These Customer Terms and Conditions (“Terms”) apply when you access or use legal-hotline.com, call our hotline, use our AI-assisted legal information service, submit an enquiry, make a booking, pay a booking and administration fee, or otherwise use the services offered through legal-hotline.com.
legal-hotline.com is operated by Platfirm AI Pty Ltd, ABN 24 679 859 744, trading as Legal Hotline (“Legal Hotline”, “Platfirm AI”, “we”, “us”, or “our”).
Please read these Terms carefully before using the service. By using the website, calling the hotline, submitting your details, making a booking, or paying the booking and administration fee, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any disclaimer or notice displayed on our website or provided during the service.
In these Terms:
“Legal Hotline”, “Platfirm AI”, “we”, “us”, and “our” mean Platfirm AI Pty Ltd, ABN 24 679 859 744, trading as Legal Hotline.
“Customer” means a person who pays Legal Hotline for booking, intake, AI legal information, administration, and appointment coordination services.
“Caller” means a person who contacts the hotline, whether or not they pay the booking and administration fee.
“User” means any person who uses the website, hotline, AI system, booking system, or related services.
“Participating Lawyer” means an Australian lawyer or Australian law practice that has agreed to participate in the Legal Hotline platform.
“Prospective client” means a person who consults with a Participating Lawyer about the possibility of forming a lawyer-client relationship.
“Client” means a person whom a Participating Lawyer has agreed to represent under a separate lawyer-client engagement.
Legal Hotline provides AI-assisted legal information, intake, triage, appointment booking, administration, and coordination services.
We help people who need legal assistance connect with independent Participating Lawyers who have agreed to accept bookings through the platform.
Legal Hotline is not a law firm. Platfirm AI does not practise law. Platfirm AI does not provide legal advice. Legal advice can only be provided by an Australian lawyer with an appropriate practising certificate.
Our AI-powered hotline may provide general legal information at no charge, 24 hours a day.
The free AI hotline is for general legal information only. It does not provide legal advice. It does not create a lawyer-client relationship. It is not a substitute for advice from a qualified Australian lawyer.
Legal information is general information about legal topics, legal processes, possible options, risks, and next steps.
Legal advice is advice about what you should do in your specific circumstances. Legal advice can only be provided by a qualified Australian lawyer.
You may end any call at any time.
You may book a one-hour initial lawyer consultation with a Participating Lawyer through legal-hotline.com/book, through our hotline, or through another booking channel we make available.
The fee charged to Customers is a booking, intake, AI legal information, administration, and appointment coordination fee.
The current fee is AUD $295 including GST, unless a different amount is displayed at the time of booking.
The $295 fee is paid to Platfirm AI.
The $295 fee is:
The fee covers Legal Hotline’s services, including some or all of the following:
Participating Lawyers or their law practices may pay Legal Hotline a flat subscription or platform fee to access and participate in the Legal Hotline marketplace.
As part of their contractual arrangement with Legal Hotline, Participating Lawyers agree to provide one initial consultation of up to one hour at no further charge to eligible Customers booked through the platform.
The Participating Lawyer is not paid by Platfirm AI from your $295 fee.
The initial lawyer consultation may take place by phone, video, or in person, depending on availability, location, the lawyer’s practice arrangements, and the option selected or arranged.
The initial lawyer consultation is provided by the Participating Lawyer independently and under the lawyer’s own professional obligations.
Legal Hotline does not control the lawyer’s:
The initial consultation may include preliminary legal advice, general assessment of your situation, discussion of options, explanation of next steps, and discussion of possible ongoing representation.
Unless expressly agreed with the Participating Lawyer, the initial consultation does not include court attendance, document drafting, negotiations, representation, urgent filings, correspondence, or ongoing legal work.
No lawyer-client relationship is created between you and Platfirm AI or Legal Hotline.
You do not become a client of Platfirm AI because Platfirm AI is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice.
You do not become a client of any Participating Lawyer merely because you:
You may become a prospective client of a Participating Lawyer when you consult with that lawyer about possible representation.
You become a client of a Participating Lawyer only if that lawyer or law practice agrees to represent you, subject to conflict checks, professional obligations, engagement terms, costs disclosure obligations, and applicable law.
Using Legal Hotline does not guarantee that any Participating Lawyer will agree to act for you after the initial consultation.
After the initial consultation, any ongoing legal work is entirely between you and the Participating Lawyer or their law practice.
The Participating Lawyer may offer to act for you, decline to act, request further information, provide a quote, provide costs disclosure, propose engagement terms, or explain that your matter is not suitable for that lawyer.
If you choose to retain the Participating Lawyer after the initial consultation, you must enter into a separate engagement agreement directly with that lawyer or law practice. Platfirm AI is not a party to that agreement.
Platfirm AI receives no percentage of any legal fees if you later retain the Participating Lawyer. Platfirm AI receives no success fee, referral commission, or share of the Participating Lawyer’s legal fees.
We aim to connect Customers with Participating Lawyers where suitable and available.
However, lawyer availability is not guaranteed.
Availability may depend on:
If we cannot arrange a suitable initial consultation after accepting your booking, our refund or rebooking policy will apply.
When you pay the booking and administration fee, your enquiry may be offered to Participating Lawyers or participating Australian law practices through our marketplace or booking system.
A Participating Lawyer or law practice may claim or accept the booking and contact you to schedule or conduct the initial consultation.
Participating Lawyers are expected to hold appropriate Australian practising certificates or to practise through law practices that are authorised to provide legal services in Australia. However, each Participating Lawyer and law practice is responsible for their own practising rights, insurance, professional obligations, conflict checks, and compliance.
We do not guarantee any specific lawyer, law practice, location, outcome, or ongoing representation.
Legal Hotline may route or match Callers and Customers to Participating Lawyers based on factors including:
Participating Lawyers or their law practices may pay Legal Hotline a flat subscription or platform fee to participate in the marketplace.
Legal Hotline does not receive payment from Participating Lawyers based on:
Unless expressly stated, Legal Hotline does not certify, endorse, guarantee, or recommend any Participating Lawyer as the “best” lawyer for your matter.
We aim to confirm a Participating Lawyer for your enquiry within 24 hours of payment.
If we are unable to confirm a Participating Lawyer for your enquiry within 24 hours of payment, you are entitled to a full refund, unless you agree to extend the booking period or accept another arrangement.
This guarantee applies to confirmation of a Participating Lawyer, not to the completion of the initial consultation within 24 hours.
The $295 fee is a booking, intake, AI legal information, administration, and appointment coordination fee.
Subject to your rights under the Australian Consumer Law and other applicable consumer protection laws, the following refund and cancellation rules apply.
You may cancel before a Participating Lawyer or law practice is allocated to your enquiry and receive a full refund.
You may cancel after a Participating Lawyer is allocated but before the consultation and receive a full refund if you cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled consultation.
Cancellations within 24 hours of the scheduled consultation may not be refundable, unless required by law or unless we or the Participating Lawyer agree otherwise.
After the initial consultation has occurred, the consultation has been delivered and no refund is available, except where required by law.
If the Participating Lawyer fails to deliver the consultation, we will use reasonable efforts to rebook you with the same lawyer or another Participating Lawyer. If we cannot reasonably do so, you are entitled to a full refund.
If your matter is unsuitable for the platform, outside the states, territories, or practice areas we currently service, or cannot be handled due to conflict, licensing, regulatory, or practical reasons, we may decline or cancel the booking and may provide a refund or rebooking depending on the circumstances.
Refund decisions may also be affected by payment processor rules, chargeback rules, consumer law, and applicable law.
Nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable refund, chargeback, or consumer rights you may have under the Australian Consumer Law or other applicable consumer protection laws.
Refund requests should be sent to [email protected].
Our services may come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law.
Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, remedy, or protection that cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted, or modified.
The ACCC explains that consumers have rights and guarantees when buying products and services, and these rights are separate from anything a business says in its terms or policies.
To the extent permitted by law, and subject to any non-excludable rights, our liability may be limited as set out in these Terms.
We do not record calls.
We may generate a written transcript, intake note, or summary of your call for the limited purpose of providing the service.
This may include:
Call transcripts, intake notes, and summaries are used to assist with intake, booking, appointment coordination, and accurate handover to a Participating Lawyer.
We do not use call transcripts for AI model training, general marketing, unrelated analytics, or unrelated business purposes.
We do not keep call transcripts for longer than reasonably necessary for intake, booking, handover to a Participating Lawyer, customer support, dispute handling, legal compliance, and ordinary administration.
Where practical, we may delete, de-identify, or minimise transcripts after they are no longer reasonably required for those purposes.
Although calls are not recorded, you should not provide more sensitive information than is reasonably necessary for us to understand your enquiry and arrange the initial lawyer consultation.
We use AI systems to assist with legal information, intake, classification, triage, summarisation, appointment routing, quality assurance, and administration.
AI outputs may be incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or unsuitable for your specific circumstances.
AI does not replace a lawyer. AI does not provide legal advice. AI does not create a lawyer-client relationship.
We may use AI to summarise your matter and provide information to a Participating Lawyer for the purpose of arranging or preparing for your initial consultation.
We do not use call transcripts to train AI models.
Our collection, use, disclosure, retention, and protection of personal information is described in our Privacy Policy.
The Australian Privacy Principles regulate the collection, use, disclosure, quality, security, access to, and correction of personal information for APP entities.
By using the service, you agree that we may collect and use your information as described in our Privacy Policy, including sharing relevant intake and booking information with Participating Lawyers for the purpose of arranging and conducting your initial consultation.
Payments are processed by Stripe or another payment processor we may use from time to time.
We do not collect or store full payment card details on our own systems.
Third-party payment processor terms may apply to your payment processing.
You agree to provide accurate payment information and authorise the applicable charge.
You agree that we may contact you by phone, SMS, email, or other electronic means about your enquiry, booking, payment, appointment, reminders, follow-up, refunds, service updates, and related matters.
You are responsible for ensuring that your contact details are accurate and that you can receive communications from us and from Participating Lawyers.
Participating Lawyers and participating law practices are independent professionals or independent legal practices.
They are not employees, partners, agents, or representatives of Platfirm AI unless expressly stated in writing.
Each Participating Lawyer and law practice is solely responsible for their own:
Platfirm AI is not responsible for legal advice provided by Participating Lawyers or for any ongoing legal services you agree to purchase from them.
We do not guarantee that:
Legal Hotline is not an emergency service.
If your matter involves immediate danger, risk of harm, arrest, violence, abuse, self-harm, child safety, or other emergency circumstances, you should contact emergency services or an appropriate crisis service immediately.
If your matter involves an urgent legal deadline, court appearance, limitation period, immigration deadline, eviction, arrest, protection order, bail issue, police issue, or other time-sensitive issue, you should seek urgent advice from a qualified lawyer immediately.
We do not guarantee that we can arrange an appointment before any deadline.
Website content is provided for general information only.
It may not be current, complete, or applicable to your state, territory, or circumstances.
Laws vary between Australian jurisdictions and change over time.
You should obtain advice from a qualified Australian lawyer before acting or failing to act based on any legal information.
You agree not to:
We may decline service, end calls, cancel bookings, suspend access, or refuse future service at our discretion where this clause is breached.
All content on legal-hotline.com, including text, logos, design, workflows, prompts, forms, software, and the AI assistant, is owned by Platfirm AI Pty Ltd or our licensors.
You may not reproduce, distribute, modify, scrape, copy, reverse engineer, or create derivative works from our content, website, software, or AI systems without our written consent, except as permitted by law.
To the extent permitted by law, Platfirm AI is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, loss of opportunity, loss of data, legal consequences, or loss arising from your use of or inability to use the service.
To the extent permitted by law, Platfirm AI’s total liability for any claim arising from your use of legal-hotline.com is limited to the amount you paid us, if any, in the 12 months preceding the claim.
Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any rights, guarantees, remedies, or liabilities that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law or other applicable consumer protection law.
The service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of accuracy, reliability, availability, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, timely, or suitable for your matter.
This clause does not limit any non-excludable consumer guarantees or rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
We may update these Terms from time to time.
The “Last updated” date at the top reflects the most recent version.
By continuing to use the service after updated Terms are posted, you accept the updated Terms.
These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia.
Disputes will be resolved in the courts of New South Wales, subject to any non-excludable rights you may have under applicable consumer protection law.
Questions about these Terms, bookings, cancellations, or refunds may be sent to:
Platfirm AI Pty Ltd
ABN 24 679 859 744
Email: [email protected]
Website: legal-hotline.com