Legal Workflow Automation Software for Law Firms

Your attorneys bill 1,900 hours a year. Too many of those hours are admin.

Law firms lose 20 to 30 percent of billable time to work that isn't legal work. Client intake that takes five emails to complete. Document drafts assembled by hand from the same template used for the last hundred matters. Statute of limitations dates tracked in a shared spreadsheet nobody fully trusts. Billing entries written from memory at the end of the week.
At RaftLabs, we build automation systems for law firms and in-house legal teams that eliminate the admin drag without changing how attorneys practice law. Not a generic practice management tool, software built around your matter types, your intake process, your document library, and your billing structure. We've shipped 100+ products across professional services industries. We know what legal automation looks like when it actually gets used.

See our work
  • Automated document drafting from your own templates and matter data

  • Client intake flows that collect everything on the first contact

  • Deadline tracking with court filing reminders that don't depend on anyone's memory

  • Fixed scope and fixed price before development starts

Recent outcomes

Document automation · Mid-size litigation firm

Built template-driven document assembly for NDAs, engagement letters, and demand letters, cutting drafting time from 35 minutes to under 2 minutes per document.

94% faster drafting

Client intake automation · Solo and small firm practice

Automated practice-area-specific intake forms with conflict check triggers and matter creation in Clio, eliminating manual triage for 300+ new matters per year.

300+ matters automated

AI chatbot · Legal operations team

Deployed a conversational AI system to handle routine client queries, status updates, and document requests without attorney involvement.

70% queries resolved without human intervention
4.9 / 5 on ClutchSee all work

Recognition

Sound familiar?

  • Are your attorneys spending time on admin that should never land on a lawyer's desk?

  • How confident are you that every statute of limitations and filing deadline is tracked in a system that won't miss one?

In short

RaftLabs builds legal automation software for law firms in the US, UK, and Australia. We automate document drafting, client intake, deadline tracking, and billing. 100+ products shipped. Fixed scope and fixed price before development starts.

Trusted by

Vodafone
Nike
Microsoft
Cisco
T-Mobile
Aldi
Heineken
GE

Automation delivery, by the numbers

automation systems deployed across industries
30+
average time to first automated workflow
8 weeks
rated by clients on Clutch
4.9/5
years delivering software for established businesses
9+

Law firms run on documents and deadlines. Both are automatable.

Legal work that requires attorney judgment cannot be automated, and shouldn't be. But the work that surrounds it, collecting client information, assembling documents from templates, tracking deadlines, routing approvals, generating invoices, follows patterns. Those patterns are exactly what automation is built for. The firms that have recognized this are recovering 400 to 600 hours of attorney time per year. The ones still managing intake by email and deadlines by spreadsheet are one missed filing away from a malpractice claim.

Capabilities

What we build

Document Drafting Automation

Template library connected to your matter management system so document drafting becomes an assembly task rather than a writing task. When a new NDA, retainer agreement, demand letter, or filing cover sheet is needed, the system pulls client name, matter number, relevant dates, jurisdiction-specific clauses, governing law selection, and party details from the matter record and populates the template automatically, sending the draft to the responsible attorney for review and edits, not for population from scratch. For high-volume document types (engagement letters, standard contracts, routine filings), the drafting step drops from 30 minutes to under two minutes. Clause libraries let attorneys insert pre-approved language for common provisions, limitation of liability, indemnification, confidentiality, with version-controlled clauses that update across all templates when standard language changes.

Client Intake and Onboarding

Intake forms that capture everything your team needs on first contact, not the beginning of a five-email chain to collect what the form didn't ask. Practice-area-specific forms ask the right questions for family law, commercial litigation, real estate, employment, or whatever your practice areas cover. Conditional logic shows or hides fields based on prior answers so clients only see relevant questions. The submitted form routes automatically to the right attorney based on matter type and jurisdiction, triggers a conflict check against your existing client and adverse party database, and creates the matter record in your case management system (Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther). Clients receive a confirmation with clear next steps and the contact information for their assigned attorney. Your intake team stops manually triaging and forwarding incomplete information between the prospect and the attorney.

Deadline and SOL Tracking

Statute of limitations dates, court filing deadlines, response windows, discovery cutoffs, and contract renewal dates should not exist in a spreadsheet that requires manual checking. We build deadline tracking systems where every critical date is logged at matter creation, validated against jurisdiction-specific rules (different SOL periods per cause of action, different filing deadline calculation rules per court), and monitored automatically throughout the matter lifecycle. Escalating reminders fire at configurable intervals (90, 60, 30, 14, 7 days) to the responsible attorney and supervising partner. If no action is taken inside a defined window, the system escalates to the firm principal, not as a generic alert but with the specific deadline, the matter, the client, and the remaining time shown. Audit logs record every reminder sent and every action taken, providing the documentation that a missed-deadline malpractice claim requires.

Matter Management Workflows

Matter progression workflows that advance cases through defined stages with clear task assignments, document checklists, and approval gates, so that "what's the status of this matter?" can be answered by looking at a dashboard rather than asking everyone involved. Task assignments at each stage identify the responsible team member and the due date; overdue tasks surface in a management view rather than disappearing into a full inbox. Document checklists confirm that required documents (signed engagement letter, conflict waiver, key evidence) are on file before the matter moves to the next stage. Partners see portfolio-level views across all active matters: stage distribution, days in stage, upcoming deadlines, and overdue tasks by team member. Associate workload is visible without a weekly status meeting. Nothing stalls because someone didn't know it was their turn.

For firms billing on AFA (Alternative Fee Arrangement) matters, the workflow tracks budget consumption against the fixed fee or capped amount in real time, alerting the supervising partner when a matter reaches 70 percent and 90 percent of budget before the client is surprised at invoice. We integrate with Clio, NetDocuments, and iManage DMS for document storage so matter workflow actions trigger document creation and filing without attorneys navigating a separate DMS interface. For matters with e-billing obligations, LEDES 1998B format invoices are generated from time entries coded to UTBMS task codes and activity codes, the billing automation enforces code selection at time entry so invoices aren't rejected by e-billing hubs (Passport, Legal Tracker, BrightFlag, TeamConnect) for missing or invalid codes. LEDES 2000 and eBillingHub XML formats are also supported for clients requiring them. Conflict check workflows query the matter database using probabilistic matching across client names, adverse parties, related entities, and attorney names, surfacing potential conflicts for attorney review rather than relying on exact-match name searches that miss abbreviations and subsidiaries.

Billing and Time Tracking Automation

Time entry captured as work happens, from the calendar entry, the email thread, or a quick mobile entry, rather than reconstructed from memory on Friday afternoon when 15% of billable time is typically lost to reconstruction failure. Billing rules applied automatically at entry: minimum time increment rounding (0.1 or 0.25 hour per your firm policy), matter-specific rate schedules for different billing arrangements (hourly, flat fee, blended rate), and automatic flagging of entries that fall outside expected rate parameters for partner review before billing. Write-off approval workflows route to the billing partner when an attorney proposes writing off time. Invoice generation assembles approved time entries and disbursements into draft invoices formatted to your firm template and client preference (itemized, summary, or fixed fee), sent for attorney review before transmittal. The gap between hours worked and hours billed closes within the billing cycle.

Compliance Monitoring

Compliance tracking for the requirements that create personal liability and regulatory risk when they lapse without detection. CLE credits tracked by jurisdiction against each attorney's requirement, with automated reminders at quarterly intervals and escalation when a compliance year approaches with a shortfall. Bar registration renewal reminders with the relevant state's deadline and renewal fee. Engagement letter compliance tracking ensures every new matter has a signed engagement letter on file before billable work exceeds a defined threshold. Trust account reconciliation schedules tracked with completion confirmation and escalation when a reconciliation is overdue. IOLTA compliance monitoring for firms managing client funds. Jurisdiction-specific rule calendaring for firms practicing in multiple states with different professional conduct requirements. Compliance records stored with timestamps and confirmations for the regulatory examination that arrives without advance notice.

For e-discovery compliance, document retention schedules are enforced at the matter level: litigation holds automatically suspend deletion policies on relevant custodian files in Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace when a hold is placed, and release the hold when the matter closes, producing a defensible chain-of-custody record for each document preserved. Court e-filing compliance is automated for jurisdictions using CM/ECF (PACER) or Tyler Technologies Odyssey e-filing, documents formatted to court-specific requirements (PDF/A, page limits, font requirements), filed via the court's API, and the filed confirmation returned to the matter record with the court-stamped file date. Docketing deadline calculation from filed documents uses jurisdiction-specific rules: response deadlines in federal district courts under FRCP Rule 12, appeal windows by circuit, discovery period end dates from scheduling orders. Deposition transcript analysis using NLP extracts witness commitments and promised document productions into a follow-up task list, preventing agreed productions from being missed after the deposition. Digital signature via DocuSign or Adobe Sign is embedded in engagement letter and settlement agreement workflows, with signed document versions stored in iManage or NetDocuments automatically upon completion.

How we work

From scope to shipped

Every project follows the same four phases. Scope is locked and price is fixed before development starts.

  1. Week 1
    01

    Audit and scope

    We map the workflows that consume attorney time without generating attorney judgment. Document drafting patterns, intake steps, deadline tracking, billing entry points. You leave week 1 with a written scope document and a fixed-price quote. Development does not start without your sign-off.

  2. Weeks 2-3
    02

    Design and architecture

    We design the data model, integration points with your existing case management system, and the user flows for each automated workflow. Design decisions made here cost ten times less than the same decisions made in week 8. The spec is locked before the build starts.

  3. Weeks 4-12
    03

    Build, integrate, and QA

    Working software at a staging URL by the end of sprint one. Bi-weekly demos with your team. QA runs in parallel with every sprint, not as a phase at the end. Integration testing with your live systems happens in staging before production deployment.

  4. Weeks 12+
    04

    Launch and post-launch support

    Production deployment with monitoring activated on launch day. 8 weeks of post-launch support included in every project. Issues that surface in the first weeks of real use are fixed at no additional cost.

Why us

Why firms choose RaftLabs

  1. Senior engineers build what they scope

    The engineers who assess your firm's workflows also build the solution. No bait-and-switch, no offshore handoff after the contract is signed. The team you meet in week 1 ships in week 12.

  2. Fixed price before development starts

    We scope the work, calculate the cost, and lock it in writing before any development starts. A scope change is a change request: priced, agreed, or dropped. It never absorbs into the project and appears on the final invoice.

  3. 9 years and 100+ products shipped

    Clients include Vodafone, T-Mobile, Aldi, Nike, Cisco, and Lockheed Martin. Track record across AI, SaaS, mobile, automation, and enterprise platforms across healthcare, fintech, logistics, and professional services.

  4. Compliance built in from the start

    GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2, state bar data residency rules — compliance requirements are scoped in week 1, not retrofitted before launch. We have shipped HIPAA-compliant systems for US healthcare clients and GDPR-compliant products for European markets. Legal data security is not an afterthought.

  5. Automation ROI that shows up in hours, not months

    Law firms typically recover 400 to 600 attorney hours per year from a focused legal automation engagement. Most projects reach positive ROI within 6 months of deployment. We calculate that projection with you before the engagement starts.

Ready to scope your legal automation project?

30 minutes. You walk away with a clear cost, timeline, and team. No commitment.

Frequently asked questions

Any workflow that follows a consistent pattern and doesn't require attorney judgment at every step. Document drafting is the obvious one, most firms use the same base agreements, motions, and letters repeatedly, with variables swapped in from matter data. An automation system drafts the document from the template, populates it with client and matter details, and sends it for attorney review in seconds instead of thirty minutes. Client intake is another high-value target: structured intake forms that collect the information your team actually needs, route the matter to the right attorney, and trigger the conflict check automatically. Deadline tracking, statute of limitations dates, court filing deadlines, response windows, should never live in a spreadsheet. It should be in a system with automated reminders that escalates when something is approaching and no one has acted on it. Billing entry collection, time tracking, and invoice generation are also strong targets because the cost of imprecision is direct revenue leakage.

Yes. Most legal automation work we do sits on top of existing systems rather than replacing them. We integrate with Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, Filevine, NetDocuments, iManage, and most systems with an API. We also integrate with Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace for document generation and email-based triggers. The goal is automation that works within tools your team already uses, not another system they have to remember to open. If you're running something non-standard or proprietary, we assess integration feasibility before the engagement starts.

Document drafting automation generates the first draft, populated from your approved template library and the matter's data record. Every generated document goes to an attorney for review before it goes anywhere. The automation eliminates the assembly work, not the judgment. For high-volume document types like NDAs, engagement letters, demand letters, or standard discovery responses, the time savings per document range from 20 to 45 minutes. Across a firm handling hundreds of matters, that compounds into thousands of billable hours recovered per year. We also build clause libraries so attorneys can insert pre-approved language without drafting from scratch each time.

Legal data is among the most sensitive we work with, and we treat it accordingly. Every system we build uses encrypted storage and transit, strict role-based access controls, and full audit logging, who accessed what matter data and when. We design for attorney-client privilege protection by ensuring that data access patterns match your firm's actual role structure. For firms with specific compliance requirements, including state bar rules on data residency or handling, we scope those requirements in the discovery phase before any build commitment is made. You receive a full security architecture document as part of project delivery.

Project cost depends on the scope and complexity of the workflows being automated. A focused engagement covering one area, such as document drafting automation or client intake, typically runs from $25,000 to $60,000. A broader system covering intake, matter management, deadline tracking, and billing runs from $60,000 to $150,000. We lock the price in writing before development starts. No open-ended retainers, no invoices that grow during the project.

Most legal automation projects reach a working system in 8 to 14 weeks. A focused workflow, such as automated intake or document generation for one practice area, can be live in 6 to 8 weeks. A multi-workflow system covering intake, matter management, and billing typically takes 12 to 16 weeks. We set the timeline in writing at the start of the project alongside the fixed price.

Work with us

Tell us what you need. We'll tell you what it would take.

We scope Legal Workflow Automation in 30 minutes. You walk away with a clear cost, timeline, and approach. No commitment required.

  • Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
  • Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
  • Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
  • 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
  • All conversations are NDA-protected.