How to choose between Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax
A buying committee that has already named Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax usually does not need another encyclopedia. It needs the questions to ask in order, how those answers split an enterprise motion from a smaller firm, and when the shortlist is missing a privacy-first option that sits beside Clio.
Feature descriptions for Laurel, PointOne, Ajax, and Billables AI come from those vendors' own materials, and from LegalTime AI's comparison notes as of this update. They are not third-party audits. Verify every answer on a live week with your matters.
If the brief is a privacy-first firm, or a Clio-class stack, put LegalTime AI on the same list: local-first Capture, then Create, then Connect, attorney-only drafts, and approve-before-release. A SOC 2 Type II examination is in progress. LegalTime AI is not SOC 2 certified. It is not an enterprise Time Intelligence suite, and it is not an outside-counsel-guideline or pre-bill suite. It is the clearer fit when the first filter is where raw activity lives and whether capture becomes monitoring.
The product-shape roundup is Laurel vs PointOne vs Ajax. The cell matrix is Comparing Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax. Use those when you want the grid. Use this page when you want the order of the questions.
A 15-lawyer partner brief is Automatic billable capture for 15-lawyer firms.
Ask these before the demos
Fill an answer only when a vendor can show it on your matters. Leave blanks blank.
| Order | Question | Why it decides the vote |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Enterprise motion or a smaller-firm motion | A custom RFP calendar can kill a 15-lawyer rollout. Pilot length and seat count matter more than homepage adjectives |
| 2 | Capture surface | Local-first activity, passive signals from email, documents, calls, and meetings, screen and content, or enterprise Time Intelligence are different diligence paths |
| 3 | Outside counsel guidelines and pre-bill | Do you need rules and pre-bill review on the same platform as capture, or only clean entries into the practice system you already run? |
| 4 | Clio beside the system, or a replacement | Does finished time land in Clio, or a peer, through an approve-before-release click, or are you buying a suite that assumes a different system of record? |
| 5 | Certification type and status | SOC 2 Type I versus Type II, certified versus examination in progress, and the report date under NDA. A logo is not an answer |
| 6 | Pause and draft visibility | Can an attorney stop capture instantly? Who sees unreleased drafts? Partner politics die here |
| 7 | Retention and training | What leaves the machine, what is retained, and is shared-model training prohibited in writing? |
ABA Formal Opinion 512 still applies on every row: competence, confidentiality, and oversight. Zero Data Retention reading: Zero Data Retention AI timekeeping.
Enterprise motion or a smaller firm
| Product | Buying motion | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| Laurel | Enterprise sales motion. Custom pricing, per Laurel | Whether a Clio-class firm needs the full Time Intelligence suite |
| PointOne | Custom platform evaluation, per PointOne | Whether outside-counsel-guideline and pre-bill layers are in scope for your seat count |
| Ajax | Pilot-led. A roughly two-week, 14-day pilot, per Ajax. Custom pricing | Pilot success criteria before week one |
| LegalTime AI | 30-day trial. About ten minutes per attorney. Nothing on a firm server. Quoted per attorney | Built for a privacy-first firm on Clio without a program office |
A 15-lawyer firm without a program office should treat a custom enterprise motion as calendar cost. Size brief: Automatic billable capture for 15-lawyer firms.
Capture surface
| Product | Capture model | What to verify on a demo |
|---|---|---|
| Laurel | Enterprise Time Intelligence across tools of record, per Laurel | How capture maps to your tools of record, and whether timekeeping into Clio is in scope |
| PointOne | Passive capture across email, documents, calls, and meetings. States no keystroke logging and no screen recording of content, per PointOne | How that set behaves on a Clio-only day versus a multi-system day |
| Ajax | Screen and content capture across apps, documents, email, calls, and browser, per Ajax | Capture depth on your real apps. Pause and purge |
| LegalTime AI | Local-first raw activity on the attorney machine. Drafts from real work | Pause, the local draft path, and the release payload |
Screen and content processing is not the same diligence path as local-first raw activity.
Outside counsel guidelines and pre-bill
Some firms want guidelines and pre-bill review on the same platform as capture. Some firms only want billing-ready drafts into Clio.
| Product | What the materials say | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| PointOne | Outside counsel guidelines, pre-bill review, and time intelligence on the same platform, per PointOne | Who edits, who approves, and what is visible firmwide before an entry is billed |
| Ajax | Outside-counsel-guideline-aware entry drafting, per Ajax | How those rules are applied on your pilot matters |
| Laurel | Analytics, compliance, and work observability inside Time Intelligence, per Laurel | Whether those layers are required for the purchase or optional |
| LegalTime AI | Approve-before-release into the practice system you already run. Not positioned as a guideline or pre-bill suite | Use it when the job is capture plus a human gate into Clio-class billing |
If guidelines and pre-bill on one platform are the purchase, evaluate those vendor layers on a demo. If the purchase is privacy-first capture beside Clio, keep the request from growing into a suite RFP by accident.
Clio beside the system, or a replacement
Most smaller firms already pay for practice management. A rip-and-replace is usually a non-starter.
| Product | Practice-system path | What to confirm |
|---|---|---|
| LegalTime AI | Clio Trusted Platform Developer. Published adapters: Clio Manage, MyCase, Filevine, PracticePanther, SurePoint, Centerbase, TimeSolv, Harvest. Sits beside the practice system. Explicit release through the firm's existing login. No blind sync | Start here for a Clio-class firm that will not swap practice systems |
| Ajax | Clio, MyCase, Filevine, PracticePanther, SurePoint, Centerbase, Actionstep, Soluno, and others, per Ajax | The live adapter and the release click, on a pilot |
| PointOne | Aderant, Elite 3E, Clio, SurePoint, MyCase, LeanLaw, and others, per PointOne | Which path you will actually run at your seat count |
| Laurel | Enterprise stack and a Microsoft Marketplace path, per Laurel | Clio, if Clio is the system of record |
Clio path for LegalTime AI: integrations/clio and AI timekeeping for Clio Manage.
If almost all billable work already lives inside Clio Manage, look at Clio Manage AI for in-system suggestions, then decide whether off-platform capture still matters. Clio Manage AI does not capture work Clio never sees. Confirm Clio's own pricing and terms with Clio.
Certification type and status
| Vendor | Public claim to verify |
|---|---|
| Ajax | Live security page: SOC 2 Type II Certified, per Ajax |
| Laurel | SOC 2 Type 2, per Laurel. Ask for report type and date |
| PointOne | SOC 2 Type 2, per the homepage. Also ISO 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA claims on the homepage. Ask for report type and date |
| LegalTime AI | Type II examination in progress. Not certified. Documents under NDA |
Pair the report with architecture: pause, drafts, egress, and training. Deeper brief: SOC 2 in progress vs certified and SOC 2 AI timekeeping for law firms.
Pause and who sees drafts
| Product | Pause | Draft visibility |
|---|---|---|
| LegalTime AI | One-click pause. Nothing recorded while paused | Visible only to you until you release. Partners cannot browse drafts. Not a monitoring tool |
| Ajax | Pause available, per Ajax. Confirm behavior, and whether anything is recorded while paused | A release step exists, per Ajax. Verify who can see drafts before release |
| PointOne | Verify on a demo | Pre-bill review and guideline layers on the same platform, per PointOne. Verify who edits, who approves, and what lands in billing |
| Laurel | Verify on a demo | Verify who sees drafts, analytics, and observability views before an entry is billed |
If the vendor cannot show pause in the room, treat that as a partner-politics problem.
Retention and training
| Product | What to put in writing |
|---|---|
| LegalTime AI | Capture stays local-first. Create sends relevant activity for AI processing. Rolling purge. Zero Data Retention agreements. No shared model training. The released payload is the finished entry only. Security and the FAQ |
| Ajax | Retention, purge, and any training prohibition for screen and content processing, in the agreement your counsel reviews |
| PointOne | Retention and training language, alongside passive capture and pre-bill roles |
| Laurel | Laurel materials include single-tenant and no-public-LLM messaging, per Laurel. Still verify retention and training terms on the RFP |
Full brief: Zero Data Retention AI timekeeping.
Where LegalTime AI sits
If the shortlist stops at Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax, add LegalTime AI when the brief is a privacy-first firm, Clio Manage, local-first raw activity, and a short trial.
- Capture records apps and work activity on the computer. Raw activity is read locally. Pause anytime. Nothing is recorded while paused.
- Create drafts narrative, matter, billing code, and duration. Visible only to you.
- Connect is approve, edit, or discard, then release into the billing system through the firm's existing login. No blind sync.
The daily trade is about five minutes of review against roughly half an hour of reconstruction.
Pricing is quoted per attorney on pricing. G2 lists $125 per seat per month as a directional directory note. The trial is 30 days. Setup is about ten minutes per attorney. First users get white-glove onboarding.
LegalTime AI does not replace Laurel's Time Intelligence suite or PointOne's guideline and pre-bill platform when those are the purchase. For a privacy-first firm on a Clio-class practice system, the fit is local-first raw activity, Zero Data Retention, no shared training, drafts only for you, release-gated Connect, and a SOC 2 Type II examination in progress. LegalTime AI is a Clio Trusted Platform Developer.
Billables AI sits in the same category with workflow and API-style integrations and published mid-market tiers at $47, $109, and $169 per user per month, per Billables. Attorney review before billing, per Billables. Confirm live capture depth on a demo.
If the first filter is one of these
| First filter | What to do with it |
|---|---|
| Where raw activity lives, and whether capture feels like monitoring | LegalTime AI belongs on the list for a privacy-first firm on Clio |
| Keep Clio. No rip-and-replace | LegalTime AI belongs on the list. Confirm Ajax, PointOne, and Laurel connect paths on a demo |
| Guidelines and pre-bill on the same platform | Read PointOne's guideline, pre-bill, and time-intelligence description, and Ajax's guideline-aware drafting, on a demo |
| An enterprise Time Intelligence suite | Read Laurel's feature set on the RFP |
| Maximum on-screen capture depth | Read Ajax's screen and content model on a pilot |
| Work almost entirely inside Clio | Look at Clio Manage AI, and add LegalTime AI for work that never enters Clio |
| A cell-by-cell grid | Comparing Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax |
| A sourced shortlist | Recommended AI timekeeping software for law firms |
Ajax materials claim roughly 12% more billable time. That figure stays attributed to Ajax, and it is not verified here. There is no competing percentage on this page.
Same name, different product
LegalTime AI, at legaltime.ai, drafts and releases entries into systems like Clio Manage. Legaltime on some directories is a separate practice-management product, often listed near $24 per user per month. Use the full LegalTime AI name when you search or buy. See about.
Sources
Related
- Comparing Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax
- Laurel vs PointOne vs Ajax
- LegalTime AI vs Laurel vs PointOne
- LegalTime AI vs Ajax
- Zero Data Retention AI timekeeping
- Automatic billable capture for 15-lawyer firms
Enterprise or smaller firm. Capture surface. Guideline scope. Clio beside the system. Certification status. Pause. Retention. Then pilot on your matters.
Frequently asked questions
What order should the questions go in?
When do we add LegalTime AI?
How do the capture surfaces differ?
Who has pause in writing?
What SOC 2 status does each vendor publish?
What should we do with Ajax's 12% claim?
Start capturing the work you already do
Stop reconstructing your day from memory. Let capture run. Review in minutes. Release only what should bill.
Capture → Create → Connect. Not a monitoring tool.