A Wellington sole practitioner I know ran her entire practice on a combination of Word templates, a shared Google Drive, and a billing spreadsheet she'd inherited from a previous employer. It worked, until it didn't. A trust accounting error that took her two days to trace back cost her a client and nearly cost her her practising certificate.
Legal practice management software exists to prevent exactly that. And in 2026, three platforms dominate the NZ law firm market: Clio, LEAP, and Actionstep. Each is capable. They suit different firms. Here's how to tell which one fits yours.
Quick verdict
| Software | Best for | Price (per user/month) | NZ trust accounting? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clio | Solo and small firms wanting modern UX | USD $49-$149 (~NZD $82-$250) | Yes |
| LEAP | Firms wanting NZ-specific docs and templates | Quote required | Yes (Law Society certified) |
| Actionstep | Midsize firms wanting deep workflow automation | Quote required | Yes |
Clio
The short version: The most widely used legal practice management software globally. Strong cloud-native UX, an open API with 300+ integrations, and a genuine free trial. Best for solo practitioners and firms up to about 15 lawyers who want software they can set up themselves.
Clio's pricing (USD, billed monthly):
- EasyStart: $49/user/month -- time tracking, billing, trust accounting, client portal. Functional for a sole practitioner.
- Essentials: $89/user/month -- document management, court rules calendar, advanced reporting, unlimited storage
- Advanced: $129/user/month -- task automation, advanced workflows, priority support
- Complete: $149/user/month -- includes Clio Grow (their legal CRM for intake, leads, and client conversion)
Those prices convert to roughly NZD $82, $149, $216, and $250 at current exchange rates. For a two-lawyer firm on Essentials, that's around NZD $3,570/year. Not cheap. But Clio doesn't charge implementation fees for self-serve setup, and the EasyStart plan is available on a 7-day free trial with no credit card required.
What Clio does well:
The interface is clean and genuinely fast. Client intake, matter creation, time recording, and billing are all on a single screen flow that takes about 30 minutes to learn. The mobile app is strong -- you can record billable time, communicate with clients through the secure portal, and review matters from your phone without the app feeling like a desktop port.
The integration ecosystem is the widest in legal software: Xero (important for NZ firms), Outlook, Gmail, Zoom, InfoTrack NZ, and 280+ others all connect natively. If you want to automate document generation, billing, or client communication from one central hub, Clio's the platform that makes it easiest.
Trust accounting is Law Society compliant for NZ and AU. The Complete plan's Clio Grow module is worth evaluating if you're actively converting enquiries -- it handles web intake forms, automated follow-up sequences, and lead tracking.
[!TIP]
Clio's referral programme pays $250 per successful referral -- if you recommend it to another firm that signs up, you get a gift card. Not relevant to your purchase decision, but worth knowing if you end up happy with it.
What to watch:
Document automation is Clio's weakest area compared to LEAP. You can build templates, but the automation logic is less mature than LEAP's. If document heavy-lifting (auto-populated court filings, deed templates, conveyancing forms) is central to your practice, assess this gap before committing.
Pricing is in USD and has increased meaningfully over the past two years. A two-person firm that started on Essentials at $69/user now pays $89. Budget for annual price increases.
Best for: Sole practitioners and firms up to ~15 lawyers who want a modern, cloud-native platform they can set up without a consultant. Also suits tech-forward firms that want Xero integration and a wide app ecosystem.
Start a free Clio trial (7 days, no credit card)
LEAP
The short version: Market leader in Australia, with dedicated NZ features. The deepest library of NZ-specific legal document templates, precedents, and matter types of any platform. Quote-based pricing only -- you'll need to talk to a sales rep.
LEAP serves 71,000+ practitioners globally and has been in the NZ market long enough to have built out genuinely useful local infrastructure: 1,000+ pre-configured NZ matter types, NZ-specific forms, Law Society certified trust accounting, and a client portal (LawConnect) that handles document sharing and online collaboration.
The document automation is best-in-class for NZ legal work. When you open a new conveyancing matter, LEAP auto-populates client data, property details, and the relevant NZ forms into a workflow. This saves meaningful time on document-heavy practice areas like property, trusts, and estates.
What LEAP does well:
If your practice is conveyancing, residential property, wills and estates, or any other document-intensive area, the LEAP template library is genuinely ahead of what Clio or Actionstep provide for NZ work. The NZ forms are pre-loaded and kept current. You don't build templates from scratch -- you start from NZ-specific precedents.
Email management auto-saves all Outlook emails to their corresponding matter. This sounds minor until you're six months into a property transaction and need to trace back an instruction. The mobile app auto-creates time entries for calls made through the app -- not automatic tracking like Smokeball, but closer than most competitors.
LEAP integrates with Microsoft 365 deeply: Word, Outlook, Teams, and Excel all connect, and documents stay in the LEAP ecosystem. For firms already embedded in the Microsoft stack, this matters.
[!INFO]
LEAP's API access requires a formal partnership application -- it's not freely available like Clio's. If you want to integrate custom tools or automate workflows outside LEAP's native feature set, this is a constraint worth understanding before you sign.
What to watch:
Pricing isn't public. Capterra and user reports suggest LEAP sits at the higher end of the per-user price range in this category. Annual contracts are standard. The combination of custom pricing and multi-year contracts means you're negotiating blind without peer data -- ask for a specific per-user price in writing before any verbal agreement.
The closed API is a genuine limitation if you have bespoke integration needs. Clio or Actionstep are better choices for firms that want to extend their software with custom tools.
Best for: NZ firms in conveyancing, property, wills, estates, and other document-heavy practice areas that want NZ-native templates and a single platform for matter management, billing, and trust accounting.
Actionstep
The short version: Purpose-built for midsize law firms that need deep workflow customisation. Quote-based pricing, implementation via certified partners, and more setup effort than Clio or LEAP. Overkill for small firms; genuinely powerful for complex practices.
Actionstep was originally built in New Zealand, which is relevant context: the trust accounting, billing, and matter management were designed from the ground up with NZ and AU legal requirements in mind, not retrofitted for the market.
The platform's core differentiator is workflow automation. You can build multi-step, condition-based workflows that automatically create tasks, send documents, trigger billing events, and update matter statuses based on triggers you define. For a firm running complex commercial transactions, litigation matters with defined milestones, or high-volume residential conveyancing, this automation capability pays off in practice.
What Actionstep does well:
The workflow builder is the deepest of the three platforms. A litigation firm can build a workflow that automatically creates tasks at each court deadline, sends draft documents to counsel for review, and triggers fee estimates at matter milestones. No other platform in this comparison does this as flexibly.
Trust accounting, billing, time recording, and CRM are all integrated in a single data model -- no separate accounting integration required (unlike Clio, which pairs with Xero). For firms that want accounting inside their practice management system rather than managing a Xero sync, this matters.
The document builder creates templates with conditional logic -- fields appear or disappear based on matter type, jurisdiction, or client category. Useful for firms with complex matter variations.
[!WARNING]
Actionstep requires certified implementation partners to set up. This adds upfront cost and timeline -- budget for a consulting engagement to configure your workflows, matter types, and billing setup before go-live. The API also carries a USD $500 one-time setup fee. This is not a day-one self-serve platform.
What to watch:
Interface feedback on Actionstep is mixed. It's functional but not modern. Users migrating from a consumer-grade SaaS background often find the UI dated. This is less important if your team is comfortable with complexity, but worth noting if you're comparing it directly to Clio's interface.
For firms under about five lawyers, Actionstep's setup overhead and quote-based pricing usually makes Clio or LEAP a better starting point. The workflow power only pays off when you have enough volume and complexity to justify the configuration investment.
Best for: Midsize NZ law firms (5-30 lawyers) in commercial, litigation, or conveyancing practices that want deep workflow automation and a single system for practice management plus accounting.
Request an Actionstep quote (NZ)
Trust accounting: what NZ law firms need to know
All three platforms are compliant with NZ Law Society trust accounting requirements. This is non-negotiable -- any platform you choose must handle:
- Separate office and trust ledgers
- Client-by-client trust balances
- Audit-ready trust account reporting
- Compliance with the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006
LEAP emphasises its Law Society certification most directly. Clio's trust accounting is certified for NZ and AU. Actionstep's trust accounting module is built-in and NZ-compliant. If you're switching platforms, verify with your Law Society or your current trust account auditor before migrating trust data.
[!WARNING]
Trust account errors can result in regulatory action, fines, or loss of practising certificate. Run any new platform in parallel with your existing system for at least one billing cycle before cutting over. Don't skip this step to save time.
How to choose
Firm size and practice area:
- Sole practitioner or 1-3 lawyer firm, generalist or any practice area: Clio EasyStart or Essentials. Self-serve setup, 7-day trial, no implementation cost. Start here.
- 1-10 lawyer firm with document-heavy work (conveyancing, property, wills): LEAP. The NZ template library and document automation are ahead of alternatives for these practice areas.
- 5-30 lawyer midsize firm with complex workflows, litigation, or commercial matters: Actionstep. The workflow builder justifies the implementation investment at this scale.
Questions that actually matter:
- Do you need NZ legal document templates pre-loaded? LEAP, ahead of the others.
- Do you want to set it up yourself without a consultant? Clio.
- Do you need accounting built in (no Xero integration)? Actionstep.
- Do you want the widest app ecosystem and open API? Clio.
- Are you running 5+ lawyers on complex matter types? Talk to Actionstep and LEAP.
All three offer demos. Run a real matter -- a conveyancing transaction or a new client intake -- through each platform's trial or demo before committing. Nothing reveals workflow fit like live work.
The bottom line
For most NZ sole practitioners and small firms, Clio is the practical starting point: it has a free trial, transparent pricing, no consultant required, and integrates with Xero. It's not the cheapest and document automation trails LEAP, but it's the fastest way to get off spreadsheets and into compliant practice management.
LEAP is the right choice for conveyancing and property-heavy practices that need NZ-specific templates and document automation built in from day one.
Actionstep suits midsize firms that have outgrown the simpler platforms and need workflow automation to handle matter volume and complexity.
The days of running a law firm on Word templates and a billing spreadsheet are numbered -- both by commercial pressure and by Law Society expectations. The platform you pick matters less than picking one and using it consistently.
