before you have decided: it acknowledges, it asks what you need to know, and it keeps every door open. If you have already decided to decline, you want the other document, and you want to send it promptly.
When does a lawyer-client relationship actually begin?
An inbound email does not answer that by itself. A lawyer-client relationship may be established without formality. That is why the reply says the firm has not agreed to act, and asks the prospect not to read it as confirmation that you have. That sentence is locked. It appears in every draft, and the model cannot rewrite it.
Can I send this before the conflicts check is done?
The tool can build a reply before the conflicts check is done. It can't decide whether sending that reply is appropriate. With conflicts marked not yet run, the next step in the draft is worded as conditional and the pre-send note tells you to run the check. Mark conflicts cleared only once your firm has actually completed it.
What about the information they already sent me?
That one is for your own law society's guidance on prospective clients, and its name sits in the pre-send note beside every draft. The tool doesn't tell you what your duties are. It does lock the notices: that the firm has not agreed to act, that nothing in the message is legal advice, where the conflicts check stands and, unless you mark the matter as not time-sensitive, the note about not waiting. Those read word for word in every email draft, and the text-length version carries its own fixed short notice. The sentences joining them are generated. The model is told never to say the firm has read or reviewed what the person sent, and never to comment on the merits, but it can still get that wrong, so read every generated sentence before you send it.
Why will it not tell them the deadline?
Because limitation periods differ by province and by matter, Quebec runs on prescription rather than limitation, and a wrong date in a first reply is worse than no date at all. So the notices prompt and never count. The prospect is told that matters like theirs can be time-sensitive and not to wait. You are told, in your own note, to review the position before you send.
Does it work outside Ontario?
All thirteen provinces and territories. The selection changes the law society named in your pre-send note. Quebec changes more: the role labels, prescription instead of limitation in the note, the notary wording in place of the lawyer wording when that role is selected, and a block that says plainly the draft is in English only.
What a law firm email template has to carry in Canada
Search for a law firm intake email template and you will find two things: US website disclaimers written to a particular state's conduct rules, and non-engagement letters for matters you have already turned down. Neither is the thing a small Canadian practice needs at 8:40 on a Tuesday with six overnight inquiries in a shared inbox.
What that firm needs is one reply it can review quickly. The reply has to acknowledge, ask the three or four screening questions selected for that matter type, state the firm's own next step and its own fee wording, and say four things plainly: no advice is being given, the firm has not agreed to act, the conflicts position is stated, and the person should not sit on it. Keeping those points explicit makes the reply easier to check before it leaves the firm.
Canadian vocabulary matters too. The regulator is a law society, not a state bar, and the person answering to it is a lawyer or, in Ontario, a licensee who may be a paralegal. The clock is a limitation period, or prescription in Quebec. A template that says "attorney" wasn't written for your file.
Free, no sign-up, and the inquiry text stays on your device.
Sources and last checked
- The law society names come from the Federation of Law Societies of Canada, "About Us" (flsc.ca/about-us), read on 2026-09-08.
- The notices, the screening questions and the plain-version wording (
clauses.v1,questions.v1,templates.v1) were written for this tool. They are not quotations from a statute, a rule or a law society by-law, and they cite none. - The directory category and province links (
directory-categories.v1) were checked on 2026-09-08 by loading each page and reading its body.
Last checked: 2026-09-08.
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Next steps
Prospects who contact several firms find those firms somewhere. In our directory, that's a category page for their matter, in their city. The directory links in the tool above follow the province and matter you pick.
Getting listed is free. Our business centre says leads are free and there is no referral fee, and we put that in writing rather than in a sales call.
There's no account here and no saved history to come back to, so bookmark the page before the next batch of overnight inquiries lands.
We are not your law firm and this is not legal advice. What comes out of this page is a draft communication for a licensee to review and send. Your name goes on it, so read it first.