Businesses today are facing more challenges than ever before. From data protection to cybersecurity concerns, the demand for legal expertise continues to grow. According to a Grand View Research report, the legal services industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 4.5% from 2025 to 2030, potentially reaching USD 1.37 trillion.
With this rising demand comes greater responsibility for firms to run an efficient and effective practice. In the next few years, the difference between firms that succeed and those that fall behind will often come down to their technology infrastructure. Without the right tools, everyday tasks can quickly become overwhelming, leaving less time for actual legal work that drives value and profit.
Today, firms are using AI, automation, and cloud-based platforms to transform how they operate. Cloud platforms, in particular, offer major advantages over traditional server-based systems. In fact, a 2022 American Bar Association survey found that 70% of legal professionals have used cloud-based software for legal work.
Legal tech has come a long way from simply digitizing files. In this guide, we’ll explore the legal tech tools reshaping the legal industry in 2025 and how you can build a tech stack that saves time, improves efficiency, and helps you work smarter.
What is Legal Tech Software?
Legal tech software refers to platforms and applications designed to help law firms and legal departments manage and automate their operations. This includes tools such as case management software, document automation, time-tracking and billing software, client communication platforms, and legal research tools.
Many legal tech software integrate multiple functions into a single practice management system or connect separate tools to create a seamless workflow. The legal industry has widely adopted these tools because they increase operational efficiency while maintaining modern security and compliance standards.
12 Types of Legal Tech Software Tools with Best Examples
1. Legal Client Relationship Management (CRM)
Legal CRM systems transform how law firms manage client relationships and track new business opportunities. These specialized platforms go beyond basic contact management, offering marketing automation, client intake workflows, and detailed analytics on how potential clients engage with your firm.
Law firms often lose promising leads due to:
- Disorganized follow-up
- Lack of visibility into where prospects are in the intake process
- Difficulty tracking which marketing efforts generate new clients
A legal CRM solves these challenges by centralizing client communication, automating follow-ups, and providing the data firms need to optimize business development.
Lawmatics
Lawmatics is a legal CRM designed specifically for law firms by professionals familiar with attorney workflows. It combines CRM capabilities with client intake automation and marketing tools, giving firms a complete solution to manage the client journey, from first contact to engagement.
Key features include:
- Customizable intake forms that automatically route to the right team members
- Email automation that keeps consistent communication with prospects
- Built-in analytics that reveal which marketing channels deliver the best ROI
For firms investing in marketing, Lawmatics allows you to track which efforts generate new clients and calculate accurate client acquisition costs, turning marketing from guesswork into a data-driven strategy.
2. Legal Research
Legal research platforms give law firms access to comprehensive legal databases of case law, statutes, regulations, and secondary sources that inform legal strategy and document preparation. These tools solve the ongoing challenge of staying up to date with constantly evolving law.
Traditional legal research required hours in law libraries, reviewing and digesting physical books. Today, legal research software uses AI and advanced search algorithms to surface relevant cases in minutes, identify key precedents, and even predict case outcomes based on historical data.
This allows legal professionals to deliver stronger arguments and provide well-informed client advice.
Westlaw
Westlaw by Thomson Reuters remains a leading legal research platform, combining the largest database of legal materials with powerful AI tools that enhance how attorneys conduct research.
Key features include:
- Natural language search that understands legal questions without requiring Boolean operators
- Citation checking system that instantly verifies whether cases remain good law
- Prioritized results that save hours of manual review
Westlaw Edge, the premium version, adds AI-powered features like Quick Check, which analyzes briefs and flags cases that have been reversed or distinguished. This prevents costly errors and ensures arguments are built on solid legal foundations.
With its depth, accuracy, and advanced tools, Westlaw is essential for law firms handling complex legal matters.
3. Legal Document Management
Legal document management systems (DMS) provide centralized storage, organization, and easy access to all case-related files. As law firms handle increasing volumes of documents, proper management becomes essential for both efficiency and compliance.
Without a dedicated DMS, legal professionals waste time searching through email attachments, local drives, and physical filing cabinets. Document management software creates a single and secure repository where all case, client, and matter documents are stored that streamline workflows and support modern legal practice.
NetDocuments
NetDocuments is a legal document management space with a cloud-native architecture built for legal workflows. Unlike generic business tools, it offers features tailored to law firms, such as matter-centric organization, conflict checking, and ethical walls to protect sensitive data.
Key features include:
- Bank-level encryption, multi-factor authentication, and audit trails for every document access and modification
- Certifications including SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001
- Predictive technology suggests where documents should be saved, reducing misfiling errors
- Connects with practice management systems, Microsoft Office, and document automation tools
Attorneys can access documents from any device, work offline when needed, and rely on automatic syncing once connectivity returns.
4. Legal Workforce Management
Legal workforce management platforms help law firms hire, manage, and optimize their legal staff—including paralegals, attorneys, and legal assistants. These systems address the growing challenge of coordinating distributed teams while maintaining visibility into performance, capacity, and billable productivity.
As law practices increasingly rely on remote and flexible staffing models, traditional hiring issues such as lengthy recruitment times and limited insight into staff productivity become more obvious.
Workforce management platforms provide the infrastructure needed to assign tasks, track time, monitor performance, and process payments, all within a single system.
Legal Soft
Legal Soft is a leading platform in the legal workforce management space, offering an all-in-one solution for law firms managing legal staff. The platform functions both as a talent marketplace and a management tool, connecting firms with pre-vetted legal professionals while providing systems to manage those relationships effectively.
Key features include:
- A large network of legal professionals who can begin working immediately
- Integrated real-time time and activity tracking
- Performance dashboards that provide visibility into productivity and task completion
- Automated payment processing
Legal Soft enables firms to scale their teams up or down based on caseloads, while reducing the overhead of managing in-house staff.
By centralizing communication, documentation, and financial transactions, the platform allows smaller firms to compete more effectively with larger practices by building and managing teams efficiently.
5. Electronic Signatures
Electronic signature software allows law firms to sign documents digitally with full legal validity. As legal services increasingly move online, the ability to collect signatures remotely has become essential for client service and operational efficiency.
These platforms eliminate the delays and challenges of traditional wet signatures, which require printing, mailing, scanning, and physical storage. What once took days can now be completed in minutes, improving client service and accelerating processes from engagement to payment.
Electronic signature software also provides tamper-proof audit trails, tracks exactly when documents are signed, and creates court-admissible evidence. By adopting e-signature technology, law firms gain stronger documentation and enhance client satisfaction through convenient digital workflows.
DocuSign
DocuSign is the industry standard for electronic signatures in legal settings, trusted by courts and clients worldwide for its security, reliability, and legal enforceability. The platform complies with eSignature regulations in over 180 countries, including the ESIGN Act and UETA in the United States, making it a safe choice for both domestic and international legal matters.
Key features include:
- Multiple signature options from draw, type, or upload methods
- Authentication methods, from SMS codes to knowledge-based authentication
- Certificates of Completion with detailed audit trails for every signed document
- Mobile app support, allowing clients to sign documents on the go
The platform integrates with over 400 applications, including all major practice management systems, enabling documents to be sent for signature directly from case workflows. For law practices, DocuSign offers a trusted, widely recognized solution that clients recognize and trust.
6. Billing & Accounting
Legal billing and accounting software handles some of the most critical functions in any law practice, including tracking billable hours, generating invoices, processing payments, and managing trust accounting with compliance built in.
A study from LeanLaw found that law firms lose an average of 14% of billable work due to unbilled hours. Modern legal billing software goes beyond simple invoicing—it addresses revenue leakage caused by unbilled time, delayed payments, and challenges in collecting outstanding balances, which can cost firms thousands annually.
This technology ensures accurate billing while reducing the administrative burden on attorneys.
LeanLaw
LeanLaw is an intuitive accounting software designed specifically for law firms. It combines time tracking, invoicing, trust accounting, and payment processing in a single platform.
Key features include:
- Trust accounting management
- Customizable, professional invoices with detailed time and expense entries
- Matter management to organize billing and financial data by case or client
- Automated payment reminders
- Integration with practice management software
- Financial reporting and analytics
By adopting billing and accounting software like LeanLaw, law firms can minimize revenue loss, simplify financial management, and focus more on client service rather than administrative tasks.
7. Document Automation
Document automation is changing how law firms create legal documents. Instead of drafting contracts, briefs, or agreements from scratch, document automation software uses pre-built templates that automatically populate with client and case information.
This technology tackles one of the most time-consuming parts of legal practice: document generation. According to Thomson Reuters 2025 research, legal professionals spend nearly 40–60% of their time creating and reviewing documents, highlighting the importance of legal tech.
Manual document creation carries risks such as typos, inconsistent language, or missing clauses—errors that can have serious consequences.
Document automation ensures consistency across all client deliverables while significantly reducing the time needed for document assembly.
Clio Draft
Clio Draft is a leading document automation solution for law firms, especially those using the Clio practice management ecosystem. It converts Microsoft Word documents into smart templates that automatically pull client and case details from your system.
Key advantages include:
- A library of thousands of court forms covering jurisdictions nationwide.
- Microsoft Word integration, maintaining familiar workflows.
- Two-way syncing that keeps document changes updated across systems.
With conditional logic built into its templates, Clio Draft adjusts documents based on case-specific details, allowing attorneys to generate documents from engagement letters to court pleadings in minutes.
8. Contract Management
Contract management software streamlines the entire contract lifecycle from drafting through execution and renewal. These platforms solve common bottlenecks of contract management, including the time consuming tasks of reviewing agreements, tracking obligations, and ensuring renewal deadlines are never missed.
For corporate law firms and in-house legal teams, contracts carry both opportunities and potential pitfalls. Manual contract review is slow and prone to errors, such as missing critical clauses or unfavorable terms, which can create business problems.
Contract management software centralizes contract storage, automates review workflows, and uses AI to flag risky language or non-standard clauses.
Ironclad
Ironclad is a leading contract lifecycle management platform designed for legal teams at scaling companies. Its AI-powered platform manages the entire contract workflow—from request and drafting to execution, storage, and ongoing management—making it especially valuable for legal departments handling high contract volumes.
Key features include:
- AI contract review against your company playbook, automatically flagging non-standard language and suggesting approved alternatives
- Workflow automation that routes contracts to stakeholders, tracks approvals, and sends reminders to keep deals moving
- Integration with Microsoft Word and Google Docs, allowing attorneys to edit in familiar tools while maintaining version control and audit trails
For M&A transactions, corporate legal departments, and firms managing complex negotiations, Ironclad ensures contracts are accurate and efficiently managed throughout their lifecycle.
9. Client Intake
The first impression matters in a law practice. Potential clients often reach out under stress or dealing with complex issues, so presenting a professional and trustworthy process from the start is crucial.
Client intake software streamlines the entire intake process, setting a positive tone for the attorney-client relationship.
Traditional intake methods rely on phone calls, paper forms, and back-and-forth emails to collect basic information. Modern intake platforms allow clients to provide details on their schedule through online forms, automatically update case management systems, and trigger appropriate follow-ups.
This ensures every conflict check is completed before engagement and that all necessary documents are collected and stored correctly.
Law Ruler
Law Ruler combines CRM functionality with intake automation to simplify client onboarding for law firms. The platform captures leads from online forms, chat, phone calls, and third-party directories, routing them immediately into customized intake workflows based on practice area or matter type.
Key features include:
- Intelligent intake forms that adapt based on responses, asking only relevant questions for a personalized experience
- Template-driven engagement letters that populate automatically with client intake information and route for electronic signature
- Lead nurturing automation via email and text to keep prospects engaged
Once intake completes, data flows directly into connected practice management software. The platform also provides analytics showing where prospects drop off in the intake process, enabling continuous improvement.
For firms struggling with slow or disorganized intake, Law Ruler modernizes client intake and relationship management, helping prevent lost leads and ensuring every prospect receives a professional experience.
10. E-Discovery
E-discovery software helps legal professionals identify, collect, review, and produce electronically stored information (ESI) for litigation and regulatory matters. As the volume of digital evidence continues to grow, manual document review has become one of the most time-consuming and costly aspects of litigation.
Modern e-discovery platforms address this challenge by applying advanced search, predictive coding, and technology-assisted review to quickly surface relevant documents while protecting privileged information.
Relativity
Relativity is one of the most widely adopted e-discovery platforms for complex litigation. It is designed to handle large datasets and is supported by AI-powered tools that increase review efficiency and reduce costs.
Key features include:
- Advanced analytics that identify key custodians, communication patterns, and concept clusters
- Collaboration tools with review assignments, team communication features, and progress tracking
- Comprehensive redaction tools, privilege logs, and data visualizations
Relativity supports flexible deployment options, including cloud and on-premises hosting. For litigation teams handling large-scale discovery, Relativity’s extensive feature set and proven reliability make it a go-to solution for efficient matter management in complex cases.
11. Law Firm Communication
Law firm communication platforms provide organized channels for client interactions, team collaboration, and external communication with courts and opposing counsel. These systems help manage communication across email, phone, text, and video, while ensuring compliance with ethical requirements for confidentiality and privilege.
It helps address the risks of disorganized communication creates such as:
- Breaches of confidentiality and privilege
- Important messages getting buried in email
- Clients feeling neglected when calls go unreturned
- Teams lacking visibility into ongoing conversations
Modern communication platforms centralize all interactions, ensuring that client communication flows through professional channels accessible to the entire legal team.
MyCase Client Communication
MyCase Client Communication delivers a comprehensive client communication solution designed specifically for law offices. The platform and portal are configured for legal practice, providing secure communication features for both clients and internal teams.
The platform includes:
- Secure client portal: Clients can message attorneys, view case updates, access documents, and make payments
- Text messaging: Firms can send appointment reminders, status updates, and even share images securely
- Internal team communication: Matter-centric messaging, task assignments, and notifications for employees
For firms prioritizing client service and team coordination, MyCase Client Communication provides the secure, modern infrastructure necessary to keep up with the demands of law practice.
12. Expense Tracking
Expense tracking software helps law firms capture, categorize, and bill client-related expenses. These platforms solve the persistent problem of unreimbursed expenses and poor financial visibility that can hurt law firm profitability.
Attorneys incur numerous client-related expenses—from court fees to expert witness costs—that must be tracked, allocated to matters, and billed accurately.
Without proper expense tracking, firms risk losing revenue through unbilled expenses and lack the financial insights needed to price services appropriately or identify unprofitable matters.
QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is a robust expense tracking solution for law firms, offering a wide range of features, strong integration support, and specialized legal accounting capabilities.
Key features include:
- Automated expense capture and categorization from multiple sources
- Mobile app support to photograph receipts immediately
- Credit card and bank reconciliation
- Detailed reporting by matter, client, attorney, or category
- Trust accounting capabilities when configured properly
For law firms seeking full expense tracking that integrates seamlessly with existing accounting and billing systems, QuickBooks Online provides a reliable solution to manage costs and improve profitability.
Advantages of Using Legal Tech
We’ve explored the types of legal tech used by law practices. Below is a summary of the key benefits it brings to law firm operations.
Increased Productivity
Legal software can eliminate time-consuming manual tasks that drain attorney productivity. By automating repetitive work, legal professionals reclaim hours each week to focus on legal strategy and client service.
A LexisNexis study found that 74% of legal teams using legal tech reported higher productivity. This increased efficiency directly strengthens profitability by shifting more time toward billable work.
Scalable Growth
Legal technology removes many barriers that limit firm growth. With cloud-based software and practice management systems, firms can support multiple offices and manage operations without heavy IT infrastructure or manual processes.
Firms adopting legal tech can scale faster, with lower operational risk and improved organizational efficiency. The right software positions firms for sustainable operations and long-term expansion.
Enhanced Client Experience
Client service significantly improves when firms adopt modern legal technology. A recent survey found that 95% of firms reported better responsiveness after implementing legal tech.
Clients benefit from increased transparency and convenience—such as viewing case updates, accessing documents 24/7, and paying invoices digitally. In a competitive legal market, delivering the best client experience becomes a key differentiator.
Better Financial Management
In 2023, e-billing was the most widely adopted legal technology, used by 48% of law firms, and the number continues to rise due to the strong financial benefits it provides.
Since most attorneys do not have formal financial training, legal accounting software helps firms manage billing and administrative finance tasks that were previously complex with manual systems.
Automated financial tools offer real-time visibility into firm performance, cash flow, work-in-progress, and profitability by matter, client, or attorney. As a result, firms gain more predictable revenue and improved collections.
Enhanced Security
Legal software provides enterprise-grade security far beyond the protection offered by paper files or basic computer storage. Features such as bank-level encryption, multi-factor authentication, detailed audit trails, and automatic backups protect sensitive data from breaches, loss, and unauthorized access.
Compliance tools help ensure proper trust accounting under IOLTA rules and maintain document retention policies that meet ethical standards.
For firms handling highly sensitive information, investing in secure legal technology is essential for safeguarding client confidentiality and maintaining professional compliance.
Factors To Consider When Choosing the Right Software for Your Firm
Selecting legal tech software requires more than comparing features and pricing. Consider the following factors to ensure your investment supports your operations and delivers lasting value:
- Integration capabilities: Your legal tech stack should work as an integrated ecosystem rather than disconnected silos. Prioritize software that integrates with tools you already use, or plan to adopt, to minimize operational disruption and ensure workflows are connected.
- Security and compliance: Understand where your data is stored and who has access. Review the vendor’s security history and incident response procedures. Since legal professionals handle highly sensitive client data under strict ethical obligations, verify that the software meets recognized security standards and compliance certifications.
- Ease of use and adoption: Even the most powerful software fails if your team cannot use it effectively. Look for intuitive interfaces that require minimal training, or ensure training and support are provided by the vendor. Request demos or trial versions so multiple team members can test the software with realistic tasks before committing.
- Pricing structure: Choose software that grows with your practice. Evaluate whether pricing scales reasonably as you add users or increase usage. Some platforms offer low entry costs but become expensive at scale, while others provide better long-term value for growing firms.
Start Building Your Legal Tech Stack Today
The legal industry continues to evolve, with technology playing a central role in delivering effective legal services and running firms efficiently. Building your ideal legal tech stack doesn’t mean implementing all twelve software categories at once—it’s about creating a connected workflow that supports your team and improves how legal work gets done.
If you’re ready to transform how your law office operates, Virtual Staffing can provide flexible, skilled legal support to manage your workload and deliver better client service. Take advantage of our free demos to see it in action and customize your experience.
