Clio is a legal practice platform for firms of every size. Clio Manage handles matters, calendars, documents, time, billing and trust accounting. Clio Grow covers intake and client development, Clio Draft handles document automation and court forms, and Clio Work is the AI workspace for analysis, research and drafting. Clio's AI reads both the firm's own matters, clients, filings, messages and financial data and the law itself, through the vLex library of more than a billion legal documents from over a hundred countries.
Clio bought vLex in June 2025. Output is described as citing its sources, and the firm reviews and approves anything before it reaches a client or court. The platform runs in regional versions for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia, with AI processing in the customer's own region, and publishes a subprocessor list naming the AI providers behind each product. Clio is operated by Themis Solutions Inc., a British Columbia company.
It says more than 400,000 legal professionals use it in 130+ countries, and it partners with over a hundred bar associations, including all fifty US states.
Side by side on the same 15 capability axes and 12 legal signals: where the two part company, and what neither one publishes.
Vendors in the same categories as Clio whose graded profiles look most alike, with a line on what each product does.
Similar is not the same, so check that each one does the job you need. No vendor pays for placement.
Ordered by how closely the graded profiles match across the 15 capability axes, inside the same categories. See how each axis is graded in the methodology.
All 15 axes, graded from public sources on the date shown. Hover a grade to see what the letter means on that axis.
How much of the product is actually AI. Whether the machine learning is the mechanism the buyer is paying for or a feature layered onto conventional software, and whether the vendor is specific about which is which.
Clio is an eighteen year old practice platform with an AI workspace built on top, and Clio frames it that way: its marketing says the 18 year foundation now powers its legal AI. Clio Manage, Grow, Draft and Accounting are conventional software, and the entry tier is sold on practice management, not models. Clio Work is built around AI and sold as a separate product with its own trial, and Grow AI and Manage AI sit inside the older modules. Remove the models and the system 400,000 professionals use to run their firms still works.
Whether the vendor publishes measured accuracy on citations and assertions, grounds output to primary sources, and says plainly what its system does when it does not know. Legal has a documented public record of fabricated citations reaching filed briefs, so an untested claim of accuracy is not evidence.
Two sources ground the AI, and no accuracy figure is published. Clio's pricing page says the AI is grounded in the firm's matters and cites its sources. Its home page says the AI works from matters, clients, filings, messages and financial data, combined with over a billion legal documents across 100+ countries, the vLex library Clio bought in June 2025. That is a described retrieval method over identifiable sources, and the subprocessor list backs it up by naming a vector database provider.
No accuracy measure is published, and the Terms cut against any implied one. Clause 14.2 says Themis does not review Output for accuracy or completeness and that Output may be incomplete or inaccurate. Clause 17.2 says the same of the legal Materials, disclaiming accuracy, completeness and currency. Clio publishes an accuracy resource at /resources/ai-for-lawyers/ai-accuracy-legal/.
What the system decides on its own, what a lawyer must approve, and whether the vendor documents where the review point sits. A tool that drafts under review and a tool that files without one are different products and different risks.
Human review is a marketing commitment that Clio's contract makes binding, but there is no finer structure. Clio's pricing page says the firm reviews and approves everything before it reaches a client or court. Terms clause 14.2 turns that into a duty on the subscriber. It must use AI Services and Output only with human oversight, and review Output for accuracy, completeness, fitness and compliance with legal, regulatory and professional requirements before using it.
Clause 14.4 leaves the subscriber in full control of how AI Services are set up and presented. Missing: no modes or thresholds are described, and nothing says what the product does on its own versus what it waits to be asked.
Named, dated evidence that the product works in production at real firms or legal departments. Case studies with figures and identified customers count. Unattributed testimonials and launch announcements do not.
One named firm comes with a figure and period, alongside platform numbers with no method. King Law is named on the home page with a 275% increase in revenue over four years, credited to visibility and tools across the firm. Named people appear with their firms: Angela Lennon at Koenig | Dunne and Danielle Harvey-Jacob at Harvey-Jacob Law. Platform figures are 400,000+ legal professionals, 130+ countries and 300+ integrations.
Nothing is dated, and no method is given for the King Law figure. A rating of 4.7 from 12,000+ reviews comes from directories, and Clio's own comparison page is marketing.
How client confidences are handled: attorney client privilege and work product treatment, segregation of one client matter from another, whether client data trains any model, and what the vendor commits to in writing rather than in marketing.
Confidentiality commitments are real at Clio, but privilege is never addressed. Terms clause 4.2 binds Themis and its vendors and hosting partners to keep Content strictly confidential and not use or disclose it outside the agreement. Clause 21.3 says only Themis, for strict business reasons, may access and transfer Content, only to provide the Service, with reasonable efforts to notify the subscriber first. Clause 14.6 says using AI Services grants no right to use confidential information to train general large language models.
The security page says AI data is encrypted and processed in the customer's region, AI tools process in real time without storing or reusing data, and outputs are generated only for the user who asks. Missing: any express treatment of privilege or work product, on a platform holding the whole matter file, and any documented separation between matters within a firm.
Whether the vendor is clear that it supplies a tool rather than legal advice, who its audience is, and how it addresses unauthorized practice of law, competence and supervision duties, and jurisdiction limits. ABA Formal Opinion 512 is the reference point. Where the advice line is not the duty a product raises, the axis is read through the nearest professional duty it does raise: judicial conduct rules and the reviewing duty for products sold only to courts, and the duty to bill for time actually spent for products that draft time entries.
Clio covers every part of the advice question, all in its contract. The top of the Terms says in bold that Themis is not a law firm and gives no legal advice, through the Service or otherwise. Clause 12.1 adds that the Services, Output or Materials create no attorney client relationship. The Service is only for legal professionals and those they supervise, with a named exception for academic access. Clause 14.2 addresses competence and supervision, requiring human oversight and making the subscriber review Output against professional body requirements and fiduciary rules.
Jurisdiction limits are stated three ways. The Service is for North America with separate EMEA terms, Materials are limited to the account's country, and clause 2.16 warns that one code base serves all jurisdictions, so subscribers must set and check their own. Clause 14.4 covers clients: firms must tell their own users about the use of AI, the nature and limits of AI responses, and any human oversight.
Published governance over model behavior: who owns it inside the vendor, what is tested before release, and what is disclosed about disparate output across matter types, parties, or populations.
AI principles are public, but not the process behind them. An AI Principles page, attributed to Chief Technology Officer Jonathan Watson, sets out five commitments: AI as collaborator, transparency of AI actions, high quality data, relentless refinement and uncompromising security. Bias appears once, as a claim that diverse, top quality data minimizes it, not as anything measured. Nothing names a person or committee accountable for the AI, describes testing before a feature ships, or discloses any evaluation result.
The one trace of testing is indirect: the subprocessor list names Braintrust Data as an AI analytics, evaluation and testing provider across five products. That shows a testing pipeline exists, not a published regime a buyer could examine.
Retention, deletion, access control, and what happens to prompts and documents after they are processed. Whether the vendor states its subprocessors and its incident practice, or leaves the buyer to assume.
Every element but one is covered in clear terms. Incident practice is contractual: clause 5.5 requires Themis to report any event it reasonably believes is unauthorized access to, disclosure of, use of or damage to Content within 72 hours, and clause 5.6 sets cooperation, investigation and mitigation duties. Deletion has a period: 90 days to retrieve Content after termination, after which all Content is permanently deleted.
Escrowed data is held six months under a separate escrow agreement the customer controls. Subprocessors are published in full and dated. Clause 21.3 limits Themis access to strict business reasons, with advance notice. Encryption, geographic redundancy and at least annual third party penetration testing are stated. The gap is retention during the term. No period is published for AI inputs and outputs, and clause 14.6 lets deidentified, aggregated Content and Output be kept for quality improvement without limit.
What the vendor stands behind contractually when its output is wrong. Indemnities, caps, carve outs, insurance, and whether any of it is published or only reachable through a negotiated agreement.
Liability terms run both ways at Clio, but stop short of AI output. Clause 11.1 excludes liability generally but carves out breaches of confidentiality, security and managed backup, so those duties stay live. Clause 11.2 caps liability at the total paid in the six months before the claim, and does not apply that cap to the indemnity. Clause 13.2 gives the subscriber a real indemnity on two grounds: third party intellectual property claims against the Service, and claims arising from Themis breaching its own confidentiality or security duties.
Exceptions are listed in 13.3. None of it reaches AI output. Clause 13.2(a) excludes Output from the intellectual property indemnity, clause 14.2 provides Output as is, and clause 12.2 disclaims any warranty on results. No insurance position is published.
How deeply the product reaches into the systems legal work already lives in: document management such as iManage and NetDocuments, Word and Outlook, contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, and court filing systems.
Integrations at Clio are documented in breadth, not depth. It lists 300+ integrations in an app directory, runs a developer hub and partner program, and treats API access as a governed feature in clause 3.9. API use is bound by the agreement, heavy use may lead to suspension after a reasonable attempt to warn, and access may be changed or ended. Clause 18 says third party services are not Services under the agreement, carry no warranties, indemnities or service commitments from Themis, and may be replaced, disabled or limited at any time without notice.
That is honest about where the boundary sits. But nothing published says what any integration moves, in which direction, or what a firm must set up.
Where the software runs and where the data sits. Multi tenant cloud, single tenant, private deployment, on premises, and whether region of residence is a published option or an enterprise conversation.
Residency is set out in detail, with no tenancy model. Hosting options cover the European Union, Australia, the United States and Canada, with five regional site versions, a separate EMEA instance at eu.app.clio.com with its own terms, and separate North American and EMEA agreements. Processing is distinguished from storage. The security page says all data used by the AI is encrypted and processed in the customer's own region, naming US, Canada, EMEA and APAC.
The subprocessor list gives a data location for every provider, including each AI processor, and names infrastructure by provider and product. Missing: the tenancy model is not stated anywhere, and nothing says whether residency options vary by plan.
Independent attestation a buyer can pull without a sales call: SOC 2, ISO 27001, penetration test summaries, a trust center with current reports and named scope rather than a badge image.
Clio states the coverage period of its SOC 2 report and gives customers a contract right to it. The trust center at trust.clio.com says the 2025 SOC 2 Type II report was issued for 1 June 2024 to 31 May 2025. The security page says Clio completes annual SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1 Type II examinations, with both reports in the trust center. Clause 5.4(d) obliges Themis to provide a SOC 2 or SOC 3 report, or a comparable description of security measures, within thirty days of a subscriber's request.
At least annual third party penetration testing is stated, and Clio's help center names Deloitte as the independent auditor, though for the earlier Type I engagement. Three details are missing: the trust services criteria are not listed, the auditor for the current Type II is not named, and the penetration testing firm is described only as a leading cybersecurity firm. Clause 5.4(d) also requires signing an agreement with the report's third party provider.
Which models sit underneath, whose they are, where they run, and whether the vendor commits to telling customers when that changes. A legal buyer inherits every dependency it cannot see.
The AI providers behind each product, and where they run, are named, but not the models. The subprocessor list, last modified 20 August 2026, has an AI Service Providers table naming five AI processors, the products each serves and each one's data location: AWS Bedrock, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Vertex AI and Microsoft Azure Foundry. They span Clio Manage, Grow, Draft, Work, Vincent AI and Clio Operate. The list also names Turbopuffer as the vector database, Braintrust Data for AI analytics, evaluation and testing, and Vapi for the Grow voice agent.
So it is clear whose model handles a customer's content, per product, and where. Two gaps. The specific models are never named, only the providers. And the list page carries no commitment to notify customers of changes; the Themis Data Protection Addendum, under which the list is published, may hold one.
Whether a buyer can learn what this costs without entering a sales process: published rates, the unit being charged, what sits behind an enterprise tier, and what implementation adds.
The entry tier has a public price and the rest are quoted. Clio's pricing page shows a starting figure of $49 USD per user per month and names four tiers, Starter, Core, Signature and Elite, with features described tier by tier and a bundle saving of over 15%. Above the entry tier, buyers get a custom quote, and large firms a separate process. The Terms show the published figure is not the whole cost. Clause 9.5 lists setup fees, implementation charges and Metered Features fees as separate, nonrefundable items.
Clause 9.6 gives buyers of setup or professional services sixty days to start them or lose them. None of those amounts is published. The tier names have changed again, and third party trackers still show the previous set.
Who the product is actually built for. AmLaw, midlaw, small firm and solo, in house departments, government and courts, and which practice areas are supported rather than merely claimed.
Coverage is wide, with limits drawn by geography rather than function. Sixteen practice areas have their own pages, from bankruptcy and criminal law to intellectual property and real estate. Pages also cover four firm sizes, from solo to enterprise and large firms, and seven roles. In house counsel and government law each have a page. The Terms state real limits, about where rather than what. The Service is scoped to North America, with separate EMEA terms, and Materials are limited to the country tied to the account.
Clause 2.16 warns that one code base serves all jurisdictions, so the subscriber must set and check its own settings. Nothing says which practice types the product handles poorly.
The public pages on file for Clio, with the recorded signals each one supports and the date it was last read. Open any of them and check the reading against the record.
Client Data in Training, Prompt and Output Retention, Third Party Request and Subpoena Notice
Read Sep 1, 2026
Ethical Walls and Matter Segregation
Read Sep 1, 2026
Outside Counsel Guideline Readiness
Read Sep 1, 2026
Fabricated Citation Record
Read Sep 1, 2026
Clio's pricing page shows a starting rate of $49 USD per user per month and names four tiers: Starter, Core, Signature and Elite, each adding automation, reporting and workflow depth, with features set out per tier. Only the entry figure is published. Core, Signature and Elite need a custom quote, and large firms go through a separate enterprise process. A bundle saving of over 15% is advertised. The $49 entry price is a starting figure, not a fixed rate.
The Terms list further charges that are not quantified anywhere. Clause 9.5 lists setup fees, implementation charges, Metered Features fees, subscription fees and professional services charges as final and not refundable. Clause 9.6 requires setup or professional services to start within sixty days of purchase or be lost. Subscriptions renew automatically for the same term. Cancellation takes effect only at term end and needs a phone call to support, and canceling mid term makes the unpaid balance due. Fees may change on notice.
Clio released a Vincent plugin for Codex, OpenAI's agent. Lawyers can bring Vincent's legal research content and their matter context from Clio into Codex, keeping the connection to the sources behind each answer.
A signal records what public sources say on the date shown. It is not a grade and it is not a recommendation. Where a signal reads Not addressed, it means the index did not locate the material in public sources on that date, which is a statement about disclosure rather than about the product.
Can material a lawyer puts into this product be used to train a model?
The published agreement expressly reserves a right to train on customer content, with no opt out located. Any de identification, anonymization or aggregation qualifier is recorded in the summary.
The agreement permits a qualified form of training, and the marketing says the opposite. Terms clause 14.6 lets Themis de identify and aggregate the Content submitted to, and Output received from, AI Services and use it to improve and ensure the quality of those services, and clause 2.15 adds perpetual aggregate anonymized reporting on usage and content trends. The same clause withholds any right to use confidential information to train generalized LLMs, so the permission is bounded rather than open, and it runs on de identified and aggregated material, not identifiable client content.
Against that, the pricing FAQ says a firm's data is never used for AI training or any other external purpose. Where the two disagree, the agreement governs.
How long does the product keep what a lawyer typed, and can that be set to zero?
Retention is acknowledged in public materials with no stated period.
The end of the contract is covered specifically; the live term is not. Clause 10.7 gives the subscriber no less than ninety days after cancellation or termination to retrieve Content, after which all Content is irrevocably deleted from the Service, with escrowed data held a further six months under a separate escrow agreement the customer arranges directly. No period is published for AI inputs and outputs while the subscription is running, and clause 14.6 permits de identified, aggregated Content and Output to be kept for quality improvement with no stated limit.
The security page says AI tools process data in real time and do not store or reuse it, which points toward minimal retention at the model layer but is a marketing statement rather than a term.
Does retrieval respect the firm’s ethical walls, or can the model read across them?
Segregation is asserted in public materials with no published detail on how it is enforced.
Clio says access is scoped per user, but publishes no detail on how. The security page says sensitive client information never leaves Clio's secure environment and that outputs are generated only for the user who asks. The Terms set up an administrator role that can designate users and remove access. But nothing describes separation by matter, a conflict wall, or how retrieval is limited when the AI reaches across a firm's matters, clients, filings and messages.
Vincent AI, listed separately, describes inheriting a firm's existing permissions and ethical walls when run inside Clio Operate, and nothing like that is published for Clio's own products.
If someone subpoenas the vendor for a firm’s data, does the firm hear about it first?
Terms commit to notice where lawfully permitted. No transparency report located.
Clio commits to notice of compelled disclosure and publishes its process for legal requests. Clause 7.2 says that if Themis is legally required to disclose confidential information, it will give the subscriber prompt written notice first, as far as the law allows, so the subscriber can seek a protective order or other relief, and will then provide only the part legally required. Clause 7.1 says its main duty is to protect Content as far as the law allows.
Clause 7.3 says Themis accepts legal requests for Content only through the process at clio.com/legal-service, a public page for serving legal process. No transparency report is published.
Where does the law in this product come from, and does the vendor have the right to use it?
Sources are identified without stating the license or rights basis.
Clio's legal content can be traced, but the rights basis is described only in general terms. Clause 17.2 says Themis may provide primary and secondary legal materials such as case law, legislation and articles, described as licensed or publicly available, with possible third party terms. The source shows through Clio's own disclosures rather than a provenance statement. The subprocessor list names Vlex Library and Clio Library as products and lists vLex entities and Fastcase, Inc. among Clio affiliates.
The home page puts the content at over a billion legal documents across 100+ countries. Missing: which license covers which jurisdiction, any named publisher, and any update schedule. Clause 17.2 disclaims that Materials are reviewed for accuracy, completeness or currency, and clause 17.5 lets Clio add, change or remove Materials at any time without notice.
Does the product tell you when the authority it just cited has been overruled?
No located public material addresses whether authority is checked for subsequent history.
No citator or check for later history comes with Clio's own products. The Terms run the other way. Clause 17.2 says Themis does not review the Materials for accuracy, completeness or currency and provides them as is, and clause 17.5 lets Materials be added, changed or removed without notice. Vincent AI, listed separately, describes a citator called Cert, but that belongs to that product, not to Clio's own.
What does the product do when the answer is not in the corpus?
No located public material addresses what the product does when it cannot ground an answer.
When the AI cannot ground an answer, nothing says what it does, and Clio puts the burden on the user. Clause 14.2 says Themis does not review Output for accuracy or completeness, that Output may be incomplete or inaccurate, and that the subscriber must review it before using it. No confidence signal, abstention path or no answer behavior is described on the home page, pricing page, AI Principles page, security page or Terms.
Does a public court record exist addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations in output from this product?
No court order, opinion or disciplinary record addressing fabricated or hallucinated legal citations produced by this product has been located as of the date shown. This is a statement about the public record on that one subject, not a finding about the product, and this signal is not a litigation history.
The AI Hallucination Cases database maintained by Damien Charlotin, and general sanctions coverage, record no court order, opinion or disciplinary record naming Clio, Clio Work or Clio Duo as the tool involved. Clio itself publishes extensive material on the sanctions record, including analysis of the Morgan and Morgan matter, where the tool involved was that firm's own in house platform rather than a Clio product.
Has the vendor engaged in public with the ethics opinions its buyers are bound by?
Public materials refer to professional responsibility in general terms without naming guidance.
Professional responsibility comes up often at Clio, with no specific guidance named. Clause 14.2 makes the subscriber responsible for reviewing Output for compliance with legal, regulatory and professional body requirements and fiduciary rules. Clause 14.4 lists the disclosures a firm must give its own users about AI use, limits and human oversight, which puts a professional duty into practice. Clio also publishes a large body of writing on sanctions, the duty of competence and checking practice.
But ABA Formal Opinion 512 is not named, and no state bar opinion is cited. The partnerships with 100+ bar associations are commercial relationships, not engagement with guidance.
Does the vendor address what happens to the bill when the work takes an hour instead of six?
Public materials claim time savings without addressing billing or disclosure, and the product sits inside a fee relationship between a lawyer and a client where those savings would change the bill.
Efficiency and revenue claims are made, but nothing covers how AI work appears on a bill. King Law's 275% revenue growth is the headline, and the platform is itself a billing and time system. One clause addresses passing a technology cost to a client: clause 17.3 says the cost of Purchased Materials may be recovered from a client as a disbursement. That is research cost recovery, not a position on how time saved by AI should be recorded or disclosed. No record marking which work product was AI assisted is described.
Can a firm get this vendor through a client’s AI clause without a bespoke negotiation?
A subprocessor and model provider list plus client facing disclosure material is published or available without an agreement in place.
A firm could answer a client's AI questionnaire from published material alone. The subprocessor list, last modified 20 August 2026 and reachable without a form or agreement, names every infrastructure, AI, feature and payment provider, maps each to the products it serves, and gives a data location for each, including a dedicated AI Service Providers table naming five model processors. Alongside it Clio publishes the Data Protection Addendum, the service level commitments exhibit, the AI Principles page, a public trust center and a dedicated legal process page at clio.com/legal-service.
Together that is a forwardable pack covering who processes client content, where, and on what contractual basis. The specific models are not named, which is the one thing a demanding client questionnaire might still ask for.
If a judge’s standing order requires an AI disclosure, can the product produce one?
Some elements of the record are available, short of a document level export.
The pieces of a record exist, and none is assembled for disclosure. Output is stated to carry citations traceable to source, the subprocessor list would let a firm identify which providers could have processed a given product's content, and the commitment to review and approve describes a human step. But nothing identifies which model produced a specific output, no verification event is recorded against a document, and no export is offered for answering a court.
Clause 14.4 puts the disclosure duty on the firm, requiring it to tell its end users about AI use and human oversight, without giving it a record to do so from.
Every grade and every signal on this index is drawn from public sources and dated. If a record is wrong, out of date, or missing an artifact the index did not locate, send the source and it will be reviewed and the record redated. Vendors are welcome to submit documentation. Nothing on this index is for sale, including a listing, a placement, or a grade.