Legal Form Drafting & Management Software

Whether you’re drafting a proprietary form or using a court or government PDF, Gavel makes it easy to prepare and manage digital legal forms at scale.

Try Gavel for Free

Having Legal Forms Work For You

What are legal forms?

Legal forms are typically PDF or Microsoft Word documents with fields for all of the relevant client data in a legal matter. Examples of a form are a client intake form or an estate planning questionnaire that an attorney creates to gather information from clients to prepare legal documents.

Or, commonly, it could be a court-mandated or government PDF form, such as a court form or an IRS tax filing form. At Gavel, you can automate your legal forms and generate them for each matter in a fraction of the time by using our workflow creation software.

How it Works

Automating Your Proprietary Legal Form on Gavel

To create a legal form from scratch, create a workflow that gathers the necessary information, then curate how you want the end product to look. Learn more about creating a workflow from scratch here.

Automating a Pre-Existing Legal Form on Gavel

You can automate existing legal forms with Gavel, too. Upload the form (like a court form or PDF document) to Gavel and then add the relevant tags to create a workflow that auto-completes each form with precision. A2J Tech, a social justice enterprise, did just that when creating an app that allows users to complete a Texas Notice of Current Address.

Hiring a Gavel Expert to Automate a Legal Form

If you don’t have time to automate your legal forms yourself, Gavel workflow builders (“Gavel Experts”) can help build and automate your process for you. Gavel Experts have been vetted for their expertise, critical thinking, quality and efficiency and start as low as $35/hour. They are often law students, paralegals and lawyers themselves.

Legal Forms With vs. Without Gavel

Automating a Court Form

Without Gavel

• Attorney manually completes court form that:
  • Is completed via PDF filler or by hand
  • Often asks for repetitive information (e.g. client name, attorney bar number, case number)
  • Cannot notify attorney, in real time, that a question was left unanswered
  • Must be completed one by one
  • May result in error as the intake responses cannot be limited to certain characters (e.g.DOB needs to be a calendar response, SSN needs to have 9 characters)

With Gavel

• Attorney sets up the workflow once upfront:
  • Uploads court forms to Gavel
  • Creates a questionnaire to capture the information necessary for the form
  • Tags questionnaire information to the form and adds any desired conditional logic

Thereafter, forms can be generated in seconds after the relevant client information is captured:

• Either attorney, paralegal or client (through a client intake) enter relevant client data into Gavel
• The form or form set is automatically populated with a click of a button
• Reduced document review time, because:
  • Gavel reduces input error by limiting the type of response accepted
  • Data entry is easy because only the relevant questions are shown to the user
  • Logic and calculations allow any special language to be generated in document based on attorney-created rules

Why Gavel?

#1 most powerful document automation software

• Drag and drop user interface makes it easy for anyone to set up
• Client-facing features, so your clients can answer and complete client intake questionnaires
• Free training and customer support via phone, live screenshare, or email
• Many integrations, including Clio, Zapier, Microsoft Word, and a public API
• Access to template-building automators (“Gavel Experts”) who can create your workflows
• Highest level of data security and compliance
• Embed videos and images into your workflows to educate your clients

How Do I Get Started?

1. Start your free trial
2. Create a new workflow
3. Build out your questions on your workflow
4. Customize using logic and setting up rules
5. Select and tag your output documents
6. Launch your workflows

FAQs

I manually create and complete legal forms and don’t see a need to change what I’m doing. Why should I start now?

A typical legal form is often repetitive and ripe for human error. A legal form is also crucial to get right.

Creating a Legal Form. Creating or digitizing a legal form (such as a client intake form) on Gavel, allows you to mitigate client/user error when they complete your form. A Gavel legal form ensures that no questions/portions are skipped. Additionally, Gavel’s dynamic legal forms can be tailored in real time to prior responses clients/users have inputted, allowing each form response to be efficient, relevant and comprehensive.

Completing a Legal Form. Completing legal forms (such as court forms) often result in clerical errors as those forms require that attorneys input the same information several times (e.g., bar number, SSN, client name, etc.). With Gavel, attorneys can auto-populate these fields and complete several forms, at once, with greater efficiency and higher accuracy.

I want to incorporate a legal form into my practice, but I don’t want to build one. Where can I find premade forms?

Gavel’s Marketplace has several already-built legal forms for free and for purchase. The legal forms on the Marketplace vary in area of law and jurisdictions.

I want to automate my legal forms, but I don’t have time. Can I hire someone to build it for me?

Yes! While we pride ourselves on easy software that anyone can use, you have access to Gavel workflow builders (“Gavel Experts”) who can help build your vision for you. Gavel Experts have been vetted for their expertise, critical thinking, quality and efficiency and start as low as $35/hour. They are often law students, paralegals and lawyers themselves.

Does Gavel offer help throughout the building process?

Yes. Gavel’s award-winning customer team provides unlimited and speedy support for all customers, regardless of the subscription plan. Contact Gavel via phone, live screenshare, email at help@gavel.io or even via the Slack community for immediate support.

What Else Can I Automate?

General

• Engagement Letters
• Retainer agreements
• Declarations
• Points and Authority Memorandums
• Affidavits
• Judicial Council Forms
• Notary Forms
• Meet and Confer Letters
• Discovery propounding documents
• Discovery responding documents

Corporate

• Share Purchase Agreements
• Operating Agreements
• Articles of Incorporation
• Bylaws
• Series A Fundraising Documents
• Series Seed Fundraising Documents
• NVCA documents
• Subscription documents
• Non-disclosure agreements
• Equity Incentive Plans

Real Estate

• Deeds
• Title Documents
• Purchase Agreements
• Lease Agreements
• Assignments
• PCORs
• Mortgage and other financing documents

Family Law

• Child Custody Agreements
• Prenuptial/postnuptial agreements
• Marital Agreements
• Adoption Papers

Immigration

• Visa Applications
• Green Card Applications
• Employment Authorization Applications
• Asylum Applications
• Citizenship Applications
• Petition for Family Members

Mortgage and Loan Law

• Construction loans
• Business purpose loans
• Consumer bridge loans
• Forbearance agreements
• Modification or extension agreements
• Pre-negotiation agreements
• Residential docs corrections
• Loan default letters
• Broker investor packages
• Buyer closing docs
• Seller closing docs
• Lease agreements

Legal Aid

• Restraining orders
• Fee waivers
• Name changes

Estate Planning

• Wills
• Power of Attorneys
• Marital Agreements
• Health Care Directives
• Trusts for couple
• Trusts for single
• Property Assignments
• Beneficiary Designations

Franchise Law

• Franchise agreements
• Franchise disclosure documents
• Joint Venture Agreements
• Purchase Agreements

Testimonials

Susan S., Attorney
This software is very easy to use. The coding is simple and intuitive - it's actually fun! I was able to turn a complex contract into a simple and easy to use questionnaire. The technical support is terrific, and I was really empowered to create the form I needed to populate my contract correctly.

Kimberly U., General Counsel
Simplifies legal work and enhances productivity. GREAT customer service.

Verified Reviewer
[Gavel] is the most robust system and the only one that could satisfy our security needs. I started using [Gavel] for legal documents, and then realized how much more power and capacity it has, so I'm now using it for my projects, HR documents, and pdf forms we need to complete. It's been a game changer.

AI Workflow Building Coming Soon

We’re working on GavelAI, technology that will allow you to upload your documents into Gavel and automatically generate an editable Gavel workflow. We’re always working on ways to improve your practice and expedite the time to build a workflow, and this is just one way we’re delivering on our commitment to you.

Start a free trial to see Gavel in action.