HeyCounsel Pulse · Summer 2026
Solo & Small Firm
Tech Stack
The legal tech landscape is changing fast. It's tough to keep up. How do you separate what's real from the noise?
We asked our community of 443 fractional, solo, and boutique attorneys to tell us exactly what they use, what's working, and what's a waste of money.
This report covers practice management, redlining, accounting, legal research, AI, and more. There are no sponsored placements, just the raw data.
Drafting & Redlining
Anthropic has recently surged in popularity among independent lawyers, with Claude being used for drafting and redlining by half of the HeyCounsel community, ahead of legal-specific tools like GC AI and Spellbook.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Claude | 49% 49% | 4.4 |
Word | 30% 30% | 3.9 |
GC AI | 26% 26% | 4.5 |
Spellbook | 18% 18% | 3.4 |
Practice Management
Clio is the clear market leader, adopted by nearly half of HeyCounsel members, but has lukewarm reviews. There's a long tail of more general-purpose options people are using, like Airtable, Asana, and Claude.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Clio | 47% 47% | 3.8 |
Airtable | 10% 10% | 4.3 |
Asana | 6.9% 6.9% | 4.0 |
Claude | 6.9% 6.9% | 4.7 |
Billing & Payments
The full breakdown for this category is exclusive to HeyCounsel members.
Members-only
See what tools independent lawyers use, what they think of them, and how much they cost.
Unlock with membershipTimekeeping
Clio is the most commonly used timekeeping tool despite its mediocre reviews. If you're looking to try something new, Toggl gets some of the strongest praise from our community.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Clio | 48% 48% | 3.8 |
Toggl | 13% 13% | 4.8 |
Pen and paper | 7.1% 7.1% | 2.0 |
Vibe Coded / Custom | 5.4% 5.4% | — |
Intake & CRM
Nearly a third of solo and small-firm lawyers still run client intake on a spreadsheet.
Members-only
What's better than a spreadsheet? The data on the best client intake tools are exclusive to HeyCounsel members.
Start your applicationAccounting
QuickBooks is the standard for solo and small-firm lawyers, used by more than 60% of our members.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Quickbooks | 61% 61% | 4.1 |
Clio | 10% 10% | 3.7 |
Freshbooks | 6.8% 6.8% | 4.3 |
Google Sheets | 6.8% 6.8% | — |
Legal Research
How do Westlaw and GC AI stack up against Claude? Full breakdown available to members.
Members-only
See what tools independent lawyers use, what they think of them, and how much they cost.
Unlock with membershipGeneral-Purpose AI
Claude is the runaway favorite, boasting massive 83% adoption among HeyCounsel members and the highest average rating (4.5/5) in the category. Contrast to OpenAI's ChatGPT, with only 52% adoption and 3.5 stars.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Claude | 83% 83% | 4.5 |
ChatGPT | 52% 52% | 3.5 |
Gemini | 34% 34% | 3.9 |
Perplexity | 9.4% 9.4% | 4.0 |
Vibe Coding
HeyCounsel members are building their own bespoke software, and we recently hosted a Claude Cowork Hackathon. The full breakdown of the best vibe-coding tools, as well as the details on best practices are available to members.
Members-only
See what tools independent lawyers use, what they think of them, and how much they cost.
Unlock with membershipE-Signatures
E-signatures are largely a two-player category: Docusign and Adobe Sign account for 85% of usage, with Docusign edging out Adobe with stronger ratings.
| Tool | Adoption | Rating |
|---|---|---|
Docusign | 47% 47% | 4.3 |
Adobe Sign | 38% 38% | 3.7 |
Dropbox Sign | 12% 12% | 2.5 |
Google docs | 3.3% 3.3% | 3.5 |