2021 at Clio: A Year in Review

2021 was certainly as trying as it was transformative. Hope and resilience weren’t just themes in our broader culture this past year—they were also pillars in the legal industry. 

In this year-in-review, we’ll take a moment to reflect on the past year at Clio. From hosting the biggest virtual event in legal tech, to launching Clio’s online payments platform in Clio Manage, and so much more. Read on to review one of the most impactful and change-oriented years in the legal industry. 

Together, we can transform the legal experience for all 

At Clio, we believe—on a foundational level—that we have a responsibility to change the world around us with our words, choices, and actions. We envision a world in which our legal and judicial systems promote justice in the truest sense of the word. A world in which everyone who needs legal services has access to them. 

We’ve seen tremendous adoption of cloud-based technology as a means for lawyers to keep their firms running smoothly and continue supporting their clients in a rapidly-changing environment. We’re taking a holistic approach to building cloud-based and client-centered solutions to best support lawyers in running their firms and helping their clients. 

Learn more about the technology that’s enabling legal transformation.

The 2021 Clio Cloud Conference

With a record-breaking 4700+ attendees from over 40 countries connecting remotely, the 9th annual Clio Cloud Conference was our biggest and most exciting event to date. 

2021’s conference emphasized discussion on the present and future growth in the legal industry, including meeting evolving client expectations. Most importantly, this year’s Clio Cloud Conference gave attendees the tools and insights on meeting clients where they are (and where they expect lawyers to be). Ultimately, sessions and key takeaways were rooted in empowering attorneys to run and contribute to outstanding client-centered law firms.

Exploring how legal professionals are adapting to new consumer expectations in the 2021 Legal Trends Report

The 2021 Legal Trends Report is in its sixth edition, and this year’s report includes aggregated responses from 150,000 legal professionals using Clio over the last two years. The report also highlights survey responses from more than 1,000 legal professionals and 1,000 general consumers in the U.S. on what they deem most important to them in today’s post-COVID world. 

Learn how legal professionals are harnessing technology to adapt their services to new consumer expectations while building more successful, resilient firms.

How solo lawyers have overcome difficulties to grow their businesses during the pandemic

Solo law firms have experienced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Legal Trends for Solo Law Firms report looks in-depth at how solo lawyers have overcome challenges to secure business growth.

For example, some solo attorneys opted to run their firms remotely. This business decision paid off big time—many attorneys who adopted a remote working style out-earned their counterparts who neglected to pivot to the remote setup. In some cases, the difference in earnings was over $50,000. 

Exploring the client-centered legal practice in Matters Podcast: Season 2

Season two of Matters, a podcast from Clio, presented 11 thought-provoking episodes highlighting core themes in the client-centered legal framework. This past season was hosted by Jack Newton—CEO of Clio and author of the best-selling legal book The Client-Centered Law Firm—and Nefra MacDonald, Affinity Partnerships Manager at Clio and national speaker on the future of law. These co-hosts welcomed legal professionals, industry experts, and innovators from complementary sectors to explore why the “lawyer-centered” model of legal practice needs to change. 

Listen to season two of Matters. 

Exciting acquisitions 

Lawyaw, now known as Clio Draft, joins the Clio family 

2021 harbored some exciting Clio acquisitions, including Lawyaw—the first cloud-based document automation solution to integrate with Clio. 

Lawyaw delivers easy-to-use automated document workflows, including assembly, eSign, information gathering, and knowledge management solutions for solo, small and mid-size legal practices in a web-based platform accessible from anywhere.

Learn more about Lawyaw. 

CalendarRules joins the Clio family 

We’re thrilled to have CalendarRules join Clio—signaling a major leap forward for Clio users everywhere. CalendarRules helps firms manage their court deadlines in three big ways:

1. Set-up calendar events based on jurisdictional court deadlines.
2. The option for firms to create automated reminders.
3. Syncing court dates to calendars in Microsoft Outlook and Google Calendar.

Learn more about how to keep track of court deadlines.

Updates and additions to Clio to help law firms succeed

Clio Payments: A new and better way to get paid 

The 2021 Legal Trends Report reported that 81% of consumers say a firm’s ability to offer payment plans influences their hireability. Essentially, this means that most people looking to hire a law firm would hire a firm that offers payment plans over another firm that doesn’t. An online payments platform like Clio Payments helps firms offer payment plans easily. 

With Clio’s all-new payments suite built into Clio Manage, legal professionals can make it easy for clients to pay their bills online with debit, credit, or eCheck. Sending trust payment requests and maintaining evergreen retainers is a breeze. Not to mention attorneys can rest assured knowing they’re maintaining compliance with the most stringent trust accounting rules. 

Learn more about Clio Payments. 

Clio for Clients 

It’s never been easier for clients to communicate and share information with you, no matter where they are. With Clio for Clients, your clients can securely receive updates, share documents, and access their case information from their desktop at home or mobile phone on the go. The best part? Everything is automatically stored to the appropriate matter in Clio Manage for you.

Learn more about Clio for Clients.

Clio Scheduler: Advanced booking settings 

Clio added another exciting feature this year—Clio Scheduler. With advanced booking settings—including minimum advanced booking notice and buffer time between meetings—Clio Scheduler gives legal professionals more control over their calendars. 

We understand that for many attorneys, their calendars are the lifeline to their clients. Forget last-minute surprises, Clio Scheduler empowers and supports lawyers everywhere to show up prepared for every consultation. You can find the right balance in your daily schedule with this impressive addition to Clio Manage. 

Learn more about advanced booking settings with Clio Scheduler.

Text notifications 

Perhaps one of our most requested and celebrated product advancements is the ability to send text notifications. North American Clio users can now notify and set reminders to avoid costly no-shows and unnecessary administrative overhead of organizing client meetings. Clients can confirm if they plan to attend a meeting, so you aren’t left guessing. Also, automated text reminders save you from having to call or email clients. 

Learn more about text notifications in Clio Manage.

Clio Drive

​​Access, edit, and collaborate on files from the familiarity of your desktop. Clio Drive syncs your documents between a virtual drive on your desktop and Clio Manage, making it easier to find and work with your files. At the same time, Clio Drive lets you keep everything and everyone in sync. Clio Drive is available on all PCs, while the desktop app is available for Mac users. 

Learn more about Clio Drive.

New task enhancements

There’s a lot to love about the most recent Clio Tasks refresh. This 2021 release aligns the look of the task lists page with the rest of Clio Manage and introduces new functionality. Easily assign task lists right inside of a matter, duplicate task lists in seconds, and much more.

Learn more about the redesigned task experience.

Billing enhancements

2021 was a big year for streamlining the billing process. We added several new billing features, including Automated Billing Reminders. This feature automatically sends outstanding balance reminders to clients based on a customized cadence that you set. Bill Message Templates allow you to create, save, and pre-populate customized bill messages to be shared with your clients. Bill Timeline is where you can reference all of the activity and communications on a bill for more visibility.

Learn more about Automated Bill Reminders in Clio Manage.

New integration partners

DialPad 

In 2021 we welcomed DialPad, the industry leader in AI-powered communication and collaboration, to our app directory. This integration provides law firms with best-in-class VoIP features, SMS capabilities, detailed call analytics, unlimited audio recordings and real-time transcription for every call and meeting. 

Learn more about the Clio and DialPad integration. 

Levitate 

This past year, we also had the pleasure of bringing Levitate into our app directory. Levitate’s innovative approach to nurturing networks combined with Clio’s practice management platform lends lawyers a clear advantage over old-school marketing approaches. 

Learn more about the Clio and Levitate integration. 

Another impressive showing at this year’s Launch//Code

Congratulations, Fidu! At the ninth annual Clio Cloud Conference, the Fidu team took home the Viewer’s Choice and the $100,000 grand prize for Best New Integration. Fidu is a client experience platform that builds, systematizes, and delivers fixed-fee and subscription legal services to help law firms scale their business.

Learn more about this year’s LaunchCode winners here. 

Inspiring stories from this year’s Reisman Award winners

Clio’s first customer, Catherine Reisman, was our inspiration for delivering an exceptional software platform to meet the needs of all legal professionals. And ever since the awards’ inception five years ago, it has proven to be harder and harder each year to select the winners. 

Cheers to 2021’s winners—firms that found opportunities to transform the legal experience for all by creating new and dynamic ways for firms and clients to work together:

• Best Growth Story – Laurie McLendon  
• Excellence in Client Service – Rebecca Bell 
• Community Champion – Amy Spencer 
• Legal Innovation – Ariadna Godreau Aubert 
• Best New Law Firm – Leonika Charging

Learn more about the 2021 winners of The Reisman Awards.

Clio’s continuing efforts to improving access to justice 

Now, as always, increased access to justice is absolutely crucial. Many of our most vulnerable people—those with important and pressing legal issues—don’t have access to legal services, or true access to justice. We need to create a more equitable and accessible justice system for all.

Clio donated over $40 million 

Through various programs like our academic access program and the COVID-19 Legal Relief Initiative we’ve been able to donate over $40 million dollars in creating a more equitable and accessible justice system for all. We also partnered with the New York State Bar Association and Paladin to help those unsuccessful at filing for unemployment claims, and matching them with pro bono attorneys free of charge. 

Clio named  on Fast Company’s List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for Broadening Access to Justice 

2021’s list of Most Innovative Companies celebrated 463 businesses spanning 29 countries that found a way to be resilient in the past year—by turning challenges into impact-making processes. We were honored to receive such impactful recognition from Fast Company. This award highlighted our ongoing efforts in meeting the critical needs of law firms and their clients during the pandemic. 

Learn more about how Clio was named on Fast Company’s List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies for Broadening Access to Justice.

Clio Ventures

Clio Ventures was unveiled this year during the 2021 Clio Cloud Conference keynote speech. This portfolio allows Clio to make direct equity investments in promising early-stage companies advancing legal technology. Look out for more exciting news regarding the technologies Clio will be backing.   

Clio became the first legal tech unicorn globally valued at over $1B

This notable investment establishes Clio as the first legal practice management unicorn globally. “This investment is indicative of the explosive demand for legal technology that empowers lawyers to be cloud-based and client-centered,” Jack Newton, CEO and Founder of Clio. Having secured US$6.6B across over 900 companies globally, legaltech is one of the fastest-growing sectors for investors. 

Learn more about Clio’s milestone investment and what it means for the legal industry.

775 Clions strong—and counting! 

We’ve grown so much this year and aren’t planning to slow down. To honor our mission to transform the legal experience for all, our foundation—our people and culture—need to authentically reflect it. We proudly foster a culture of diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging. And we’ll continue to build our team intentionally, ensuring we have varying perspectives and different skills from a range of backgrounds and experiences. 

Take a look at the new, exciting roles at Clio. 

Outstanding awards and recognitions

We’re proud of our culture, and others are too. Below are a handful of notable distinctions we’re grateful to have received in 2021. 

Clio recognized as Canada’s Top 100 Employers

We were honored this past year to be recognized as a Top 100 Employer in Canada. This award celebrates employers offering the nation’s best workplaces and programs that focus on intentional and meaningful connections. 

Read more about Canada’s Top 100 Employer award.

Clio recognized as the Gold Standard for Privately-Owned Canadian Businesses

This past year we were recognized as the Gold Standard in privately-owned Canadian businesses by the nation’s leading business awards program. Every year, hundreds of entrepreneurial companies apply to Deloitte Canada’s prestigious program and undergo a rigorous application process, but only the best are awarded the title of Canada’s Best Managed Companies. 

Learn more about the Gold Standard for Privately-Owned Canadian Businesses. 

Clio named third on Elpha’s Top 10 Workplaces for Women 

It’s an honor to be named a top inclusive employer and organization committed to the success and development of women leaders in 2021—based on Elpha’s survey of thousands of its members. Read more about this eminent recognition.

Clio announces newly expanded leadership team—positioning for next growth stage

Following substantial growth and record-breaking Series D and E funding rounds, we were thrilled to announce a C-Suite expansion by naming a new COO, CPO, CTO, and CMO in 2021. This coveted team of leaders from varying professional backgrounds will help us extend our capabilities on all fronts. 

Learn more about our exciting new leadership structure. 

Jack Newton recognized as Anchor Tech Leader on the BC500 List

Our CEO and Founder, Jack Newton was named in Business in Vancouver’s inaugural BC500 list—celebrating BC’s 500 most influential business leaders and economic drivers. He has been recognized as a Tech Leader – Anchor, with over a decade of entrepreneurship and community building in BC’s growing tech industry.

Learn more about the Anchor Tech Leader Award and the BC500 List. 

Clio wins 2021 Data Breakthrough Award

We’re honored to be awarded the winner of the Data Breakthrough Awards 2021 Data Solution of the Year in the Legal category. The Data Breakthrough Awards honor excellence and recognize the creativity, hard work, and success of data companies, technologies, and products. Learn more about the 2021 Data Breakthrough Awards. 

Conclusion

Thank you to everyone who helped support us in transforming the legal experience for all this past year. As for 2022, we have lots of exciting and innovative plans in the works, including our annual Clio Cloud Conference—to be hosted virtually and in-person in Nashville, Tennessee. If you’re in need of some inspirationfor 2022, take a read through our top New Year’s resolutions for lawyers blog post. 

Until then, we wish you all the best in planning for success in 2022.  

We published this blog post in December 2021. Last updated: September 25, 2024.

Categorized in: Clio