6 Best CRM Software for Law Firms in 2021

The best CRMs for law firms provide lawyers with general CRM functions such as contact management and lead generation plus law-specific features that enable firms to keep track of critical information, perform client intake, and manage their legal workflow. The top law firm CRMs also offer case management in common legal practice areas. To help you choose the right one for your practice, we’ve evaluated the best law firm CRM software.

Here are the top six CRMs for law firms:

• Law Ruler (Overall Winner): Best law firm CRM for onboarding new clients (call for quote)
• Clio Grow: Best CRM for niche-specific law practices ($108 starting price)
• Lawmatics: Best for automated email drip marketing campaigns ($99 starting price)
• HubSpot CRM: Best free CRM with premium upgrades (free starting price)
• Pipedrive: Best CRM with a visual pipeline ($12.50 starting price)
• InterAction: Best law firm CRM for client insights (call for quote)

How We Evaluated the Best CRMs for Law Firms

Law firms looking for CRM software need a tool that can nurture leads and clients as well as maintain legal compliance requirements, so we evaluated each CRM’s core features. We also took cost and ease of use into account, as practices often want an affordable, simple option. Integrations can automate tasks, while customization helps tailor services to meet clients’ needs, so we included both in our scoring. Customer service then rounded out our evaluation.

Note: All per-user prices are with a one-year commitment unless noted

All CRM options we evaluated proved to be helpful for law firms. However, Law Ruler emerged as the best CRM for law firms, also scoring the highest in the Core Features category. Below, read how each option fared in each category and their primary use cases.

Law Ruler: Best for Onboarding New Clients

Law Ruler assists firms in comprehensive case management, from client intake to settlement.

Price Range: Call for quote

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Easy to use and learn
• Excellent automation
• Optimized client intake

Cons:

• UI attractiveness needs improvement
• Doesn’t sync with Google
• Only available in US and Canada

Law Ruler is a law firm CRM that includes customer management, legal case management, and client intake software to quickly onboard new clients. It offers an online intake form builder that helps firms brand and customize fields to collect the info they need, send text and email reminders to clients regarding incomplete forms, and auto-populate the data into the CRM. Busy firms that frequently onboard new clients will benefit from using Law Ruler.

Law Ruler Pricing

• Call for Quote

Law Ruler Key Features

• Simplified Client Intake: Simplifies client intake, automated with decision tree logic and personalized welcome text included in the intake form.
• Built-In Smart Dialer: Equipped with a click-to-call phone dialer to reach leads instantly and reboot cold ones.
• Interactive Dashboards: Provides Sonar, a set of immersive dashboard analytics, to help law firms evaluate key performance metrics.
• Customizable Intake Forms: Ability to incorporate logos prominently for branding.

Visit Law Ruler

Clio Grow: Best for Niche-Specific Law Practices

Clio Grow is a popular, cloud-based legal case management software for law firms of various specialties.

Price Range: $108 to $125+ per user, per month (7-day free trial)

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Immediate use with little setup
• Easy client onboarding
• Intuitive and easy interface

Cons:

• Lacks key automation features
• Intake only in higher tiers
• Reporting capabilities can be lacking

Clio Grow is an add-on to Clio Manage and the most widely used law practice management CRM, as any law practice can use it. It’s highly versatile, providing niche and specialized tools for virtually all legal specialty areas, from estate planning and injury cases to intellectual property and bankruptcy law. Clio Grow is a great option for firms looking to market their services, convert leads, and onboard clients in the best way according to their niche.

Clio Grow Pricing

• Clio Manage Boutique: $59 per user, per month + $49 Clio Grow add-on ($108 total)
• Clio Manage Elite: $99 per user, per month + $49 Clio Grow add-on ($148 total)
• Clio Manage Suite: $125 per user, per month (includes Clio Grow add-on)
• Clio Manage Enterprise: Call for quote (includes Clio Grow add-on)
• Free Trial: 7-day free trial

Clio Grow Key Features

• Broad Range of Specialty Areas: This CRM covers the most legal practice areas.
• Client Intake Tools: Clio Intake combines Clio’s contact management system and online intake forms to onboard new clients.
• Documents and Esignatures: Send documents and retainer agreements to clients for quick esignatures.
• Time Tracker: Automate repetitive tasks and record time and expenses with ease — Clio captures work timing and correlates it to clients.
• Track Performance: Dashboard tracks performance metrics like billable hour targets.

Visit Clio Grow

Lawmatics: Best for Email Drip Campaigns

Lawmatics is a legal CRM that provides an all-in-one solution for client management and email campaign automation.

Price Range: $99 to $129 per user, per month

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Impressive user interface
• Trigger-happy automation
• Built-in suite for esignatures

Cons:

• Lacks a mobile app
• Automation can be hard to use
• Customization can be improved

Lawmatics is a modern-day CRM and legal intake platform packed with marketing automation features. It’s easy to build repeatable, automated email drip marketing campaigns to engage old and new prospects, since you can create audience segmentation to deliver personalized and group messages to specific leads and clients. This makes it best for firms that want a CRM that provides both end-to-end legal management and fully customizable campaigns.

Lawmatics Pricing

• Client Intake: $99 per user, per month
• Intake + Marketing: $129 per user, per month

Lawmatics Key Features

• Drip Campaign Automations: Utilize drip marketing campaigns to keep clients engaged and nurture leads from one stage to another.
• Marketing Campaign Automations: Segment contacts and send emails to specific demographics.
• Proactive Triggers: Lawmatics triggers and sends an invoice once an agreement has been signed.
• Visual Pipeline Management: Manage and nurture leads effectively with Lawmatics’ kanban-style pipeline tool.
• Open API: Lawmatics’ application program interface (API) allows its customers to connect programmatically with its services.

Visit Lawmatics

HubSpot CRM: Best Free CRM With Upgrades

HubSpot CRM is a free, general-purpose CRM with robust marketing features and paid plan upgrades; rated our best overall CRM.

Price Range: Free to $1,200 per month (Sales Hub)

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Offers inbound & outbound marketing
• Visual dashboard & sales funnel
• Free-forever plan

Cons:

• Not specific to law firms
• Price adds up with upgrades
• Better with other HubSpot products

HubSpot CRM is a widely used CRM across various industries. Its marketing tools help firms market their legal services via multiple channels to form connections with potential new clients and show their expertise. The free plan tracks social media, email, and phone interactions, and firms can upgrade to Sales Hub for features like esignatures and advanced automation, making it good for firms that want a free CRM with the ability to upgrade later.

HubSpot CRM Pricing

• Free Version: Support for unlimited users, up to 1 million contacts
• Sales Hub Starter: $45 for 2 paid users, per month
• Sales Hub Professional: $450 for 5 paid users, per month
• Sales Hub Enterprise: $1,200 for 10 paid users, per month

HubSpot CRM Key Features

• Social Marketing Engagement: Automatically tracks customer interactions through social media, email, and live chat.
• Free-Forever Plan: The free plan isn’t time-bound and provides access to HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and customer service benefits.
• Intuitive Interface: For lawyers who might not be familiar with how CRMs work, HubSpot is easy to learn and use.
• Centralized Information Repository: Provides an accessible, centralized place where customer data is conveniently available.

Visit Hubspot CRM

Pipedrive: Best CRM With a Visual Pipeline

Pipedrive has a visual, kanban-style pipeline that makes following potential clients through the sales process easier.

Price Range: $12.50 to $99 per user, per month (14-day free trial)

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Top-notch 24/7 support
• Easy to use
• Provides multiple pipelines

Cons:

• Lacks a forever-free plan
• Somewhat limited feature set
• Difficult to separate leads and contacts

Pipedrive is an easy-to-use CRM that offers law firms an efficient tool to track their sales process; its dashboard provides critical information on leads and revenue in a visual format. Firms can customize each level of the pipeline to match the way they bring on new clients, then lawyers can update the pipeline via desktop or mobile when meeting with clients offsite. It’s a solid option for law firms that want real-time visual information on their pipeline activity.

Pipedrive Pricing

• Essential: $12.50 per user, per month
• Advanced: $24.90 per user, per month
• Professional: $49.90 per user, per month
• Enterprise: $99 per user, per month
• Free Trial: 14 days

Pipedrive Key Features

• Visual Pipeline Management: Pipedrive lets freelancers put their sales process front and center through its graphic pipeline presentation.
• Enhanced Contact Management: Connects emails with contacts so you know where each prospect is in the sales process.
• Deal Rotting Feature: Helps users identify missed meetings and opportunities.
• Simplified Sales Management: Provides freelancers with a summary of the sales process and pipeline to prioritize deals.

Visit Pipedrive

InterAction: Best for Client Insights

LexisNexis’ InterAction is a CRM designed to provide large law firms and professional service companies with client insights.

Price Range: Call for quote

Overall Rating Cost Core Features Ease-of-Use Integrations Customization Customer Support

Pros:

• Synchronizes with Outlook
• Preserves institutional knowledge
• Identifies other business opportunities

Cons:

• Not easy for everyone to use
• Mostly suited for high-end firms
• Few customization options

InterAction is an enterprise CRM and relationship development platform owned by LexisNexis. It helps law firms manage relationships that drive business by incorporating insight into their sales activities. Through engagement scoring, it finds out who knows whom within a firm and among prospects, identifying key relationships that can lead to new opportunities. This makes InterAction right for law firms that want to leverage relationship intelligence for new business.

InterAction Pricing

• Call for Quote

InterAction Key Features

• Central Intelligence Repository: The CRM creates a centralized repository for easily accessible relationship intelligence.
• IA Strategic Data: Understand how data aligns with the firm’s overall objective and how to use it to build business development strategies.
• Engagement Scoring: Target the right relationships by assessing the strength of each relationship and identifying potential opportunities.
• The Who-Knows-Whom Functionality: Automatically shows who within an organization has existing relationships with a contact.
• Visual Pipeline Management: Provides complete visibility of opportunities and goals.

Visit Interaction

Bottom Line: Best CRM for Law Firms

CRMs are commonly known for their use in sales teams but are also helpful for law practices that want to find new leads and manage their existing clients. The primary function of law firm CRMs is to allow lawyers to do more billable work by automating workflows and streamlining client intake so they can establish new relationships and manage their caseloads, deadlines, and clients. All industry-specific CRMs on this list are great options, so choose the one that resonates with your firm.