Legal Practice Management API

The Unified Legal API enables developers and product managers to access legal practice management data from multiple platforms through a single, standardized interface. Retrieve matters, practice areas, time entries, and expenses from Clio, MyCase, Smokeball, PracticePanther, Actionstep, Filevine, LEAP, and other legal platforms — all with one API.

What is the Unified Legal API?

Legal practice management platforms like Clio, MyCase, and Smokeball each have unique APIs with different authentication methods, data models, and endpoints. Some call a case a "matter", others a "case", "project", or "action". The Unified Legal API normalizes these differences, allowing you to build once and support the practice management systems your law-firm customers already use, without maintaining separate integrations for each provider.

Legal integrations represent client engagements as matters, the firm's areas of law as practice areas, and billable work as time entries and expenses recorded against a matter.

Key Benefits for Developers

• Single Integration: Write code once to support multiple legal platforms — no need to learn different practice management APIs
• Normalized Data Models: Work with consistent matter, practice area, time entry, and expense structures across all platforms
• Real-Time Data Access: Every request hits the source API live with no caching, ensuring you always have up-to-date matter and billing data
• Zero Maintenance: No need to track API version changes or deprecations across multiple legal platforms
• Faster Development: Ship legal integration features in days instead of months of integration work

Benefits for Product Managers

• Multi-Platform Support: Let law firms connect the practice management system they already use without custom development
• Competitive Advantage: Launch with support for major legal platforms while competitors build integrations one at a time
• Customer Flexibility: Read and write matters, time, and expenses from a single interface regardless of the firm's software
• Reduced Time-to-Market: Get legal-tech features to market quickly without waiting for engineering to build multiple integrations
• Scalable Product Strategy: Easily add new legal platforms as customers request them without significant engineering resources

Legal Data Objects

The Legal API provides access to the following standardized objects:

• Matters: Cases and client engagements with name, number, description, status (pending, open, closed), billing method (hourly, flat fee, contingency), practice area, and stage. Matters link to their clients through contact_ids / company_ids and to every related person or organization through parties, each with a role (client, opposing party, opposing counsel, co-counsel, witness, expert, judge, referrer). Responsible, originating, and assigned staff are linked through user_id, originating_user_id, and user_ids, along with opened, closed, pending, and statute-of-limitations dates.
• Practice Areas: The firm's areas of law, such as personal injury, family, immigration, or corporate, with a name, code, and a normalized type.
• Time Entries: Billable and non-billable time recorded against a matter, with timekeeper (user_id), date worked, minutes worked and billable minutes, hourly rate, total, billed status, invoice, and UTBMS/LEDES activity and task codes.
• Expenses: Costs and disbursements recorded against a matter, with quantity, unit price, total, hard or soft cost type, category, billable and billed status, invoice, and UTBMS/LEDES expense code.

Calendar events from the Calendar API can also be linked to a matter through matter_id, so court dates and deadlines appear alongside the case they belong to.

Common Use Cases

Client Intake & Matter Creation

Build intake tools that create matters in the firm's practice management system as soon as a new client signs up. Set the practice area, client, responsible attorney, and key dates without re-keying data into each platform.

Time Tracking & Billing Capture

Create time-capture tools that log billable time and expenses directly against the right matter. Record hours, rates, and UTBMS codes from a timer, a calendar, or an AI assistant and push them into the firm's billing workflow.

Legal Analytics & Reporting

Pull matters, time entries, and expenses into analytics dashboards and data warehouses. Report on utilization, realization, matter profitability, and workload by practice area or attorney across the firm.

AI Legal Assistants

Build AI agents that read matter details, parties, and activity to summarize cases, draft time-entry narratives, flag upcoming statute-of-limitations dates, and answer questions about a firm's caseload.

Document & E-Signature Workflows

Connect document automation and e-signature tools to the firm's matters. Generate engagement letters and filings from matter and party data, and file them against the right case.

Legal Payments & Accounting

Sync billable time and expenses into accounting, payments, and trust-accounting tools. Reconcile what was worked against what was invoiced using billed status and invoice references.

Why Use a Unified Legal API?

Traditional Approach:

• Build separate integrations for each practice management platform
• Learn multiple authentication systems and API specifications
• Map each platform's idea of a matter, case, project, or action to your own model
• Monitor and update integrations when any platform deprecates or changes their API
• Handle platform-specific rate limits, pagination, and webhook implementations

With Unified Legal API:

• Integrate once with a single API that works across legal platforms
• Use one authentication flow for all platforms
• Work with normalized matter, practice area, time entry, and expense objects
• Automatic handling of API changes, rate limits, and platform-specific differences
• Built-in webhook support for real-time updates across connected platforms

Integration Scenarios

For Legal-Tech SaaS Applications

Add "Connect Your Practice Management System" features that work with supported legal platforms. Build intake, document, billing, or client-portal products without building separate integrations for each provider.

For AI & Automation Tools

Create AI-powered assistants that read matter, party, time, and expense data, then summarize cases, draft entries, and automate routine work across platforms using a single, consistent API interface.

For Analytics & BI Platforms

Pull matter and billing data from connected platforms into your data warehouse or analytics tool. Create unified utilization, profitability, and caseload reports without building multiple data pipelines.

For Payments & Accounting Platforms

Connect billable time and expenses to invoicing, payments, and trust accounting. Keep financial records in step with the work recorded in the firm's practice management system.

Real-Time, Live Data

Unlike other integration platforms that cache data or run periodic sync jobs, the Unified Legal API provides real-time access to legal data. Every API request hits the source platform directly, ensuring you always have the most current matters, time entries, and expenses.

This real-time architecture is ideal for:

• Dashboards displaying live caseload and billing activity
• Time-capture workflows that need the current list of open matters
• Deadline tracking tools that rely on current matter dates
• AI applications that need fresh data for analysis and recommendations

Privacy & Security

Unified.to never stores your customers' legal data. All requests are stateless and pass through to the legal platforms directly. Traffic is regionalized (US/EU/AU) to comply with data residency requirements.