A2J Author vs Gavel

A2J Author lets court, legal services, and law school staff create web-based guided interviews to help self-represented litigants complete court documents. Authors use a graphical flowchart map to arrange dialogue and branching questions. Document tools include a template automator for basic documents and the A2J Document Assembly Tool for creating templates. CALI offers free hosting on A2J.org for interviews and templates intended to assist litigants; organizations can also self-host the A2J Viewer, A2J DAT, and interviews. The system is browser-based, and the project history says version 7.0 opened the source under the GNU Affero General Public License. Authors can create Section 508 and WCAG2-compliant interviews when using the latest Viewer and following the accessibility checklist. The free plan is for legal aid organizations, government entities, courts, and other nonprofits using the software non-commercially, with a registered and authenticated account. HotDocs templates cannot be published on A2J.org. When self-hosting, generating documents from HotDocs templates requires LawHelp Interactive or a HotDocs server.

Gavel offers two legal software products: Gavel Exec for AI contract review and drafting, and Gavel Workflows for automating legal documents. Exec works in Microsoft Word and online, where it can review, redline or draft contracts, apply playbooks, compare terms with market data and explain changes. Workflows converts client intake answers and templates into Word documents and PDFs using structured workflows. Listed integrations include Clio, Zapier, DocuSign and Stripe; API access is available on higher tiers. Gavel says its products are designed for transactional attorneys, law firms and legal teams. Exec is SOC 2 Type II certified. Gavel also says data is encrypted in transit and at rest, undergoes regular third-party security testing, and that Exec has zero-retention commitments with AI providers. Workflows plans have tier-specific workflow and usage limits. Lite costs $83 a month, while Scale costs $417 a year. Exec has a free trial with 25 queries per user; its paid plan costs $160 a month or $1740 per user billed annually.