Zola Suite is now CARET Legal; the vendor's blog announces the change, and it describes itself as part of the CARET family. A good alternative depends on what you value in it. CARET Legal's strengths are native accounting with a three-way trust reconciliation report, native email and calendaring, and phone support with onboarding and data migration.
CARET Legal's pricing page lists Enterprise, Enterprise Plus and Enterprise Insights, each as contact sales (Request Pricing); per user plus one-time implementation fees. LawAOS publishes Solo $29, Practice $69 and Firm $119 per user per month, with no implementation fee listed and every module on every plan.
LawAOS fits a firm that wants published prices and modules that CARET Legal's pages, as we read them, do not describe, such as AML/KYC screening and payroll. A firm that wants a vendor to migrate its data for it should weigh CARET Legal's migration service, because LawAOS offers a self-serve importer for contacts, companies and matters only.
CARET Legal does not publish prices. Its three plans are marked Request Pricing, and the page says pricing is per user plus one-time implementation fees. A firm that wants to compare costs without a sales call often starts looking here.
Some capabilities come through partners. CARET Legal's integrations page lists e-signatures through RMail, rule-based deadlines through LawToolBox and document automation through HotDocs. Custom-branded client portals are an add-on, and AI document summaries are on Enterprise Plus.
CARET Legal's pages describe native email and calendaring inside the practice system and phone support on all plans, plus onboarding and data migration. LawAOS reads Microsoft 365 Mail read-only to file emails into matters, does not sync Outlook calendars, and offers no migration service.
Its own pages also list these points.
- Native accounting with a three-way trust reconciliation report in the base plan.
- Native email and calendaring inside the practice system.
- Phone support on all plans plus onboarding and data migration, per its pricing page.
- Ask CARET Legal for a written quote including implementation fees, so both sides are compared on total first-year cost.
- If you use CARET Legal's native email, test how your team would file mail into matters with LawAOS's read-only Microsoft 365 connection.
- Export your contacts, companies and matters and open the files before you sign anything, so you know which columns you will map.
- Run a final trust reconciliation in the old system, keep the report, and plan how each client's opening trust balance will be recorded in the new one.
- Price the whole firm, including add-ons, payment fees, storage and onboarding, not only the entry plan.
- Run one live matter through the trial end to end: intake, a conflict check, time, an invoice and a trust posting.
Buyers who compare CARET Legal, and earlier Zola Suite against MyCase or Clio, often read about these.
- Clio
- Included, per Clio's own page: Three-way reconciliation claimed via Clio Accounting; separate trust and operating ledgers. First published plan: Starter (Clio Manage), starting at $49 USD per user per month.
- MyCase
- Paid add-on, per MyCase's own page: MyCase Accounting built in but added to any plan for $39/accounting user/month. First published plan: MyCase Basic, $50 per user/month (billed annually).
- PracticePanther
- Higher plans, per PracticePanther's own page: Operating accounting and GL/AR/expense management only on Business Pro (PantherAccounting Plus). First published plan: Solo, $49 per user/month (billed annually).
| Capability | CARET Legal (vendor's site) | LawAOS |
|---|---|---|
| Matter management | Included: All-in-one case management with native email, calendaring, tasks and automated workflows. | Included on every plan: matter records that hold documents, tasks, time, invoices and deadlines |
| Documents | Included: Document management on Enterprise; advanced document management and native editing on Enterprise Plus. | Included: built-in editor with .docx and .pdf import and export, version history, multi-file upload |
| Calendar and deadlines | Via integration: LawToolBox integration calculates rule-based deadlines and monitors rule changes. | Included: deadline and limitation-date calculators with reminders; no court rules ship |
| Time and billing | Included: Billing and electronic billing files on Enterprise with integrated timekeeping. | Included: server-clock timers, approval, pre-bill review, invoices under seven fee arrangements |
| Operating accounting | Included: Native accounting included in Enterprise plan. | Included: general ledger, profit and loss, balance sheet, bank reconciliation from a statement CSV; no QuickBooks or Xero sync |
| Trust accounting and reconciliation | Included: Three-way reconciliation reporting on trust accounts; matter-to-matter trust transfers. | Included: client ledgers, cleared-funds checks, guided three-way reconciliation; no bank feed |
| E-signature | Via integration: E-signatures via RMail integration. | Included: built-in signing for documents made in the LawAOS editor |
| Client portal | Included: Client portal on Enterprise; custom-branded portals are an add-on. | Included: per-client switches for documents, messages, invoices and matter status |
| Conflict checks | Included: Enhanced Conflict Check with syntax search and PDF/CSV reports. | Included: fuzzy name and alias matching, waivers with a written justification |
| Permissions and ethical walls | Not confirmed on vendor's site | Included: server-checked roles; walls enforced in the database, applied by an authorized administrator |
| Intake and CRM | Included: Client intake and CRM tracking leads from prospect to client. | Included: public forms shared by link, pipeline stages, lead to matter conversion |
| Online payments | Included: Integrated payments via CARET Pay listed on Enterprise. | Card payments through Stripe Connect once the firm connects its own Stripe account; LawAOS is not the processor |
| AI assistant | Higher plans: CARET AI; AI-generated document summaries (Quick Summary) on Enterprise Plus. | Included on every plan with a metered allowance; the firm may bring its own provider key |
| Document automation | Via integration: Document automation via integration, e.g. HotDocs. | Document templates with {{variable}} fields filled in a form; no questionnaires, conditional logic or court forms |
| Integrations | Via integration: Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, LawToolBox, Lawmatics, HotDocs, OneDrive, RMail. | Short list: Stripe Connect, firm SMTP, Microsoft 365 Mail (read-only), signed webhooks; no Zapier, Slack or QuickBooks |
| AML/KYC screening | Not confirmed on vendor's site | Included: KYC checklist, manual risk rating, OFAC SDN list screening; no identity verification service |
| Payroll | Not confirmed on vendor's site | Included: pay runs posted to the ledger, CSV payslips; no tax calculation |
| Published pricing | Enterprise: Contact sales (Request Pricing); per user plus one-time implementation fees; Enterprise Plus: Contact sales (Request Pricing); per user plus one-time implementation fees; Enterprise Insights: Contact sales (Request Pricing); per user plus one-time implementation fees | Solo $29, Practice $69 and Firm $119 per user per month; Enterprise custom; every module on every plan |
Vendor facts read on the vendor's own pages in September 2026; see sources below. LawAOS facts describe shipped modules.
Every third-party fact on this page was read on the vendor's own site on the date shown. Plans change; check the page before you buy, and tell us if something is out of date.
- CARET Legal: pricing (caretlegal.com/pricing) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: all legal features (caretlegal.com/all-legal-features) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: integrations (caretlegal.com/integrations) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: billing and accounting (caretlegal.com/billing-and-payments/billing-and-accounting) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: enhanced conflict checks (caretlegal.com/enhanced-conflict-checks) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: prospect and contact management (caretlegal.com/prospect-and-contact-management) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: billing and payments (caretlegal.com/billing-and-payments) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: about caret legal (caretlegal.com/about-caret-legal) (read September 2026)
- CARET Legal: zola suite is now caret legal (caretlegal.com/blog/zola-suite-is-now-caret-legal) (read September 2026)
Export from Zola Suite
Take the contact and matter exports Zola Suite gives you as CSV, XLSX or a ZIP of those files. The LawAOS Switch importer reads generic files and asks you to map each column.
See the moduleMap, check duplicates and review
Confirm the column mapping, choose how duplicates are handled, then read the review screen. Nothing is written until you commit the import.
See the moduleOpen matters and upload documents
Imported matters open with their clients linked. Upload each matter's documents in bulk; the editor opens .docx and .pdf files and keeps version history.
See the moduleSet up trust from your last reconciliation
Create each trust account, flag it IOLTA or not, and record each client's starting balance as a posting from the final report of the old system. Then run the guided three-way reconciliation to confirm book, client ledgers and bank agree.
See the moduleStart recording time and billing
Set each matter's fee arrangement, run timers on the server clock, approve entries and raise invoices. Connect your own Stripe account if you want clients to pay by card.
See the module
Stated plainly, so you can decide before you sign up rather than after.
- Outlook calendars do not sync, there is no iCal feed, and Google Calendar sync is manual.
- No court rules ship with the docket: deadlines are calculated from a trigger only where the firm's own rules exist, and there is no screen to add deadline rules or court holidays.
- LawAOS has a short integration list (Stripe Connect, firm SMTP, Microsoft 365 Mail read-only, signed webhooks) and no app marketplace; Zapier, Slack and QuickBooks connections are not built.
- Moving from Zola Suite: a general firm-data importer is not yet shipped. The LawAOS Switch importer at Settings > Data imports brings in contacts, companies and matters from Clio, MyCase or PracticePanther exports, or from a CSV, XLSX or ZIP file, with column mapping, duplicate handling and a review step before anything is committed. Documents are uploaded, and time entries, invoices and trust balances are not imported.
Anything the list leaves open, our team answers directly.