Clio alternatives: 7 law practice management tools compared

Clio alternatives at a glance

Here is Clio beside seven practice management systems, covering who each fits, where it runs, how it handles documents and client intake, what it costs and how to try it. Gavel Workflows sits in the last row for firms that plan to keep their current system.

Why firms look for Clio alternatives

Clio sets the benchmark in this category. Founded in 2008, it says 150,000 legal professionals use it in more than 130 countries, and it counts more than 250 app integration partners. Its Starter plan has legal accounting built in, including trust and operating reconciliation, Clio completes annual SOC 2 Type II examinations, and firms can host data in Canada, the United States, Europe or Australia. Firms that shop for alternatives to Clio anyway tend to have one of three reasons.

• Seeing the price up front. Clio's US pricing page gives one figure, plans from $49 per user per month, and points buyers to "Get pricing" or a demo for pricing matched to their firm. MyCase, PracticePanther, CosmoLex and CARET Legal list a price for every tier, so a managing partner can compare costs before a sales call.
• A system shaped around one caseload. A personal injury firm may want Filevine's intake, deposition and deadline tools, and a family or probate practice may want Smokeball's form library and automatic time capture.
• What sits in the base subscription. Clio Grow, the intake and client acquisition suite, comes with Elite and is an add-on for Core and Signature. Clio Work, legal AI for research, analysis and drafting grounded in a firm's matters and the law, is sold on its own or in Signature Work and Elite Work packages.

1. MyCase: best for small firms that want intake, documents and billing together

Best for: solo and small firms that want client intake, document generation, billing and payments in one subscription, with every tier priced on the website.

MyCase says more than 19,000 firms choose it and that it partners with 130+ bar associations. Online intake forms feed a legal customer relationship management (CRM) pipeline that tracks prospects "from first contact through to signing," and documents can be "auto-filled with what intake already collected." Its AI, 8am IQ, is built into MyCase for document review, summaries, case timelines and legal writing.

• Price: per user per month, Basic is $50, Pro $100 and Advanced $130 billed annually, or $60, $120 and $150 billed monthly. Paying for the year up front saves up to 16%.
• Trial: 10 days, with no credit card required.
• Documents and intake: Pro adds unlimited eSignature and document generation, client intake forms and the legal CRM. Advanced adds Advanced Document Automation, the 8am IQ Case Assistant and an open API.
• Security: 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption for stored data, kept in Amazon facilities with nightly backups.

Limits: document generation and intake forms start on Pro, and the Basic plan's client portal is limited, so firms moving from Clio should price Pro or Advanced.

To weigh MyCase's built-in automation against a dedicated tool, see MyCase vs Gavel Workflows.

2. PracticePanther: best for solo and small firms that want a low entry price

Best for: solo lawyers and small firms that want a posted starting price, mobile apps on every plan and a self-serve trial.

PracticePanther calls itself "The Leader in All-in-One Legal Practice Management Software" and says more than 70 bar associations approve it. Every plan includes contact and matter management, time and expense tracking, a secure client portal, unlimited data storage and the iPhone, iPad and Android app, and the Solo plan already covers document templates and task and event workflows.

• Price: per user per month, Solo is $49, Essential $69, Business $89 and Business Pro $114 billed annually, or $59, $79, $99 and $124 billed monthly. Annual billing saves $120 per user per year.
• Trial: 7 days, no credit card needed.
• Intake and signatures: Business adds unlimited client intake forms, native eSignature, two-way business texting and Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) billing.
• Accounting: Business Pro adds a trust account ledger with reconciliation and operating accounting on an embedded general ledger.
• Security: 256-bit encryption, a security code sent to the user's phone for logins from unknown devices, and storage PracticePanther describes as compliant with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) standards.

Limits: intake forms and eSignature need Business or higher, and the full trust and operating accounting suite, PantherAccounting Plus with guided three-way trust reconciliation, comes with Business Pro, the top plan.

3. Smokeball: best for people-law firms that work in Word and Outlook

Best for: family law, probate, real estate, criminal and personal injury practices that fill in court and agency forms every week and want time captured automatically.

Smokeball's tagline is "Powering people law," and it says it's designed for solo lawyers, small firms and growing legal teams, with 34,000+ legal professionals using it. Its library holds over 20,000 form and document templates maintained by in-house legal experts, matter details populate each document, and TemplateLab specialists can turn a firm's own documents into automated templates. Smokeball "integrates closely with Microsoft Word and Outlook," and its Archie AI assistant drafts, reviews and answers questions inside a matter.

• Plans: Bill, Boost, Grow and Prosper+. Boost provides browser-based case management, Grow adds Smokeball's native desktop app, advanced document automation and automated forms, and Prosper+ includes AutoTime automatic time tracking, Intake and lead management.
• Price: not published on the US site. Smokeball quotes based on the number of users, the plan, the contract term and any optional products or services. Its Australian and United Kingdom (UK) sites list starting prices in local currency.
• Trial: the United States homepage and pricing page offer a demo and a personalized quote and don't mention a free trial. Smokeball's Australian site offers a free trial of Boost.
• Security: ISO 27001 certified, with hosting on Amazon Web Services.

Limits: you need a quote to compare costs in the US, and AutoTime and Intake are included on Prosper+ and sold as add-ons on some lower plans.

4. Filevine: best for personal injury and litigation-heavy firms

Best for: personal injury, mass torts and insurance defense firms that want case management, lead intake and deposition tools with AI working on each matter.

Filevine's homepage headline is "Legal AI that runs the firm." Its LOIS AI is "purpose-built to act on your matters," from setting tasks and moving deadlines to generating documents, and Filevine says LOIS is built on more than 40 million matters. The Matters package covers matter and document management, document assembly and billing, the Intake package runs on Lead Docket, and Depositions adds scheduling, Depo Copilot live transcription and AI summaries.

• Price: not published. Filevine says "All packages are custom built for your team's needs."
• Trial: LOIS Explore, a free tier of its AI research and drafting tool, needs no credit card. Filevine notes that it doesn't give access to Filevine Case Management.
• Deadlines: the Timely extension generates court deadlines "for any jurisdiction in the country."
• Security: an annual SOC 2 Type II audit, with private instances on Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Limits: pricing takes a conversation with sales, and the free tier covers LOIS without case management, so plan on a demo to see the matter tools.

5. CosmoLex: best for firms that want accounting inside practice management

Best for: small and mid-sized firms that want trust accounting, business accounting and billing in one system, without a separate bookkeeping tool.

CosmoLex describes itself as a "fully built-in practice management and firm accounting platform," and says it "eliminates the need for tools like QuickBooks." It's cloud and browser-based, holds client funds with automatic trust transfers and holds, and captures leads with logic-based intake forms that convert to matters. CosmoLex is part of ProfitSolv.

• Price: per user per month, Launch is $49, Core $99 and Pro $129 billed yearly, or $59, $109 and $139 billed monthly. Yearly billing saves $120 per user.
• Trial: 10 days, no credit card. The trial has the same functionality as a paid subscription except for a single bank feed connection.
• Accounting: built-in trust compliance and reconciliation reporting, plus general ledger accounting across trust, operating and business accounts.
• Documents and AI: document editing and assembly, AI document summaries and an AI intake form builder.
• Security: SOC 2 Type 2 controls, encryption in transit and at rest, and two-factor authentication come standard.

Limits: the CosmoLex CRM and LexShare/LexSign are add-ons that the trial leaves out, so ask for a demo if lead tracking or client document sharing matters to your choice.

6. Actionstep: best for midsize firms that want configurable workflows

Best for: midsize firms, often with several practice areas, that want to build their own matter workflows and are ready for a guided implementation.

Actionstep sells "Interconnected legal practice management software for midsize law firms." Firms build custom workflows that assign tasks, send reminders and move matters forward from intake to resolution, and it works in Outlook 365 through an add-in and on iOS and Android through its mobile app. Its Legal Accounting suite, which Actionstep lists as available only in North America, covers general ledger, banking, accounts payable, trust accounting and revenue recognition.

• Price: not published. Practice management and each add-on module are "Priced per user plus implementation fees."
• Regions: the pricing page has region options for the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
• Add-on modules: Builder for document automation from matter data, Capture for client intake, Trace for AI time capture and Acumen for analytics.
• Getting started: each firm works with a certified implementation partner before setup. Actionstep offers demos, and its pricing and home pages mention no free trial.
• Security: Actionstep says it has completed a SOC 2 Type 2 examination.

Limits: document automation and intake are separate per-user modules, and implementation fees come on top of licenses, so budget for both.

7. CARET Legal: best for firms that want email, accounting and analytics in one system

Best for: small and larger firms (CARET groups them as 1 to 30 and 30+ employees) that want built-in email and accounting, with standard analytics dashboards from Enterprise Plus and configurable reports on Enterprise Insights.

CARET Legal, formerly Zola Suite, is cloud practice management software "with billing, trust accounting, document automation, and time tracking built in," and CARET says more than 6,500 firms use it. The Enterprise plan includes built-in email, accounting, LEDES invoicing and phone support listed as 24/7/362. CARET AI works from firm data already in the system through tools called Capture, Command and Court Rules.

• Price: Enterprise $79, Enterprise Plus $99 and Enterprise Insights $119 per user per month, billed annually, plus one-time implementation fees.
• Trial: the pricing page has "Start free trial" buttons, and the request page offers a personalized demo. CARET doesn't state a trial length.
• Enterprise Plus: adds automated workflows, advanced document management, AI-generated document summaries and CARET Analytics with standard dashboards and reports.
• Enterprise Insights: adds CARET Analytics with configurable reports and dashboards.

Limits: the pricing page lists annual prices only, one-time implementation fees come on top, and automated workflows start on Enterprise Plus.

Where Gavel Workflows fits

Whichever practice management system a firm picks, document automation and client intake are separate jobs from billing, calendaring and trust accounting. Most systems above include some templates and intake forms, usually on a middle or upper tier. Gavel Workflows is no-code legal document automation software for that side of the work: clients or staff answer an intake questionnaire in the browser, and Gavel generates a complete set of Word and PDF documents with conditional logic from those answers.

• Clio Manage: the native integration pulls contacts, matters and custom fields from Clio Manage into a workflow and sends completed documents back to the Clio matter with one click. Gavel was a finalist for Best Practice of Law App in Clio's first Integration Awards in 2023 (see how Gavel and Clio work together).
• Other systems: Gavel connects to 5,000+ apps through Zapier, so check that your practice management system has a Zapier connection. Docusign, DecisionVault and LegalServer are also on the integrations list.
• Client portal: clients complete intake and receive finished documents in a client-facing portal. Litson PLLC used Gavel Workflows to cut its time from lead to client by 90%.
• Price: from $83 per month, with a 7-day free trial and no credit card. The Clio Manage integration comes with Lite, the entry plan, and Zapier starts on Standard (compare plans).

Clio's own document automation product, Clio Draft, pulls client and matter details from Clio Manage and includes ready-to-fill forms for all 50 states. The linked page compares it with Gavel Workflows on logic, output and pricing.

Limits: Gavel Workflows works alongside practice management and doesn't replace it. Gavel's site doesn't list time tracking, legal billing or trust accounting among Gavel Workflows' features, and lower plans cap builder seats and workflows.

How to choose a Clio alternative

1. List what Clio does for you today. Write down what your firm uses each week, from trust reconciliation and the client portal to Clio Grow intake and the App Directory integrations you rely on, and mark what a new system must cover on day one.
2. Decide where accounting lives. Clio's Starter plan reconciles trust and operating accounts and MyCase Basic includes trust accounting. CosmoLex and CARET Legal build accounting into the product, PracticePanther adds an embedded general ledger on Business Pro, MyCase sells MyCase Accounting for $39 per user per month on Pro and Advanced, and Actionstep sells Legal Accounting, in North America only, on its own or with practice management. If your bookkeeper works in QuickBooks, ask each vendor how the sync runs; CosmoLex, for example, offers a one-way QuickBooks Online integration on Core and Pro.
3. Match the system to your caseload and size. Filevine and Smokeball build around particular practice areas, Actionstep targets midsize firms, and MyCase and PracticePanther fit small general practices.
4. Check how documents move. If your files live in iManage, Clio's App Directory lists a third-party app, HarakaConnect for iManage, that creates an iManage workspace when you open a new Clio matter, so ask each alternative how it connects to your document management system. Then note which tier includes document automation and intake forms.
5. Run one real matter through two trials. MyCase and CosmoLex give 10 days and PracticePanther 7, all without a credit card. Take the same matter from intake form to first invoice in each system and count the steps.

Switching from Clio: what to bring with you

• A full export of contacts, matters, custom fields and calendar entries, taken on your cutover date.
• Trust ledger balances for every client, reconciled to the bank statement on that same date, plus unbilled time and open invoices.
• Your document folders and the Word templates you generate most often, to rebuild in the new system or in a document automation tool.
• A list of everything connected to Clio today, such as payments, email, e-filing and document management, to check against the new vendor's integrations.

More comparisons: Clio Grow alternatives for intake and CRM tools, HotDocs alternatives for document automation, our guide to the best software for law firms, the best Clio integrations and all Gavel comparisons.