Clio Draft Review: Document Automation Software for Lawyers

Clio Draft (f/k/a Lawyaw) offers two distinct products: automated court forms and a Microsoft Word-based tool to automate your own documents. For users who just want the court forms library, Lawyaw is priced at $40/month for program access plus $30/user/month. For example, a single user of court forms costs $70/mo., not $40. If you do not need the court forms, but want to take advantage of Lawyaw’s Microsoft Word template tool, it’s $80/month, plus $30/user. Otherwise, users can get all the platform’s features for a price of $120/month plus $30/user/month.

For Clio users, Draft will pull new client information in from Clio Manage, so you don't have to create new contacts in the system. Users can also track Clio Draft drafting time within Clio. For those without Clio, Draft has a rather robust relational database built-in that can handle a substantial amount of your client information.

Clio Draft (f/k/a Lawyaw) has a federally-compliant e-signature tool built right in. Since the product is web-based, lawyers simply sign online and then forward documents to clients for their e-signature. This eliminates the need for a third-party e-signing tool such as HelloSign.

No. Currently, Draft does not have a built-in or integrated ePayment system. But Clio Manage users can easily incorporate Clio Payments.

At the time of this writing, Clio Draft does not have Guided Interviews, however, users can easily send forms (or questionnaires) to clients to get information from them.

Draft is a low-code document assembly platform. Its Microsoft Word add-in makes creating templates relatively easy, and users of the Court Forms product will find the necessary functionality has already been built-out.

Yes. Using the Microsoft Word add-in, or the browser, attorneys can easily import their current templates into the system to use. Although, you will have to set-up any logic that is required.

Clio Draft (f/k/a Lawyaw) is tightly integrated with the California state court filing system, giving attorneys access to over 5,000 court forms. Additionally, they provide court forms for jurisdictions in all fifty states. Attorneys can fill out Judicial Council, county, and federal immigration forms with their platform. The company also updates those forms automatically, ensuring access to the most current version. This used to be their bread-and-butter, and for some attorneys, may be worth the sticker price in-and-of-itself.

The browser-based app is easy to get started with and Draft's documentation is pretty comprehensive. So, an office can get up-and-running pretty quickly. However, like all document assembly providers, we suggest users take advantage of their onboarding systems.

Clio Draft is a browser-based program so it will generally work on any computer running a modern browser. Obviously, using the Microsoft Word add-in will require you to be able to run MS Word on your computer, which could be either the Windows or Mac version.