Lawlift vs. Gavel Workflows: Which Document Automation Fits Your Firm?

Lawlift builds rule-based templates from your existing contracts and works in Word, hosted in Germany. Gavel Workflows turns client intake into Word and PDF documents. Compare price, trial, AI and hosting.

By Richard Poelderl · Last updated: November 14, 2026

Are you a European law firm or legal department that drafts in German and English, wants its data processed in Germany, and prefers to work in Word? Lawlift fits that: AI turns your existing contracts into rule-based templates, and a single user pays 99 EUR per month. Are you a law firm that wants clients to answer a questionnaire and receive a finished Word or PDF document, with payment and Clio in the same flow? Gavel Workflows does that from your own templates, starting at $83 per month with a 7-day free trial and no credit card.

Lawlift

Lawlift is legal document automation from LAWLIFT GmbH in Berlin, used by legal departments and law firms across Europe, including Messe München, Österreichische Post, CMS and Luther. Questionnaire answers fill a rule-based template and switch clauses on or off, and the same answers always produce the same document. Its agentic templating uses AI to build such templates from your existing contracts, and its Word add-in drafts, translates, anonymizes and reviews. In November 2025 Lawlift acquired CASUS Create.

Gavel Workflows

Gavel Workflows is legal document automation software for law firms. It automates Word and PDF documents using client intake, questionnaires, and advanced workflow logic.

Firms can automate their own templates or start with Gavel's attorney-reviewed legal template library. Pricing starts at $83 per month with a free trial available.

Why law firms choose Gavel Workflows over Lawlift

Try it on your own template today: Gavel Workflows plans start at $83 per month, with a 7-day free trial and no credit card or sales call. Lawlift lists no free trial; it offers a 20-minute demo on one of your documents, and teams get a quote.
Client intake that ends in a signed, paid document: Gavel Workflows is legal document automation software built around your clients. They answer a questionnaire in your branded portal, the answers become Word and PDF documents, and clients complete and sign what you assign them. Every plan connects to Clio Manage; Pro adds Stripe payments, website embedding and Docusign. Lawlift also publishes questionnaires to external users by link, embed or invitation, with white labeling; its listed integrations lean toward in-house systems such as SharePoint, Power Automate, d.velop and BambooHR.
Help building your first workflows: Gavel includes free training and support by phone, screen share or email, a legal template library with automated court forms on Pro, and Gavel Experts who build workflows for you from $35 an hour. Lawlift's agentic templating takes a different route: its AI drafts the template and questionnaire from your existing contracts for your experts to approve.

Can we use Lawlift and Gavel Workflows side by side?

Yes. Some teams keep Lawlift for internal, bilingual contract templates and Word drafting, and use Gavel Workflows for client-facing intake with payments and Clio. Both start from Word documents, so a template can move across, but you rebuild its questions and rules in the other product; neither vendor documents a direct migration.

When evaluating the legal tech company Lawlift,

Lawlift is a Berlin document automation platform for European legal departments and law firms. It builds rule-based templates from your existing contracts with AI, keeps two language versions in one template, adds a Word add-in for drafting and review, and runs on servers in Germany with ISO/IEC 27001. A single user pays 99 EUR per month; teams get a quote, and no free trial is listed. Gavel Workflows is document automation for law firms: clients answer a questionnaire in a branded portal and get Word and PDF documents. It costs from $83 per month with a 7-day free trial and no credit card.

When to choose Lawlift or Gavel Workflows

When to choose Lawlift

Choose Lawlift if you are a European law firm or legal department that needs German and English versions in one template, wants AI to build templates from contracts you already trust, and wants data on servers in Germany with ISO/IEC 27001. Its Word add-in also drafts, translates, anonymizes and reviews. Not for you if you want a free trial before talking to sales, or published team prices.

When to choose Gavel Workflows

Choose Gavel Workflows if you are a law firm that wants clients to complete intake in a branded portal and receive Word and PDF documents, with Stripe payments and Clio, and you want to start today. Litson PLLC reports cutting the time from lead to client by 90% with Gavel Workflows. If you need German and English versions in one template, Lawlift is built for that. Gavel hosts in the US by default, with EU, Canada and Australia hosting available. For AI review of counterparty contracts in Word, see Gavel Exec.

Lawlift vs. Gavel Workflows: pricing, trial and features

Public terms checked November 14, 2026. Lawlift prices in euros and publishes only its single-user plan. Sources: Lawlift pricing and Gavel pricing.

Feature	Lawlift	Gavel Workflows
Price	Single user 99 EUR/month, AI included. Teams and Enterprise: not published; quote-based.	From $83/month (Lite); Scale from $417/month billed annually.
Billing	Not published; licensing discussed in the demo call.	Monthly or annual; annual plans billed upfront get 2 months free.
Free Trial	No free trial listed; free 20-minute demo on one of your documents.	7-day free trial; no credit card required.
Features	Agentic templating builds templates from your contracts; AI prefill; drafting, translation and review in Word.	Gavel Blueprint AI drafts workflows from uploaded documents; for AI contract review in Word, see Gavel Exec.
Templates	Rule-based templates with bilingual versions, reusable modules, calculations and multi-document output.	Your own Word and PDF templates with rules and branching; legal template library on Pro.
Output	Word add-in for generating, drafting and reviewing with tracked changes; Word versions not listed.	Draft in Word and tag fields; builder and client portal run in the browser; Word and PDF output.
Support	Demo and quote-based rollout; support terms not published.	Free training and support by phone, screen share and email; Gavel Experts for hire.

Gavel Workflows demo and Lawlift ratings

Gavel Workflows client intake (30 seconds, silent). Gavel’s client intake clip, from its workflow software page, shows a client filling in an intake questionnaire. Lawlift offers a live 20-minute demo on one of your documents instead of a published product video. Vendor videos show how a product works, not how well it works compared with another.

Scene description: Gavel Workflows client intake (30 seconds, no audio)

[0:00] The questionnaire opens on “Client Information”, with steps in a side menu: General Information, Matter Details, Document Preview, Signatures. The client types a full legal name and picks a date of birth.

[0:08] The client picks a marital status and enters an address in Los Angeles, then contact details.

[0:16] Under “Matter Information”, the client ticks Business Law, chooses the relationship to the firm and the engagement terms.

[0:22] On the next step the client chooses a new business, “Limited Liability Company (LLC)”, enters a company name and picks California.

[0:28] The clip ends on “Ready to automate your documents?”

Ratings. We found no published ratings for Lawlift on G2, Capterra or TrustRadius on November 14, 2026. Lawlift’s customer stories include ECOVIS Keller Rechtsanwälte, which reports drafting company formation documents in about 15 minutes instead of a full day.

What does Lawlift do, and where does it overlap with Gavel Workflows?

Lawlift turns recurring legal documents into rule-based templates. A colleague, a client or another system answers a questionnaire; the answers fill in the facts, adjust wording and switch paragraphs on or off. Lawlift stresses that the output is deterministic: the same answers always produce the same document. One questionnaire can produce several related documents, such as a contract, cover letter and schedules, and one template can hold both language versions with linked rules and formatting. Optio Group reports saving over 11,000 hours a year using Lawlift through the browser and its API.

Gavel Workflows overlaps with that core: both turn questionnaire answers into finished documents, with clauses included or left out by your rules, and both can publish questionnaires to people outside your team. Gavel Workflows is built for law firms and their clients: intake in a branded portal, Word and PDF output, e-signing through the client portal, payments and a legal template library.

Is Lawlift legit, and who owns it?

Yes. Lawlift is made by LAWLIFT GmbH, registered in Berlin (HRB 166775 B) and represented by Dr. Steffen Bunnenberg and Dr. Konstantin Bertram. Lawlift does not publish its investors. In November 2025 it acquired Create, a document automation product, from the Swiss company CASUS.

Who builds the templates, and how long does it take?

In Lawlift, agentic templating starts from contracts you already use. An AI agent compares the versions, proposes a master text, finds what changes from case to case and drafts the questionnaire and clause conditions. The result is a template your experts read, test and approve before anyone generates a document from it. Lawlift's demo shows this on one of your own documents in 20 minutes.

In Gavel Workflows, you upload the Word templates your firm already uses, tag the fields that change, and add rules, branching and calculations in a drag-and-drop builder. Gavel includes free training and support, and Gavel Experts can build workflows for you from $35 an hour. Like Lawlift's agent, Gavel Blueprint, Gavel's AI workflow drafter, starts from your own document: it scans an uploaded template, suggests the fields and variables for you to accept or reject, then drafts the workflow.

Can I automate my existing Word templates in Gavel Workflows?

Yes. Upload the Word templates your firm already uses, connect them to an intake questionnaire, and Gavel Workflows generates finished Word documents and PDFs from the answers.

Illustration: an employment offer letter for an employer client

Your client is hiring a sales manager. In the intake questionnaire, the client enters the employee's name, a $120,000 salary, a start date and the work state, California, and answers “yes” to a commission plan. Your rules say: if the state is California, leave out the non-compete clause; if commission is “yes”, include the commission clause and attach the plan as a schedule. The draft that comes out has the commission clause and schedule and no non-compete. You check the commission terms, edit if needed and decide when to send it. By hand, you would copy last month's offer letter, replace names and numbers, and remember which clauses to delete for California. Both products document this questionnaire-and-rules workflow; we did not run it in either product.

How much does Lawlift cost vs. Gavel Workflows?

Lawlift publishes one price: a single user pays 99 EUR per month, with all AI features included, from agentic templating to drafting, editing and review in Word. Teams and Enterprise plans, which add several users, shared templates, access control and publishing, are quote-based after a demo call. Lawlift does not publish billing terms or minimum contract length.

Gavel Workflows starts at $83 per month with a 7-day free trial and no credit card. Annual plans billed upfront get two months free. The Scale plan, from $417 per month billed annually, adds SSO, API access, per-seat discounts and white-glove onboarding.

How much does Lawlift cost?

Lawlift's single-user plan costs 99 EUR per month with AI features included. Pricing for teams and enterprise is not published; Lawlift prepares a quote after a demo call.

Does Lawlift have a free trial?

Lawlift doesn't list a free trial. It offers a free, no-obligation 20-minute demo in which it automates one of your documents. Gavel Workflows offers a 7-day free trial with no credit card.

Word, AI drafting and review

This is where Lawlift does more inside Word. Its Word add-in generates documents from templates and drafts from a rule-based template, a guardrail template or a blank page. It translates documents or creates side-by-side bilingual copies, anonymizes them, and checks a contract against requirements you build from your playbook. Every AI suggestion arrives as a tracked change. Lawlift does not list which Word versions (Windows, Mac or the web) the add-in supports.

In Gavel Workflows, you draft templates in Word and tag the fields; the builder and the client portal run in the browser, and AI is optional. To review and redline counterparty contracts in Word with AI, Gavel sells a separate product, Gavel Exec. It runs in Word for Windows, Mac (2016 or later) and the web, and starts with 25 free queries per user.

Does Lawlift work in Microsoft Word?

Yes. Lawlift has a Word add-in for generating, drafting, editing and reviewing documents with tracked changes, and its law-firm page says you generate and work on documents in Word. Lawlift does not publish which Word platforms the add-in supports.

Security and data hosting

Lawlift runs on servers in Germany administered by Lawlift, and AI processing takes place on EU infrastructure through Microsoft Azure and Amazon Bedrock, with zero data retention and no model training. It is ISO/IEC 27001 certified and offers SSO through Microsoft Entra ID or OpenID Connect. For rule-based templates, case data is encrypted on your device before it is transmitted.

Gavel encrypts data in transit and at rest. It stores data in the US by default, with hosting options in the EU, Canada and Australia. Gavel doesn't use customer data to train AI models and has zero-data-retention agreements with its AI providers. Gavel's SOC 2 Type II certification is stated for Gavel Exec.

Is Lawlift GDPR compliant and where is data stored?

Lawlift says it is GDPR compliant by design and ISO/IEC 27001 certified. The application runs on servers in Germany, and its AI processing stays on EU infrastructure.

Can Gavel Workflows host our data in the EU?

Yes. Gavel stores data in the United States by default and offers hosting in the European Union, Canada, Australia or another AWS region.

Method: checked against Lawlift's and Gavel's public pages on November 14, 2026, by Richard Poelderl. Gavel publishes this comparison and sells Gavel Workflows; Gavel has been part of Relativity since June 12, 2026. We did not run a hands-on test of either product.

How to test Gavel Workflows on a real template

Pick one template you produce often, such as an engagement letter or an employment offer letter. Upload the Word version, add the five or six questions that change it, and set the rules for the clauses that come and go. Send the questionnaire to a colleague acting as the client and compare the output with a document you drafted by hand.

Start with the 7-day free trial; no credit card required. If you need German and English in one template or hosting only in Germany, Lawlift may be the better fit: book its 20-minute demo with the same template and compare.

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Frequently asked questions

Methodology

This comparison uses publicly available product, pricing, and review information. Features, pricing, and access terms may change, so buyers should verify current details directly with each vendor.