Practice management built around how your firm works, free to run and yours to change.
Intake, engagement letters, billing, payments, trust accounting, documents, research, personal injury and criminal defense, a client portal, and an AI assistant that uses your own key. Twenty-eight tools, every one of them included, none of them sold separately.
There is no reason every firm should get the same screens and the same workflow. Coil is the same software, shaped differently for each firm: switch off what you do not use, and if you do not like how something behaves, tell us and we change it. New features come from what firms ask for, and our goal is to have each one live within 7 days.
Coil is designed from the ground up to work with AI. Every part of it is open to the AI assistant you choose, through MCP, the open standard assistants use to connect to apps, and a full API, with each connection limited to what you allow. The screens are built for the people in your office first: clear, quick to learn, and fast.
The code is public and Coil is built to run on your own server, for free. We are not building this to be nice. We are building it because the companies selling legal software have earned a competitor that charges nothing.
The first five firms get hosting from us, free. After that, Coil is yours to host, and if you would rather not run a server at all, talk to us and we will work something out.
- 28 tools, all included
- 99 features mapped to the products they replace
- 7 days, our goal from request to live
- $0 free, self-hosted
Join the beta waitlist
Four fields. The next page asks a few optional questions, and you are on the list either way.
A replacement for the whole stack, built to cost you nothing.
A solo practice runs on a handful of tools: something to bring clients in, something to get the engagement letter signed, something to bill and get paid, a trust ledger the bar will accept, a place for documents, and lately an AI that can read a file. Today those come from four or five vendors, each with its own subscription, and the big platforms bundle them into suites where you pay for everything to use a fraction.
Coil does all of it in one place. It was built by reading what solos say they actually use, then building those things well and leaving the rest out. The goal is simple: be the free or at-cost replacement for legal software, be as low cost as it is possible to be, and make the incumbents earn their renewals for once.
It is open source under the AGPL. That is not a marketing line. It means you can read the code that touches your trust account, hand it to your IT person, run it on a Mac mini in the office, and keep running it whether or not we exist. If you would rather not run a server, we host it for you and charge what the hosting costs. The self-hosting guide goes to the self-hosting waitlist first, when it opens.
To make good practice management free and open source, and to build something that changes when you ask.
Per-seat pricing. Intake sold separately. E-signature sold separately. The AI sold separately. A markup on payments on top of what the processor already takes. A price bump at every renewal, and a migration so painful you pay it anyway. Then you log in and use maybe 15% of the thing.
That is the whole reason Coil exists. Per-seat pricing for a two-person firm. Add-ons for things that should have been included. Rate hikes once you are locked in. A payments product that started cheap and quietly got expensive. Data you cannot easily leave with.
Coil is the answer to all of that, and it is free. Consider it a middle finger to the way this industry prices software.
Sound familiar?
- You cannot print a statement of everything one client has been billed.
- You cannot change the invoice template.
- Intake lives in a separate product, and you re-enter the client when they sign.
- Flat fee billing is an afterthought bolted onto an hourly system.
- The engagement letter goes out and you have no idea whether it was opened.
- The trust reconciliation is a chore, and now they want to sell you accounting too.
- Every year there is a new add-on you did not ask for, and a new price for the old ones.
Every one of those is fixed in Coil. The feature map files each fix under the product it replaces.
The second half matters as much as the first. Coil gets built around how the firms using it actually work, not around a roadmap written a year ago. Tell us something is wrong or missing and, if we agree it is worth doing, most changes are built, tested and live within 7 days rather than a quarter or two. See what is coming next.
Your firm's Coil, shaped the way you work.
Most legal software gives every firm the same screens and the same way of doing things, and leaves you to adapt. No two firms work the same way, so Coil is built to be customized to each one.
Switch off the tools you never use and they leave your menu, your dashboard and your matter screens, so Coil shows only what your firm needs. Nothing you recorded is deleted, and anything you switch off comes back the moment you switch it on again.
Do not like how something behaves? Tell us, and we change it to work the way your office already does. The same goes for a screen you want laid out differently, or a feature you wish existed. Our goal is to have each change built, tested and live within 7 days.
Every request makes Coil better for every firm. When one firm asks for a feature, it becomes available to all of them, and each firm decides whether to switch it on. Nothing new appears in your Coil unless you choose it. You get software that fits like it was built for you, without paying for a custom build or getting stuck on a version nobody else runs.
Designed from the ground up to work with AI, and good to use without it.
Most practice management software was built before AI assistants existed, and bolts them on later as one more paid add-on. Coil was designed for them from the start. Your matters, contacts, time, tasks, calendar, documents and invoices are open to the AI your firm chooses, through MCP, the open standard assistants use to connect to apps, and through a full REST API that automation tools can use too.
You decide what each connection can do. A connection can read matters but not change them, log time but not touch invoices, or anything in between, and it can never do more than the person who set it up. A privacy mode keeps client names and case details out of the AI entirely. Trust accounting, payments, user accounts, firm settings and deleting records are not reachable by any AI connection at all, however it is configured. Every change an AI makes is recorded in the audit log under the person it acts for.
None of that comes at the expense of the screens your staff use every day. Coil's interface is built for people first: clear pages, short forms, keyboard friendly, readable on a phone, and quick to learn. Use AI as much or as little as you like. Coil works the same either way.
28 tools. All built, all included.
No tiers. Every card below is in every copy of Coil, hosted or self-hosted.
Clients and intake
Intake
Web form to lead to matter in one click, with the conflict check already run.
Engagement letters
Click-to-sign, and you see every time the client opens it.
Conflict check
Fuzzy search across contacts, aliases, parties, files and messages.
Client portal
Magic-link login. Invoices, documents, messages, letters to sign, in English or Spanish.
Secure messaging
Portal messages and two-way texting, attached to the matter.
E-signature
Any document, any signer, with a certificate of who, when, where and what.
Time and money
Time and timer
Six-minute rounding, receipt capture from your phone, browser time suggestions.
Invoicing
Flat fee first. Hourly, contingency and hybrid too. Bulk runs, approvals, split billing.
Invoice templates
Your logo, colours, columns and wording. Editable, with a preview.
Client statements
Every bill and payment for one client on one page.
Payments
Your own Stripe account. Bank transfer free, card with a surcharge you set. Cards on file, payment plans.
Trust accounting
Client ledgers that refuse to go negative, and a three-way reconciliation that works.
Accounting
Operating ledger, bank import, reconciliation, profit and loss, QuickBooks exports.
Reports
AR aging, WIP, origination, realization, profitability, compensation.
Documents and deadlines
Documents
Versions, folders, tags, full-text search inside files, email filing to matters.
Document automation
Word and HTML templates filled from the matter, straight into the file.
Calendar and deadlines
Recurring events, per-person calendars, feeds to Google or Outlook, court-rule deadline chains.
Research
Case law search and full opinions on a free public database, saved to the matter.
Cite check
Paste a brief, get every citation that does not resolve flagged before you file.
Litigation and practice areas
Personal injury
Providers, records requests, liens, demand packages, a settlement worksheet that posts to trust.
Records to chronology
Drop in medical records and get a dated treatment chronology to review.
Demand drafting
A narrative demand from the chronology and facts, in your voice.
Discovery
Propound from starter sets or respond to what was served, with objections flagged.
Depositions
Transcript in, summary and page-line testimony out, contradictions caught.
Criminal defense
Charges, settings, court date chains, plea offers, dispositions.
AI and platform
AI assistant
Bring your own key. Summaries, dates from documents, invoice narratives, plain-English questions.
Case audit
A nightly sweep of every open case for the things that get missed.
API and extension
Tokens, webhooks, a Chrome extension for time, and a phone-intake endpoint.
As low cost as it is possible to be.
These are the rules Coil is built under. If one of them changes, beta firms hear it first.
- The software is free. There are no seats, no tiers and no add-ons to buy.
- Free to run yourself. One container, one database file, your hardware.
- Open source under the AGPL. Read every line. Change it. Take it with you.
- Your data exports to CSV at any time. There is no lock-in because there is no reason to build one.
- Payments at the processor's rate through your own Stripe account. Nobody in the middle takes a cut.
- If a feature would only exist to justify a higher tier, it does not get built.
What hosting costs
Coil is designed to run on a server you own. That is the normal way to use it once self-hosting opens after the beta, and it costs you nothing beyond the server itself, which for a solo is usually a few dollars a month. If you would rather not run one, we will set the whole thing up on hardware you own and hand you the keys, or talk to us about hosting it for you and we will work something out.
Coil is built to be self-hosted.
Running it yourself is the normal path and the one everything is designed around. If you would rather not, there are two ways we can help, and both leave you owning your data.
Install it yourself
One container and a single database file, on a Mac mini in the office, a laptop or a $5 server. We are not handing out the installer yet. Join the waitlist and we will send it, with the setup guide, when self-hosting opens.
Join the self-hosting waitlistWe set up your server
You own the server and the data, we do the work: the machine, Coil, email, backups and remote access, handed over with the passwords. Nothing sits with us afterwards, and you can hand it to your own IT person whenever you like. Ask and we will quote it.
Ask about setupWe host it
Your own instance on your own subdomain, a separate database, nightly backups, and we run the updates. The first five firms get this free. After that it is a conversation rather than a price list, so tell us what you need and we will work something out.
Ask about hostingLeave whenever you like
Contacts, matters, time, invoices, payments and the full trust ledger export to CSV from the Exports page. The source is public under the AGPL-3.0, so nothing about leaving depends on us being cooperative.
Read the sourceHarfree AI. The AI workbench firms pay Harvey-level prices for, at the price of your own model usage.
Document review, drafting, research and chat over your matters. Harfree AI is our configuration of Mike, an open-source legal AI platform under the same license as Coil, connected to Coil over MCP with a token whose scopes and confidentiality mode you choose. It can read your matters, tasks, notes and document text without ever seeing a client's name unless you say so. Coil stays the record for money, deadlines and trust.
What it costs: nothing for the software. You pay your own model provider for what you use, exactly as with Coil's built-in AI, or run models locally through Ollama and pay nobody. It is a separate stack, about eight containers and its own login, which is why it is requested rather than bundled: right for a firm that wants it, wrong to force on everyone.
Everything about Harfree AI, standalone or connected to Coil →
Request Harfree AI
Tell us a little and we will come back to you with what it takes to run it with your Coil.
Not built yet. This is the next phase.
None of the following exists in Coil today. It is what we plan to build next, written down here so you can decide with the real picture instead of finding out after you have moved your files. If one of them is a deal-breaker for you right now, the big platforms are the right answer and we will say so.
- Automatic time capture inside Word and Outlook. Right now the browser extension suggests time from what you had open, and nothing watches your desktop.
- A live QuickBooks sync. Right now you get clean CSV exports built for the QuickBooks importer.
- Deeper LEDES billing for insurance defense, past the export that ships today.
- Mobile apps. There is nothing in the app stores. Coil runs in a phone browser, but the screens inside are laid out for a desktop.
- Court e-filing. This one needs a filing vendor, so the timing is not entirely ours. We will name the vendor we pick once we have one we trust.
Treat that list as intent, not a promise. There are no dates on it, and the order can change based on what firms actually ask for.
The full picture, tool by tool, is on the features page: what is proven and available now, what is next, and what is further out. Pick the ones you care about there and we will email you the day each one launches, and only then.
See every phase and ask to be alerted
What was built and fixed each week so far, with the numbers, is on the build progress page.
The day to day works differently. We build on user feedback daily. Tell us something is broken or missing, and if we agree it is worth doing, most changes are built, tested and live within 7 days instead of sitting in a queue for a release six months out. If we host you, it is live the day it passes testing. If you host your own server, it is one update away.
Questions we get asked.
What does Coil cost?
The software is free. No card, no trial clock. Coil is built to run on a server you own, which for a solo is usually a few dollars a month, and Coil on it costs nothing. If you would rather not set that up, we will do it for you on your hardware for a one-off fee, and then it is yours. The first five firms also get hosting from us free; after that, ask and we will work something out. The source is public under the AGPL, so nobody can take the build you hold away from you.
Why would you give this away?
Because the tools a solo actually uses cost very little to run, and the market charges $50 to $150 per user per month for them anyway. Mostly because we are tired of the big SaaS companies and their shitty business practices.
What does open source mean for a law firm?
The code is public under the AGPL-3.0. You, or anyone you hire, can read it, audit how it handles trust money and client data, change it, and run it anywhere. If we vanished tomorrow, Coil would keep running and someone else could keep improving it. No closed product can promise that.
How is Coil different from the big platforms?
It does less, on purpose, and charges nothing for it. The big platforms run $49 to $149 per user per month, sell intake, e-signature and AI as separate products, and cannot tell you whether the engagement letter was opened. Coil treats intake to signature as one step, makes flat fee the default, and skips the parts most solos never open.
Can I use Coil with my own AI assistant?
Yes. Coil was designed to work with AI from the start. It speaks MCP, the open standard AI assistants use to connect to apps, and has a full REST API. Each connection gets only the permissions you give it, can run in a privacy mode that withholds client names and case details, and can never reach trust accounting, payments, user accounts or deletes. You bring the AI and its account; Coil does not charge for the connection.
Can Coil be changed to suit my firm?
Yes. Switch off any tool you do not use and it leaves your menu, your dashboard and your matter screens, with nothing deleted. If you do not like how something behaves, ask and we change it, with a goal of 7 days, then make it available to every firm, switched off until each firm chooses to turn it on. Your Coil stays on the same code as everyone else's, so you never fall behind on updates.
Is the e-signature valid?
Click-to-sign with a typed name, an affirmative checkbox, and an audit record of the signer, IP address, user agent, timestamp and document hash is the same model most e-signature products use under ESIGN and UETA. It is not notarization, and for documents your state requires to be wet-signed you should still use paper.
Is the trust accounting compliant with my state bar?
It keeps individual client ledgers, never lets a client balance go negative, records every deposit and disbursement with a reference, and produces a three-way reconciliation against your bank statement. Bar rules on frequency and retention differ by state, so you remain responsible for the schedule and for reviewing the reports.
Where does my data live?
Hosted firms get their own database on a server we operate, separate from every other firm. Self-hosted firms keep it wherever they run the container. Either way the whole database is a single file you can copy.
Can I import from my current system?
Contacts import from CSV. Existing matters are entered as open balances rather than full history. A fuller importer is the first thing beta feedback will decide.