If your law firm is still manually drafting documents from scratch — or worse, copying and pasting from old templates — you’re leaving money on the table. Clio for Work (formerly Lawyaw) is a document automation platform that integrates directly with Clio Manage, allowing you to generate court forms, contracts, letters, and legal documents in minutes instead of hours.
This guide walks you through setting up Clio for Work and building your first automated document workflows.
What Is Clio for Work?
Clio for Work is Clio’s dedicated document automation tool. It takes the data already stored in your Clio Manage matters and automatically populates it into document templates — eliminating manual data entry, reducing errors, and dramatically speeding up document preparation.
- Court form automation — Auto-fill state and federal court forms with matter data from Clio
- Custom template builder — Create reusable templates for any document type with smart merge fields
- Bulk document generation — Generate entire document sets for a matter with a single click
- E-signature integration — Send completed documents for electronic signature without leaving the platform
- Direct Clio sync — Pull data from Clio Manage matters and push completed documents back automatically
Step 1: Connect Clio for Work to Clio Manage
The foundation of Clio for Work’s power is its deep integration with Clio Manage. Connecting the two platforms ensures that client and matter data flows seamlessly into your document templates.
- Log into your Clio for Work account at app.clio.com
- Navigate to Settings → Integrations
- Click Connect Clio Manage and authorize the connection
- Select which matter fields you want to sync (contacts, custom fields, dates, etc.)
- Test the connection by pulling data from an existing matter
Step 2: Set Up Your Court Form Library
One of Clio for Work’s standout features is its library of pre-built court forms for jurisdictions across the United States. Instead of downloading PDFs and filling them manually, you can auto-populate them directly from your Clio data.
- Go to Court Forms in the main navigation
- Search for forms by state, court, and form type
- Save frequently used forms to your Favorites for quick access
- Map Clio Manage fields to form fields — for example, map “Client Name” to the “Plaintiff” field on a complaint form
- Create form sets that group related forms together (e.g., all forms needed for a personal injury filing)
Step 3: Build Custom Document Templates
Beyond court forms, Clio for Work allows you to create custom templates for any document your firm uses regularly. This is where the real time savings happen.
- Start with your most-used documents — Retainer agreements, demand letters, discovery requests, and settlement agreements are great starting points
- Upload your existing Word templates to Clio for Work’s template editor
- Insert merge fields where dynamic data should appear (client name, case number, accident date, etc.)
- Add conditional logic — Show or hide sections based on case type, jurisdiction, or other variables
- Create calculation fields — Automatically compute damages, fees, or deadlines based on input values
Best practice: Build templates for documents you create more than three times per month. Even saving 15 minutes per document adds up to hundreds of hours annually for a busy firm.
Step 4: Create Document Workflows
Document workflows bundle multiple templates together so you can generate an entire set of documents for a specific scenario with minimal effort.
- New client onboarding workflow — Retainer agreement + engagement letter + client information sheet + authorization forms
- Personal injury demand workflow — Demand letter + medical records summary + damages calculation + settlement proposal
- Litigation filing workflow — Complaint + summons + civil cover sheet + certificate of service
- Discovery workflow — Interrogatories + requests for production + requests for admission
Step 5: Enable E-Signature Integration
Clio for Work integrates with e-signature platforms so you can send documents for signing immediately after generation — no downloading, printing, or emailing required.
- Connect your DocuSign or Adobe Sign account in Clio for Work settings
- Define signature placement on your templates during the design phase
- After generating a document, click Send for Signature to initiate the signing workflow
- Track signing status directly from your Clio dashboard
- Signed documents are automatically saved back to the matter in Clio Manage
Measuring Your ROI
Law firms that implement Clio for Work typically see significant time savings:
- 70-80% reduction in document preparation time
- Near-zero error rate on auto-populated fields (versus manual data entry)
- Faster client onboarding — documents ready in minutes instead of days
- Improved consistency — every document follows your firm’s standards
Need Help Getting Started?
Setting up document automation requires an upfront investment of time to build your template library, but the long-term payoff is enormous. At Courthouse Digital, we help law firms design and implement Clio for Work systems that maximize efficiency from day one. Contact our team to learn how we can build a custom document automation strategy for your practice.