There are many reasons why companies embrace legal collaboration technology.

Inefficiency in the contracting process and poor collaboration between legal and business teams are main problems that lead to lost clients, lower-quality work, and burnout. Contracts with errors in them, forgetting to reply to your new client, the false economy of working through the night when you don’t really need to — all of these missteps show that your company needs to embrace legal collaboration software, and ensure that all parts of your legal team are operating at optimum efficiency.

With the right legal collaboration or contract management software, you can shorten your sales cycle by 24% and reduce costs associated with contract inaccuracy and non-compliance by 33-41%. 

The way to make your contracting process more collaborative is to look at the tasks performed by your law firm or legal department, and to decide if some processes could be automated or made more efficient, and which parts of the contract workflow can be delegated and shared. Appropriate legal collaboration or contract lifecycle management software can help you and your colleagues achieve this goal. 

What are some legal collaboration software options?

We know it’s difficult to distinguish between the many different options available to a legal practice when it chooses software to increase its everyday efficiency. That’s why we’ve reviewed the most popular legal applications available, to give you an idea of the best document collaboration software for your needs.

Avokaado

Best for smooth intra-team and client communication, secure document collaboration, and smart digital signing.

Avokaado is an end-to-end contract lifecycle management software application which allows even small legal teams to achieve outcomes in contract workflows and collaboration on a par with enterprise businesses with dedicated legal teams. 

Top features:

• Workflow collaboration, dynamic approval process and audit trails — no more email ping-pong
• Assign editing permissions and user groups for your team and external collaborators
• Scenario-based document automation
• Versioning and negotiation: open any document conveniently in Word
• Seamless, instant signing using Dokobit or SignNow
• Smooth team workflows tracked through an intuitive dashboard
• Data-driven contract management, extracting contract metadata

Pricing: 

• Freemium (1 user)
• Starter €29 per month
• Standard €49 per month
• Premium €60 per month

Collaborative issues

• In-doc discussion must currently be used to request changes, but tracked changes are planned to be introduced shortly

Legito

Best for importing Word documents into the system and having them formatted instantly. 

Legito is a document management solution that promises a smart document workspace, with the ability for multiple users to draft together securely. Full customization both offered within a program that also allows for approval chains to be pre-specified.

Top features:

• Advanced document drafting
• Automated workflows and approvals
• Secure digital signing

Pricing: 

• $1,200 per year for a single user
• $9,600 per year for a small business of 10 users

Collaborative issues

• Inflexibility on deadline notifications
• Takes time to adapt to to learn how to draft documents in-app

Contractbook

Best for inexpensive and standard contract management.

Contractbook is a legal collaboration software solution which offers a freemium product with integrated contract management features, enabling team collaboration. Intuitive UI.

Top features:

• Data-driven contract automation
• Automated contract generation
• Can be used at no cost with a limited feature set

Pricing: 

Limited free version for businesses, 

• €97 per month for more features and unlimited contracts
• €1,200 per month for full API integration
• €1,245 per month for all features

Collaborative issues

• Inability to switch to different views easily

Precisely

Best for controlling access within teams and stakeholders, with documents automatically routed to the correct people.

Precisely is a secure digital contracting platform that automates and reduces manual tasks, while ensuring compliance.

Top features:

• Secure automated workflows
• Integrated e-signing
• Rules can be set, meaning you can be sure documents reach only the intended stakeholders

Pricing: 

• $62 per user per month for the Professional plan
• $89 per user per month for the Enterprise plan

Collaborative issues

• Issues with template customization cited in some reviews

Contractsafe

Best for efficient searches of large numbers of active contracts

Contractsafe is a secure contract management software program which consolidates and allows management of all contracts easily. All contracts can be searched, even scanned ones, with the program combining the roles of archive and collaborative workspace.

Top features:

• SOC2 security certified
• Automatic alerts for important deadlines
• Covers PDF searches far better than most other programs

Pricing:

All prices are quoted for a single annual payment:

• Basic: $299 per month
• Standard: $499 per month
• Professional: $699 per month
• Enterprise: $899 per month

Collaborative issues

• Potentially slow and laggy if storing a large number of contracts 

Outlaw

Best for Salesforce integrated collaborative workflows

Outlaw is an end-to-end legal and contract lifecycle management solution, with a friendly-looking suite of document collaboration tools which offers no-code integrations, meaning technical expertise is not needed.

Top features:

• Secure metadata repository with AI search
• No-code integrations
• End-to-end deal UI for negotiations

Pricing: 

• $100 per “Core User” per month
• $50 per “Collaborator” per month

Collaborative issues

• Labels everything as a contract, meaning it has difficulty recognizing other forms of legal document. 

PracticePanther

Best for integrations with a wide range of frequently-used business and productivity apps

PracticePanther is an integrated CRM solution for small- to medium-sized legal practices, with integration with leading platforms such as QuickBooks, MailChimp, and PayPal. 

Top features:

• 256-bit encryption
• Built-in payments processing
• Calendaring as standard

Pricing: 

• Solo: $39 per user per month
• Essential: $59 per user per month
• Business: $79 per user per month

Collaborative issues

• Contact management issues, with problems copying contact databases from external applications.

Clio

Best for attracting prospective clients and automating communications

Clio is an all-round contract and practice management package, with an open API. This means it is possible to integrate it alongside existing solutions already in use within a small- to-medium-sized law office. 

Top features:

• Legal practice management and client-intake legal CRM capabilities
• Unlimited data storage
• Flexible when it comes to integrating with other applications

Pricing: 

• Starter: $39 per user per month
• Boutique: $59 per user per month
• Elite: $99 per user per month
• Suite: $125 per user per month
• Custom enterprise options available

Collaborative issues

• May require some technical knowledge to get the best out of it.

Rocket Matter

Best for kanban board creation and maintenance

Rocket Matter is a legal scheduling and document management program. It offers similar document collaboration software features to its rivals, but also adds in kanban boards similar to those offered by the likes of Trello. This is alongside invoice creation, document templates, and automated billing.

Top features:

• Documents, emails, tasks, and billable activity, all together to view in one place
• Uses the kanban system which has been successful in many industries
• Advanced reporting and analytics

Pricing: 

• Essentials: $35 per user per month
• Pro: $59 per user per month

Collaborative issues

• Some issues cited with specific versions, relating to adding aspects like interest to invoices.

MyCase

Best for client messaging

MyCase is a collaborative documentation solution which offers digital signing, contract management, calendar management, and other key features, but also makes messaging other team members and clients easy in-application, cutting down on time lost due to client communications. 

Top features:

• Comprehensive end-to-end billing support
• Clients can pay invoices in-app
• Tracks and helps convert leads into clients

Pricing: 

• $49 per user per month for all features, if paid in one annual instalment

Collaborative issues

• API integration can sometimes be a problem.

Amberlo

Best for keeping an overview of your legal projects

Amberlo is a legal management software solution, which is designed as a package that covers all bases. It allows for client messaging, billing, contract management, and performance measurement, all from one application.

Top features:

• Precise time-tracking
• Case-focused calendaring
• Advanced reporting analytics

Pricing:

• Solo: free
• Grow: €25 per user per month
• Premium: €35 per user per month
• Elite: €55 per user per month

Collaborative issues

• At the time of writing there was no Google Drive or Dropbox integration.

Docusign

Best for electronic notarial acts

Docusign is a contract management and digital signing solution. It allows users to send out documents for quick signing and to automate the process of collecting signatures, while also managing contracts and other documents in an efficient database. Notaries are also easily included, with notarial acts factored into DocuSign through its special features.

Top features:

• Full Salesforce integration
• AI-driven agreement analysis
• Court-admissible audit trail

Pricing: 

• Personal: $10 per user per month
• Standard: $25 per user per month
• Business Pro: $40 per user per month

Collaborative issues

• Considered by some to be lacking intuitiveness – when sent out, some first-time users have reportedly (as per customer reviews) found it difficult to find, or to know how to sign, a document.

Which legal collaboration software is best for my business?

Truthfully, it depends entirely on the specific needs of your law firm or legal team, though the options we have presented are some of the most popular document collaboration tools for legal practitioners. 

In case you’re still not sure, here are some of the reasons why we think you should make Avokaado your choice out of the document collaboration tools:

• Integration with the existing technology stack: a data register, CSV tables, CRM, or your own software
• Dokobit and SignNow digital signing integration
• Advanced user collaboration: different right levels and user groups for your team and unlimited external collaborators
• Every part of a contract lifecycle, managed slickly in one place: smart drafting, co-editing with parties, negotiating, approving, e-signing, document management and metadata search, and a tracking dashboard

If you want to know more, you can sign up for a 7–day free trial and start benefiting from Avokaado’s collaborative contracting platform immediately. Get started today!

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