Custom software for independent lawyers: cases, deadlines and fees without add-ons

One lawyer in three works alone and pays for software per user, then per module. What legal software vendors cover, what costs extra, and the layer left open by RPVA and CARPA, with prices from four vendors collected on September 2, 2026.

Custom software for an independent lawyer becomes worth discussing when modules cost more than the base. France's Ministry of Justice records 75,681 lawyers on January 1, 2024, of whom 36% practise individually according to the Conseil national des barreaux. Secib lists €65 excluding VAT per month per user, Jarvis Legal €38 excluding VAT, before add-ons (pricing pages consulted September 2, 2026).

What legal software vendors do well

Secib, Jarvis Legal, LegalProd and Kleos manage cases, contacts, tasks, time-based billing and documents, with support and updates following legal practice. Jarvis Legal highlights ‘sovereign-hosted data’ on its pricing page. A practice opening tomorrow will be operational faster with one of these than with anything custom-built. Custom software never beats an established vendor on day one.

Read the price by module, not the entry line

LegalProd publishes €49 per month per user for Classique, €79 for Pro, then separates five individually billed modules: an additional 100 GB of storage at €3, twenty client portals at €5, and stamps, unlimited bank accounts and document templates at €10 per user per month each. Secib announces €65 excluding VAT at entry level and displays neither Advanced nor Elite; electronic signatures and electronic registered letters are billed per use. Kleos, from Wolters Kluwer, publishes no price: its product page denied access on September 2, 2026, so no amount is cited here. On Jarvis Legal and Secib's entry prices alone, a three-person practice pays €114 to €195 excluding VAT per month before its first module.

On Capterra France, the Kleos listing carries 4.0 out of 5 from three reviews, consulted September 2, 2026. Secib has no listing. LEAP, better represented with 546 reviews, includes two dated complaints: ‘The learning curve is real’ on March 24, 2026, and Word integration causing ‘random errors or crashing’ on March 20, 2026. Legal software is hard to compare because customers do not speak publicly and vendors do not all display prices, leaving a colleague on the phone as the only comparison source.

What a practice tool cannot replace

Three components remain closed. Communication with courts goes through e-Barreau, described by the Conseil national des barreaux as the service for exchanging ‘in a 100% paperless and secure way’: filing procedural documents is not something to rewrite. Client funds go through CARPA, so no homemade client-money account. And invoices will go through an approved platform: receiving electronic invoices has been mandatory for all businesses since September 1, 2026; issuing them becomes mandatory on September 1, 2027 for small organisations (France Num guide, August 17, 2026). Professional confidentiality under Article 66-5 of the law of December 31, 1971 also constrains hosting and any third-party access to files. Check each point with your adviser before settling an architecture.

The layer nobody sells you at the right price

What remains is everything vendors sell as add-ons and nothing regulates. A procedural timetable calculating deadlines from service dates using the rules of your own litigation. An exhibit schedule built from uploaded documents, numbered and exported in the required format. Activity tracking combining fixed fees, time spent and success fees within one case. A portal where clients upload documents without you paying per open portal. A receipts dashboard reconciled with CARPA statements. This layer is worth a well-kept case file, and today you rent it per user.

The first question agent Margaux asks

Agent Margaux opens the interview with a question few vendors ask: ‘when a service date arrives, who enters it, and into what?’ The answer generally combines a calendar, a sticky note and an assistant's memory. Victor derives French requirements that you correct before saying ‘Looks good to me’, Amélie builds and Félix verifies against tests written before code. The requirements and code remain on your Mac, online backup is a choice, and what happens to your data is set out clearly. Allow an assistant subscription of around €20 per month, a few euros in tokens and your reading hours. Maestro access is by invitation and is not charged during beta.

Where to start

Take your latest vendor invoice and circle the non-base lines: portals, templates, stamps and per-signature charges. Total them over twelve months, then list what you still maintain manually or in a spreadsheet beside the software. If the lists overlap, describe that scope to an agent team and read the proposed requirements, as other regulated professions have done. The document takes a quarter of an hour to read. While you are there, check what is in your name in your current setup.