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Legal AI software compared: the 9 tools a small firm should actually weigh
Legal AI marketing is loud and its pricing is quiet. Below, the nine tools worth a small firm's attention, grouped by the job they do, with the vendor's real published price where one exists and a plain flag where the number only lives inside a quote. Prices checked 2026-07-18.
Drafting and reviewing contracts
The transparent seat is Gavel Exec at a published $160/user/mo — playbook-driven review, redlining, and drafting in Word, with 25 free queries to test. The famous seat is Spellbook, quote-only, with third-party reports scattered from ~$99 to ~$400/user/mo after a late-2025 increase. Our rule for this category: make the quote beat the published number on your own documents.
Researching the law
Three doors. Westlaw AI-Assisted Research is the cheapest published entry — from $155.35/mo, but on a three-year term and research-only. Paxton is the self-serve bundle: research plus drafting plus document analysis across all 50 states at a published $499/mo (ignore stale $49–$199 articles). CoCounsel is the breadth play — research, deposition prep, document review — by quote, reported roughly $225–$500/user/mo, strongest inside a Westlaw shop.
Answering intake and the phones
Smith.ai owns this aisle for small firms and publishes its rates: AI Receptionist from $95/mo with live-agent escalation, human Virtual Receptionist from $292.50/mo for 30 calls, both month to month, both wired into Clio and MyCase. Budget for overages — real bills typically run above sticker.
Running the practice
Platform AI rides the software you already pay for. Clio Duo sits on Clio's published $49–$149/user/mo tiers with the add-on reported ~$49–$59 (packaging in flux — confirm). MyCase IQ does the same on MyCase's published $49–$99 tiers with the add-on priced by ask. Neither justifies a platform switch; both are worth enabling where you already live.
Producing discovery
Briefpoint drafts propounding sets and objection-aware responses from case facts. Quote-only, and the public record disagrees with itself (~$89/mo in one review, $210/mo starting in the Clio directory) — the written quote is the only real number.
How to choose
Buy against the leak, favor published prices, and pilot before you commit a year. For most solos the sequence is intake first (published $95 fixes the most expensive miss), then the drafting or research seat your matter mix demands, then platform AI to capture the billing residue. Whatever the order: the confidentiality review precedes every upload, and every citation an AI hands you gets opened before it gets filed. Our getting-started plan sequences the rollout.
A real AI use example
Diego Alvarez-Miranda, an estate-planning attorney at CunninghamLegal, uses Spellbook for drafting and review. He reports it "saves me at least one hour, sometimes two hours, a day," and that he bills clients less review time than before.
This is one attorney's account, published by Spellbook, which notes he is not affiliated with the company and makes no guarantee the tool fits any particular need. It is a single example, not a typical or guaranteed result.
Source: CunninghamLegal, Spellbook stories (vendor-reported).