AI tools for law firms, sorted by the job the firm needs done

A partner choosing AI for the firm is not choosing one thing. Intake, drafting, research, billing and the general assistant are five purchases, made by different people, priced in different ways, and most lists mix them up. Below: the tools law firms actually use for each job, in their makers' own words with the price each maker publishes, what the ABA has published about choosing among them, and the one record none of them keeps.

This page is for the partner or practice manager at a solo or small firm who has to decide what the firm buys. If you are one lawyer choosing for yourself, start with our practitioner's map of AI for lawyers, which covers the research platforms, the bar guidance and the training settings; if you are in-house counsel, the tools below are mostly built for firms, and your legal department's needs are a different list. Here the organising question is the firm's: which job needs doing, and what does the tool for it cost?

Who is writing: Equerry, whose own app appears in the last section, the client record, marked as ours. Equerry is not a legal research, drafting or document-management tool, and nothing on this page is legal advice. No maker paid to be here, there are no affiliate links, and this is not a ranking: the word "best" appears in the title because it is what people search for, and nowhere in the list.

How the list was assembled

• Jobs first. The five jobs are the ones that recur across firm budgets: intake and client communication, drafting and review, legal research, billing and practice management, and the general assistant. Each tool sits under the job it is sold for; where a tool spans two, it is listed once and the overlap is noted.
• The maker describes the tool. Every description is quoted or closely paraphrased from the maker's own site, read 27 October 2026. Nothing was tested or scored; within a job the order is alphabetical.
• Prices are the maker's published US-dollar prices, with the billing period. "$20 a seat" on annual billing is a $240 commitment per seat. Where a maker publishes nothing, the entry says "not published" rather than guessing. Prices change and may exclude tax.
• No repeats of the map. The large research and drafting platforms (Harvey, Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, Lexis+ with Protégé, Spellbook, Claude for Legal) and the individual ChatGPT and Claude plans and Claude's Team seat are already named and priced in the practitioner's map; this page covers the firm-level tools and the firm plans instead.

Every tool on one screen

Intake and client communication

This is the AI a firm buys first and notices least, because it never touches a legal document: it answers the phone, screens the caller, captures the facts and books the consultation. Two kinds of tool do it.

• Lawmatics. "The AI-powered legal CRM built for client acquisition", with intake forms, automated follow-up and marketing in one system; its add-ons are named Merlin Qualify, Merlin Engage and Merlin Copilot, the last two marked "COMING SOON!" in the site's menu on the day we read it. Price: not published. The Essential and Premium plans say "Get a demo", Enterprise says "Contact Sales", and the page explains why: "We offer tailor-made pricing plans for law firms of all sizes."
• Smith.ai. Two products. The AI Receptionist is "The AI Receptionist that runs your entire intake process, from the first ring to the retainer sent"; its page lists law firms as an industry and names Clio Grow and Clio Manage among its integrations. Price: Free at $0 a month for 25 calls, then $3.00 a call; Pro $150 a month plus $2.00 a call; Enterprise $500 a month plus $1.67 a call. The human receptionist service ("Professional call answering by real people") is priced separately, from $300 a month for 30 calls.

Your practice-management system may already sell intake AI. Clio's Elite plan lists "Capture and qualify leads with Grow AI. Billed per hired matter", and Clio Grow is "Included in Elite. Available as an add-on for Core and Signature"; Smokeball's pricing table shows "Intake powered by Smokeball AI" on Prosper+ only. Clio itself is named and priced in the practitioner's map.

Drafting and review

Almost every tool on this page drafts something. These two are sold for it, and both publish a price, which in this job is unusual: the contract-review platforms the large firms use mostly quote.

• Gavel. Document automation: intake answers become finished documents ("Turn intake into documents 90% faster"). Gavel Exec, its contract tool inside Word, lists Draft, Review, Redline, Playbooks and Benchmarking and is priced on a separate page we have not quoted here. Price: the pricing page's title says "Free to Start, Plans from $83": Lite $83 a month, Standard $210 a month on its plan card, Pro $290 a month, Scale "Starting at" $417 a month billed annually, Enterprise "Contact Sales"; the Lite card's button says "Try 7 Days Free", Pro's "Start 7-day trial", and the page says "No credit card required". One caution: on the day we read it, the comparison table lower on the same page showed Standard at $165, not $210, so confirm before you buy.
• Paxton. Sold to lawyers directly ("Straight-Forward Pricing for Attorneys"): "Precise AI drafting for legal documents, clauses, emails, contracts, and more", plus research across "US federal regulations, state laws, and case law across all 50 states" and "Comprehensive AI file analysis". Price: Individual $499 per user a month, or $2,999 per user a year ("Save 50% compared to monthly"); Enterprise is "Custom Volume-based pricing"; the page offers "Start Your Free 7-Day Trial". Paxton's own footer says it "provides self-help services at your specific direction" and is "not a law firm".

Legal research

The two large platforms, Lexis+ with Protégé and Thomson Reuters CoCounsel, are described and priced (where they publish anything) in the map. Below them sits a newer tier that a small firm can buy without procurement.

• midpage. "Our own legal research and drafting platform", which "covers all practice areas". Price: Professional is "$100 billed monthly for 1 seat, before tax", with a two-week trial: "No sales call required, and your first two weeks are on us." A Law Student plan is $25 a month and "Requires proof of current enrollment or employment at a US law school".
• Vincent by vLex. "AI Engineered for Lawyers": "Vincent combines vLex's global legal database with cutting-edge AI to handle complex legal work", with research questions, contract analysis and litigation and transaction workflows. vLex is part of Clio, and Clio's pricing page offers Vincent to large firms through Clio Operate. Price: not published; "Book a Demo" or "Start a Free Trial".

Paxton, above, also sells research, and most practice-management AI (Archie, 8am IQ, Clio's AI) draws on the matter rather than the law. The ABA article quoted below makes a point worth keeping: "research only finds the law; the real gains come from pairing it with tools that act on what you find."

Billing and practice management

Here the question is usually not which tool but which plan, because the system the firm already runs now bundles AI at a tier. Clio's page says "AI included on plans from Core up"; the two others:

• MyCase. "Everything you need to run your firm." Its Legal AI is branded 8am IQ: the Pro plan includes the "8am IQ Writing and Document Assistant"; Advanced adds the "8am IQ Case Assistant" and the "8am IQ Discovery Assistant (OCR)", with 5,000 pages per user a month shared across the firm and more at $30 per 5,000. The page also lists an "8am MyCase MCP" connector for reaching MyCase data from Claude. Price: per user a month on yearly billing, Basic $50, Pro $100, Advanced $130; billed monthly, $60, $120 and $150.
• Smokeball. "Less admin. More law." Its assistant, Archie, is "Legal AI that knows your matter": "Archie works inside your matter to draft, review, and answer questions", and offers "a document or matter summary, including meetings, deadlines, and tasks – all linked to the source." Price: not published; the four plans (Bill, Boost, Grow, Prosper+) all say "Get pricing", and the FAQ says pricing "depends on the number of users at your firm, your selected plan, your contract term, and any optional products or services." The pricing table lists Archie as an add-on on Boost, Grow and Prosper+, not Bill.

The general assistants: the firm plans, not the personal ones

A firm rarely buys ChatGPT Plus for six people; it buys a workspace, where seats are managed centrally and the vendor's business terms, not its consumer terms, apply. The four below are the ones most firms already have a route to. The settings and plan terms for each, one tool at a time, are in the "By tool" section further down.

• ChatGPT Business (OpenAI). "A self-serve workspace plan for teams"; it was called ChatGPT Team until 29 August 2025. Price: "Standard ChatGPT seats cost $25 per user per month on monthly billing or $20 per user per month when billed annually. Premium ChatGPT seats cost $125 per user per month on monthly billing or $100 per user per month when billed annually." A workspace needs at least two paid seats and, from 24 August 2026, at most 200. The same FAQ says "OpenAI does not train on your workspace data."
• Claude Team (Anthropic). "For teams of 2 to 150." Price: a standard seat is $20 a month billed annually or $25 billed monthly; a Premium seat is $100 billed annually or $125 monthly. Enterprise is "US$20/seat/month, billed annually, 20 seat minimum", with usage billed on top. Anthropic's legal add-ons, Claude for Legal, run inside these plans and have a page of their own.
• Gemini in Google Workspace (Google). Gemini comes with the Workspace plan rather than as a separate purchase: Business Starter lists "Gemini AI assistant in Gmail" and "Chat with AI in Gemini, your company data is not used to train models"; Business Standard lists "Gemini AI assistant in Gmail, Docs, Meet, and more." Price: Business Starter $7, Standard $14, Plus $22 per user a month on the "Annual (Save 16% with 1 year commitment)" option, "All prices $USD", for up to 300 users; a 50 per cent introductory discount for new customers was advertised for 10 November 2026 to 10 February 2027.
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Business (Microsoft). The Copilot add-on for firms of "up to 300 users", listed with "Enterprise Data Protection (EDP), management, compliance, and controls." Price: "Originally starting from $21.00 now starting from $18.00" per user a month paid yearly; bundled, Microsoft 365 Business Standard with Copilot is $23.50 and Business Premium with Copilot $32.00 per user a month paid yearly. The $18 is a promotion: Microsoft's footnote says "This discount offer is available between July 1, 2026, and December 31, 2026" and "promotional pricing applies to the first year only", with an annual commitment required. Which Copilot your firm actually has, and what it can read inside your Microsoft 365, is the subject of Copilot for lawyers.

What the ABA's Law Technology Today has published on choosing legal AI (sponsored)

On 13 August 2026 the ABA Law Practice Division's Law Technology Today published "AI for Law Firms in 2026: What the Tools Do, and How to Choose One," bylined Adam Ramirez and Eve Legal. Two things to know before quoting it: the ABA labels it sponsored content ("This article is sponsored by Eve Legal"), and its author is the managing editor at Eve Legal, a vendor. It is a vendor's framing carried by the ABA, not bar guidance, and it should be read that way. With that said, its method for choosing is short and usable, and we quote it rather than paraphrase:

• "Two questions do most of the work."
• "First, what do you most need done? Start with your firm's real bottleneck rather than the longest feature list, and test any tool on your own files, not the vendor's polished demo."
• "Second, is it built to be checked? Favor tools that cite their sources and link back to the underlying record, so you can validate the details."
• On the duty that does not move: "ABA Formal Opinion 512 keeps the duty to verify with the lawyer, not the software, and a growing number of court cases over AI-fabricated citations show what it costs to skip that step."
• On data terms: "Confirm the security and data terms you need, especially that the vendor won't train its models on your clients' information, before anything sensitive goes in."
• On agents: "Anything an agent produces still needs a person to review and approve it."

The article sorts tools into contracts and transactional work, drafting and document review, litigation and e-discovery, client intake and firm operations, legal research, and AI agents; this page's jobs follow a small firm's budget lines instead, which is why e-discovery (Everlaw, Relativity) and litigation analytics are not listed here. The bar guidance itself, ABA Formal Opinion 512 of 29 July 2024 and the State Bar of California's 2026 Practical Guidance, is quoted at length in the practitioner's map, including the section on who in a firm decides and what a firm AI policy covers. What either document requires in your jurisdiction is a question for your state bar and your firm, not for this page.

By tool: the five guides

This page sorts by job. The guides below each take one tool, or one maker's legal product, further than a list can:

• ChatGPT for lawyers: what each plan costs, the fake-citation sanctions, what never to paste, OpenAI's data settings step by step.
• ChatGPT legal: OpenAI's own offer to law firms, dated, and what has gone wrong when lawyers filed its output unread.
• Claude for lawyers and law firms: what each Claude plan costs, the settings to check before you paste, and prompts for client work.
• Claude for Legal: Anthropic's plugins and connectors for legal teams, what they cost and on which plan, and who they fit.
• Copilot for lawyers: which Copilot your firm has, what it reads inside Microsoft 365, and what it costs.

What never to paste

Whatever the firm buys, the rule that survives every vendor change is about inputs: nothing that identifies a client or a matter goes into any tool until someone has read that vendor's current terms on training, retention and who can see a chat, and checked them against the firm's policy. What the two most-used general assistants publish about exactly that, by plan and setting, is in Is ChatGPT confidential? and Is Claude confidential?, both dated.

The client record across matters: the job none of these tools has

Every tool above holds a thing the firm needs: a lead, a draft, an authority, a matter, an invoice, a seat. None of them holds what a particular client said on a Tuesday call about the figure she would accept, or that opposing counsel's email on the 14th quietly dropped the indemnity cap, or what you promised the Chens before the mediation. In most firms that record lives in the partner's head and in notes scattered across four apps, and it is the reason the first ten minutes of a client call go on reconstructing the last one.

Equerry (this is our app) is a personal assistant for iPhone and iPad that keeps that record and briefs you from it. It connects to nothing in the list above: you hand it things, the way you would hand them to an assistant, and ask it questions later.

Equerry has an email address of its own, ending in @mail.getequerry.app. Put it on the CC line of a live thread and every later reply arrives on its own for as long as the address stays there; the original stays in your mailbox, and it never asks for your inbox. One point matters for a buyer reading a firm-tools list: Equerry is bought per person and each person's archive is private. A partner's record of her clients is hers, not a firm system; a colleague sees nothing in it unless she forwards it on. Price: Pro is $39.99 a month or $329 a year.

Measured against the five jobs on this page, Equerry does none of them. It does not answer the phone or text clients, so it is not intake; it does not draft, redline or review; it does not search the law; it is not a practice-management system and does not connect to one (nothing on this page talks to it, and it talks to nothing on this page); and it does not join, record or transcribe calls. What it holds is exactly what one person has sent it, plus that person's calendar if allowed: a thread nobody forwarded is not in it. Two cautions before client material goes in. Everyone on a CC'd thread can see the address, so forward where that matters. And what you send, with the calendar snapshot if you allow it, is processed by the outside providers listed on our AI disclosure page so that it can be searched and answered from. Equerry claims nothing about privilege or any bar rule; whether client material goes into any tool on this page, ours included, is for your firm's policy, your jurisdiction's guidance and, where it applies, your client's informed consent.

Putting a small firm's list together

Start with what the firm already pays for: the practice-management plan (and whether AI is in your tier), Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace (and therefore Copilot or Gemini), the research service the bar provides. Then buy for the jobs still open, one tool each, preferring the ones that publish a price so the year's cost is known before the demo. Pilot on your own files, as the ABA article says, and keep the duty to verify where Opinion 512 leaves it. That leaves the client record, which is rarely bought on purpose and usually noticed the first time a client says "as I told you on the phone" about a call nobody wrote up; the habit itself, with or without an app, is in our guide to keeping a record of client calls, and the apps a solo lawyer runs the rest of the practice on are in Apps for lawyers.

Sources, all read 2026-10-27, US pages. American Bar Association, Law Practice Division, Law Technology Today, AI for Law Firms in 2026: What the Tools Do, and How to Choose One (13 August 2026; sponsored by Eve Legal; byline Adam Ramirez and Eve Legal). Lawmatics, pricing. Smith.ai, AI Receptionist and pricing. Gavel, plans and pricing. Paxton, pricing. midpage, pricing. vLex, Vincent AI. MyCase, pricing. Smokeball, pricing and Archie AI matter assistant. Clio, pricing. OpenAI Help Center, ChatGPT Business: General FAQ, and ChatGPT pricing. Anthropic, Claude pricing. Google, Google Workspace pricing. Microsoft, Microsoft Copilot for Business. Makers change their products and prices often; where a maker's current page disagrees with this one, the maker's page is right. This page is general information, not legal advice.

Last updated 2026-10-28.

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