Conveyancing Client Updates: What to Automate First

I'd start with the answer already sitting in the matter record: what has happened, what is outstanding and what happens next. Build three drafting workflows around that information, keep a person responsible for sending, and measure whether clients need to chase less often.

Which Three Conveyancing Client Updates Should You Automate First?

My first choice is routine status communication. The trade-off is straightforward: drafting from a reliable matter record is a smaller job than asking a system to interpret a contract or explain a client's legal position. This follows the same approach as Truespeak's guide to choosing the first law firm workflows to automate.

1. Milestone Updates from Matter Steps

Trigger: A recorded matter step changes, such as exchange, searches received or settlement booked. The trigger must come from a checked record, rather than a guess based on an email.

Prepare: A short update explaining what happened, what comes next and any action already assigned to the client. Pull dates from the matter; don't let the drafting system calculate or invent them.

Approve and record: The conveyancer or clerk checks the recipient, milestone, dates and wording before sending. Save the approved message and send record to the matter.

Measure: Count status calls and emails per matter, plus whether updates went out when the practice intended.

2. Replies to 'Where Are We Up to?' Emails

Trigger: An incoming client email or portal message. Match the sender to the correct matter before gathering the current step and outstanding items. An uncertain match goes to a person.

Prepare: Draft a reply using that record. Flag questions about money, advice, changed dates or complaints for the responsible person to handle.

Approve and record: A person approves every reply. Save both the enquiry and the response to the matter, including any correction made before sending.

Measure: Track time to reply and the share of drafts sent without edits. Read the rejected drafts too: repeated corrections can point to missing context or an unreliable trigger.

3. The Settlement-Week Sequence

Trigger: A settlement date is booked or changed in the matter. Prepare a reminder covering the client's agreed tasks, such as final inspection and keys arrangements with the agent, plus the practice's fraud warning.

Approve and record: A person checks each message. Send the completion update only after a person confirms settlement has completed, then prepare the wrap-up. Save every message to the matter.

Measure: Track settlement-day status calls and missed or late messages. A changed date should stop any queued message that uses the previous date until someone checks it.

What Can Smokeball, Actionstep and Pexa Key Already Do?

Start inside the software you already pay for. As at October 2026, each vendor's own pages support the distinctions below. Confirm the features and configuration available to your practice before commissioning another connection.

For the connection decisions, see Truespeak's Actionstep integration guide. If you're reviewing the underlying practice software, the LEAP and Smokeball comparison covers that separate decision.

Who Owns Settlement-Day Updates After Pexa Key's Changes?

The practice should assign that responsibility to a named person, with a backup. Queensland Law Society's Proctor reported that PEXA Key removed settlement dates, times and settlement status push notifications from 14 April 2023, while retaining secure submission of client bank details into the workspace.

For the proposed workflow, the responsible person confirms completion, approves the client message and checks that it was sent. A calendar reaching the booked settlement time is never evidence that settlement completed.

What Should Never Go into an Automated Conveyancing Update?

I'd exclude bank details, trust payment instructions, account changes and legal advice entirely. Changed settlement figures, delays, disputes and failed settlements need personal handling before any routine follow-up.

Lawcover's advice, reported by the Law Society Journal, includes phoning clients to check emailed bank details and warning clients against relying on bank details apparently emailed by the practice. PEXA also explains that phone, text and email can expose bank-detail communication to errors and hacking attempts.

A practice could approve a standing warning such as: 'We will never change bank details by email. If you receive a request to change payment details, phone us on a number you already know.' That is a suggested practice policy, not a mandatory regulatory statement. Only use wording the practice can honour.

What Do NSW and Victorian Conduct Rules Say About Updates and Records?

The NSW Government's guidance for licensed conveyancers lists keeping clients informed, keeping records of certain communications and maintaining confidentiality. The guidance says transaction records must be kept safely for at least seven years unless lawfully transferred.

Consumer Affairs Victoria's conduct guidance says conveyancers must regularly communicate about progress. It also covers recording telephone conversations, enquiries and responses, and confirming non-trivial oral instructions in writing as soon as possible.

Build logging into the workflow from the start. These are conduct sources for licensed conveyancers; solicitors should check their applicable professional obligations with their law society or regulator. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Example: A Draft Update After Exchange

This is a proposed design, not a client result. A two-conveyancer practice has 40 open matters. On Tuesday, a clerk records exchange in the practice software.

The system prepares a buyer update using the cooling-off end date and finance deadline already recorded on that matter. The clerk checks that both dates apply, approves the wording and sends. The approved message is filed against the matter. Missing or conflicting dates send the draft back for review.

What Should You Measure Before Expanding the Automation?

Record a baseline for status enquiries per matter, reply times, update punctuality and settlement-day calls. Then compare those measures after introducing one workflow, accounting for changes in matter volume and stage.

I would also review edits, rejected drafts, incorrect matter matches and messages missing from the file. Fewer calls only count as progress if clients receive accurate updates and the practice retains a usable record.

Where Does Truespeak Fit?

For an Australian conveyancing practice that wants a drafting-and-approval layer built around its existing software and then run for it, with a person approving every message, Truespeak is built for exactly that.

I'm Sonny Hovsepian, Truespeak's Sydney-based founder, and clients work directly with me. At Nikon I built an AI chatbot that deflected 140+ customer service calls a month. Truespeak designs, builds and runs automation, then monitors failures, reviews exceptions and improves the rules. Where software has no usable connection, that step stays manual.

Truespeak designs, builds and runs systems for law firms, but has no past legal result to point to yet, so the workflow above is a design. Truespeak's law firm automation page explains the service, and the human approval guide explains the review approach. The first step is a discovery call to establish what your software can support.