Best Software for Legal Advice Charities in the UK (2026)

Legal advice charities in the UK are operating under extraordinary pressure. Demand for free legal help has risen sharply in the wake of legal aid cuts, the cost-of-living crisis, and widening gaps in access to justice — yet the technology many organisations rely on has not kept pace. Spreadsheets, paper files, and generic CRMs are still common in a sector where case complexity, compliance obligations, and client confidentiality demand something far more robust.

This guide compares the leading CRM and case management platforms available to UK legal advice charities in 2026, including law centres, Citizens Advice bureaux, pro bono networks, and access to justice organisations.

TL;DR: AdvicePro is the most widely used case management system in the UK advice sector, with strong legal aid reporting and compliance features. Plinth offers a modern, AI-assisted alternative with configurable case pathways, AI-generated case notes, partner referral management, and impact reporting. Charitylog is a well-established general charity CRM used by around 1,000 organisations. Clio is a commercial legal practice management tool recommended by the Law Society but designed for private firms, not charities. Salesforce is powerful but requires significant configuration and ongoing technical support.

What you'll learn: How five platforms compare on case management, legal aid compliance, referral tracking, conflict checks, and outcome reporting — and which is the best fit for your organisation.

Who this is for: Managers, supervisors, and operations staff at law centres, legal advice charities, pro bono legal services, and access to justice organisations.

Why Software Matters for Legal Advice Charities

The scale of unmet legal need in the UK is staggering. According to the Law Society, 25.9 million people in England and Wales — 43.6% of the population — do not have access to a local legal aid provider for housing advice, an increase of 6.6% since 2019. Depending on the category of law, between 42% and 90% of the population lack access to a local legal aid provider. The Bar Council's access to justice dashboard shows that 43% of all courts in England and Wales have closed over the past 12 years — 239 court closures in total — leaving 373 parliamentary constituencies without an active local court.

Into this gap step legal advice charities. The Law Centres Network supports 42 law centres across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, providing free legal advice to some of the most disadvantaged communities. Alongside them operate hundreds of independent advice agencies, Citizens Advice bureaux, university law clinics, and pro bono networks such as LawWorks and the Access to Justice Foundation. Research published in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law in 2025 described the not-for-profit legal advice sector as "overwhelmed by the general demand for advice", with organisations struggling to meet growing need against a backdrop of chronic underfunding.

The government's own data paints a sobering picture of sustainability: an estimated 40% of legal aid providers will leave the sector within the next five years. For the organisations that remain, efficient software is not optional — it is essential for managing caseloads, meeting funder requirements, and demonstrating the impact that secures continued funding.

What Legal Advice Charities Need From Software

Legal advice work is distinct from general charity casework. The combination of professional regulatory obligations, legal aid compliance, and the complexity of client matters creates specific technology requirements:

Case and Matter Management

• Structured case records with matter types, legal categories, and case stages
• Conflict of interest checks — the ability to search existing records before opening a new case to identify conflicts
• Case allocation and supervision — assigning matters to advisers with appropriate competence levels
• Key date tracking — court dates, limitation periods, appeal deadlines, and review dates
• Time recording — essential for legal aid billing and for demonstrating the true cost of delivering services to funders

Legal Aid Compliance

• Legal Aid Agency (LAA) reporting — generating data in the formats required for legal aid contract claims
• Controlled and licensed work tracking — distinguishing between different categories of legal aid work
• Means and merits assessments — recording eligibility checks for legal aid
• Matter starts and case outcomes — tracking the metrics that LAA contracts require

Referrals and Multi-Agency Working

• Inbound referral management — receiving referrals from courts, other charities, local authorities, and self-referrals
• Outbound referral tracking — recording when clients are referred onward to solicitors, other agencies, or specialist services
• Partnership reporting — demonstrating collaborative working across referral networks to commissioners and funders

Reporting and Impact

• Outcome tracking — recording results such as debt written off, housing secured, benefits awarded, or legal proceedings resolved
• Funder reporting — producing reports for multiple funders with different requirements (legal aid, local authority, lottery, trust and foundation)
• Quality assurance — supporting independent file reviews and audits, which are a condition of most legal aid contracts

Data Security and Client Confidentiality

• Legal professional privilege considerations — case records may contain legally privileged material
• Role-based access controls — ensuring advisers only see cases within their service area
• Full audit trails — logging every access and edit, which is critical for regulatory compliance
• GDPR compliance — with particular attention to the sensitive nature of legal case data, which may include immigration status, criminal records, and health information

Over 170,000 charities are registered in the UK, but only a small fraction operate in the legal advice space. Those that do face disproportionately complex data management requirements. A housing advice case, for example, might involve court documents, correspondence with landlords, local authority communications, benefit calculations, and evidence bundles — all of which need to be securely stored, quickly retrievable, and linked to the correct client and matter.

Platform Comparison

Plinth

Plinth is a modern, AI-powered CRM and case management platform designed for the UK charity sector. While it is not exclusively a legal case management system, its configurable case pathways make it well suited to legal advice charities that need flexibility without the overhead of a Salesforce implementation.

Key strengths for legal charities:

• AI Case Management — configurable pathways that can be structured around legal categories (housing, debt, welfare benefits, immigration, employment). Case stages, key dates, and outcomes are tracked through workflows that match how legal advice services actually operate.
• AI Case Notes — AI-assisted recording of client consultations. For busy advice sessions where an adviser might see six to eight clients in a morning, this feature can significantly reduce the time spent on post-appointment write-ups while maintaining the detail needed for file reviews.
• Partner CRM — manages referral relationships with courts, solicitors, local authorities, and other agencies. This is particularly valuable for law centres that receive referrals from multiple sources and need to report on partnership working.
• Impact Reporting — generates outcome and impact reports across multiple funders. For organisations juggling legal aid contracts, local authority commissioning, and trust and foundation grants, this reduces the reporting burden substantially.

Considerations: Plinth does not currently include built-in legal aid billing or LAA-specific reporting templates. Organisations with significant legal aid contracts may need to use Plinth alongside a legal aid-specific tool or request custom configuration.

AdvicePro

AdvicePro is a web-based case management system developed specifically for the advice sector. It is used by a wide range of organisations including law centres, Citizens Advice bureaux, local authorities, housing associations, and university advice services.

Key strengths for legal charities:

• Purpose-built for advice work — AdvicePro was designed from the ground up for advice agencies, with matter types, case categories, and reporting structures that align with how legal advice services operate.
• Legal aid compliance — built-in support for Legal Aid Agency reporting, including controlled work, licensed work, and matter start tracking.
• Independent file review support — the reporting and audit features are designed to support the quality assurance processes that legal aid contracts require.
• Security credentials — data is stored in a UK-based ISO27001-certified data centre, and the system holds Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation.
• Auto Actions — automated workflows that trigger tasks, communications, or data entry based on adviser activity, reducing administrative overhead.

Considerations: AdvicePro is a mature, reliable system, but it lacks AI-powered features such as automated case note generation. Its interface, while functional, is less modern than some newer platforms. Referral management is more limited than in systems with dedicated partner CRM functionality.

Charitylog

Charitylog is a well-established CRM used by approximately 1,000 UK charities and not-for-profit organisations. It is a general-purpose charity CRM rather than a legal-specific tool, but it is used by a number of advice agencies, particularly smaller organisations.

Key strengths for legal charities:

• Income-based pricing — Charitylog's standard plan charges based on organisational income rather than per user, with unlimited user licences. For organisations with many volunteers or part-time advisers, this can represent significant savings. Pricing starts from £49 per month.
• Referral management — the ability to send and receive electronic referrals is built into the platform, supporting multi-agency working.
• Flexibility — cases, contacts, documents, communications, and workflows can be configured to match a range of service types.
• UK-based support — a dedicated, named support team based in the UK.

Considerations: Charitylog does not include legal aid reporting, time recording, or conflict of interest checking as standard features. It is a better fit for organisations delivering general advice (e.g., welfare benefits, housing options, debt information) than for those doing specialist legal casework under legal aid contracts.

Clio

Clio is a commercial legal practice management platform recommended by the Law Society of England and Wales. It is the most widely used cloud-based legal software globally, and has invested heavily in AI features in recent years.

Key strengths for legal charities:

• Comprehensive legal practice tools — time recording, billing, document management, client intake, and matter management are all built in and designed for legal work.
• Conflict checking — robust conflict of interest checks are a core feature.
• AI capabilities — Clio has introduced AI-powered drafting, summarisation, and workflow tools.
• Integrations — connects with court filing systems, accounting software, and hundreds of third-party legal tools.

Considerations: Clio is designed for commercial law firms, not charities. Its per-user pricing model (typically £49-£119 per user per month) can be prohibitive for organisations with tight budgets and many part-time staff or volunteers. It does not include charity-specific features such as funder reporting, outcome tracking, or impact measurement. There is no built-in legal aid billing for the UK market. For a law centre that also needs to report to commissioners and funders on social impact, Clio would need to be supplemented with additional tools.

Salesforce

Salesforce offers discounted licences and a dedicated Nonprofit Cloud for charities. Several large legal advice organisations use Salesforce, particularly those with complex multi-site operations.

Key strengths for legal charities:

• Extreme configurability — Salesforce can be built out to handle virtually any workflow, including legal case management, referral tracking, conflict checks, and funder reporting.
• Ecosystem — a large marketplace of apps and integrations, including legal-specific tools.
• AI features — Salesforce Einstein provides AI-powered analytics, predictions, and automation.
• Scalability — suitable for large organisations managing thousands of cases across multiple service areas and locations.

Considerations: Salesforce requires significant implementation investment. Even with discounted or donated licences, the cost of configuration, customisation, and ongoing administration is substantial. Most legal advice charities do not have in-house Salesforce administrators, meaning they are dependent on external consultants. The total cost of ownership is often many times the licence cost. For organisations with fewer than 50 staff, Salesforce is rarely cost-effective.

How to Choose the Right Platform

Selecting software for a legal advice charity depends on several factors:

1. Legal aid contract requirements — if your organisation holds legal aid contracts, LAA reporting is non-negotiable. AdvicePro has the strongest built-in support for this. Plinth can be configured to meet these requirements but may need custom setup.

2. Budget and team size — per-user pricing (Clio, Salesforce) penalises organisations with many part-time staff and volunteers. Income-based pricing (Charitylog) or per-organisation pricing (Plinth, AdvicePro) is more predictable for charity budgets.

3. Complexity of casework — specialist legal casework with court proceedings, evidence bundles, and strict limitation dates requires structured matter management. Generalist advice work (information, signposting, basic casework) can be handled by simpler systems.

4. Referral networks — organisations that work closely with courts, solicitors, and other agencies benefit from dedicated referral management tools. Plinth's Partner CRM is particularly strong here.

5. Reporting obligations — most legal advice charities report to multiple funders simultaneously. Systems with built-in multi-funder reporting (Plinth, AdvicePro, Charitylog) save significant staff time compared to manually extracting data.

6. AI and efficiency needs — with adviser caseloads growing and administrative time under pressure, AI features such as automated case notes can make a material difference. Plinth's AI Case Notes and Clio's AI tools are the strongest options in this area.

The UK legal services market reached over £55 billion in revenue in 2025, according to a recent market report. But the free legal advice sector — the part that serves people who cannot afford a solicitor — operates on a fraction of those resources. Choosing the right software is one of the most impactful decisions a legal advice charity can make, because it determines how efficiently limited resources translate into help for people in need.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best CRM for a law centre in the UK?

AdvicePro is the most widely used case management system among UK law centres and advice agencies, with built-in legal aid reporting and compliance features. Plinth is an increasingly popular alternative that offers AI-powered case notes, configurable case pathways, and stronger referral management through its Partner CRM. The best choice depends on whether your law centre prioritises legal aid billing integration (AdvicePro) or modern AI features and multi-agency referral tracking (Plinth).

Do legal advice charities need specialist software or can they use a general charity CRM?

It depends on the complexity of your work. Organisations delivering general advice (welfare benefits information, debt guidance, housing options) can often use a general charity CRM such as Charitylog. However, organisations conducting specialist legal casework — particularly under legal aid contracts — need features that general CRMs lack: conflict of interest checks, time recording, matter-stage tracking, legal aid reporting, and document management for evidence bundles. A platform like Plinth offers the flexibility to handle both general and specialist work through configurable case pathways.

How much does case management software cost for a legal advice charity?

Costs vary significantly. Charitylog starts from £49 per month with income-based pricing and unlimited users. AdvicePro uses per-organisation pricing that varies by size and requirements. Plinth also offers per-organisation pricing designed for the charity sector. Clio charges per user (typically £49-£119 per month), which can become expensive for organisations with many advisers. Salesforce offers discounted charity licences but the total cost of ownership — including implementation, customisation, and administration — is typically much higher than the licence fees alone.

Can AI help legal advice charities manage caseloads?

Yes. AI is increasingly being adopted across the legal sector, with the Law Society actively engaging with government on responsible AI adoption. For legal advice charities, the most practical AI applications in 2026 are automated case note generation (reducing time spent on post-appointment write-ups), intelligent case triage (helping allocate matters to advisers with the right expertise), and automated reporting. Plinth's AI Case Notes feature is specifically designed for this purpose, allowing advisers to spend more time with clients and less time on paperwork.

What data security standards should legal advice charities look for in software?

At a minimum, look for UK-based data hosting, encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access controls, full audit trails, and GDPR compliance. AdvicePro holds ISO27001 and Cyber Essentials Plus certifications. Legal advice charities should also consider whether the system supports legal professional privilege requirements — case records may contain privileged material that has additional protections beyond standard GDPR obligations. Any platform should provide granular permissions so that advisers in different service areas cannot access each other's case files without authorisation.

Recommended Next Pages

• Case Management Software for Charities — a broader comparison of case management platforms across the UK charity sector
• What Is Case Management? — an introduction to case management principles for charities
• AI Case Notes vs Manual Notes — how AI-generated case notes compare with traditional recording methods
• Referral Software for Charities — a guide to managing referral networks and multi-agency working
• Impact Reporting — how to measure and report outcomes to funders
• CRM for Charities — a general guide to choosing a CRM for your charity
• GDPR and Case Management — data protection considerations for charity case records

Last updated: February 2026 Providing legal advice? Book a demo or contact our team.