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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.