Most firms on Clio think of it as the billing and calendar system. Look closer and it is also a written record of how the firm practises: the matter note a partner left after a client call, the email log filed against a matter, the text thread with a client who never answers email, the intake form that started the file, and the time entry narratives that describe every hour in a sentence.
Brokers have noticed. Clova Data's Meta ads to law firms name Clio alongside Filevine and MyCase, and micro1 and Mercor both list legal among the industries they buy from. What they describe wanting is the firm's workflow: notes, communications, templates and task histories.
This page covers what in Clio Manage holds that kind of writing, how Clio's own export gets it out and what it leaves behind, the published lines in Clio's terms on ownership, automated access and termination, quoted as written, and the questions a firm should put to any buyer before an export runs.
Worth
What a firm's data may be worth
Pre-set for a typical firm: 30 staff and 10 years of records. No buyer publishes pricing by industry, so industry does not move the band. Our estimate, not a buyer quote.
Buyers
Which buyers want this data
Each reason is the buyer's own published statement about the tools, data or industries it takes, matched to how Clio law firms work.
Featured partners
micro1
Names legal and compliance among its target industries and asks for internal docs, templates and task histories, which a Clio firm keeps as matter notes and tasks.11,12
- $100K to $2M+, micro1 says8
Watch out for: Says it removes personal details only "when relevant", so ask exactly how.13
Polyshares
Buys email, Drive and CRM records from professional services firms, but says it excludes data held on behalf of clients, which decides how much of a Clio export is in scope.14,15,16
- $100K to $2M+, Polyshares says9
- None, Polyshares says17
- An offer in 1 to 2 weeks, then paid in 30 to 60 days18
Watch out for: Exclusive by default, and every deal it lists is exclusive with no end date.19,20
Everyone else we reviewed
By score, with full reviews. We have no referral agreement with these companies, so we do not link out to them.
Buyer demand
How buyers' own tools rate Clio law firms
No buyer publishes a price list by industry. These are settings inside buyers' and brokers' own estimators and intake forms, read from their public pages on 2026-10-14. They show how each company sorts industries, not what any firm was paid. The category shown is the one a firm would most likely pick; that match is ours.
| Company | Its category | How it rates the industry |
|---|---|---|
| Troveo | Legal | Tier 2 of 4: "Your industry carries above-average buyer demand." Price factor 1.15 in its estimator.29 |
| Polyshares | Legal | Marked premium in its intake list30 |
| VMS | Law | Higher weight in its estimator (factor 1.30)31 |
| Ventra | Legal, healthcare, financial services or accounting | Says it cannot take these industries right now32 |
Size rules buyers publish
Checked against 30 staff, the typical firm size this page's calculator is set to. Ask each buyer whether contractors and part-time staff count.
Polyshares
No headcount rule; the length and texture of the record matter more33
Mercor
None stated34
Troveo
No minimum stated; its estimator starts at 2035
Nyne
20+ US W-2 employees and 3+ years36
Handshake AI
20+ full-time employees and 3+ years37
micro1
Pewter
20+ staff and 3+ years39
Endless
Roughly 30+ employees40
Ventra
30+ US employees and 3+ years of records41
Supersoniq
50+ employees and 5+ years42
What buyers value
What in a firm's records buyers value
The column on the right is not legal advice: it lists what to raise with the buyer before anything is exported.
| Data | Where it lives | Why a buyer values it | Raise with the buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matter notes | Clio Manage, Matters > Notes (in the bulk export) | Short written judgments made during the life of a matter: what the client said, what the attorney decided next, and why. | Client names and facts inside every note, and how they are removed. |
| Email logs and filed email | Clio Manage email logs, automated filing from Gmail, Outlook or Exchange | The correspondence chain of a matter in one place, already sorted by client and matter, which saves a buyer the hardest step. | Opposing counsel and third parties copied on the threads. |
| Time entry narratives | Clio Manage time entries (in the bulk export) | Thousands of one-line descriptions of legal work, each tied to a matter type and a duration. | Rates and billed amounts sitting next to the narratives. |
| Tasks and task lists | Clio Manage tasks (in the bulk export) | The firm's repeatable steps for each matter type, in order, which is what micro1 calls well defined workflows. | Nothing specific |
| Client text threads and portal messages | Clio Manage text messaging (PDF per conversation), Clio for Clients | Plain-language explanations to clients, the part of practice that is hardest to find written down. | Texts export one conversation at a time as PDF, not in the CSV set. |
| Intake forms | Clio Grow and Clio Manage intake forms | How a prospective client describes the problem in their own words, paired with how the firm sorted it. | Prospects who never became clients. |
A week of records
A week of data at a firm
- Monday: three new intake forms arrive overnight; the intake coordinator converts two to matters and logs a note on why the third was declined.
- Tuesday: automated filing drops forty client emails into their matters; an associate adds a matter note summarising a call with opposing counsel.
- Wednesday: the partner reassigns a task list on a probate matter and texts the executor a plain-English update.
- Thursday: time entries pile up with narratives like reviewing a lease and flagging two clauses for the client.
- Friday: an internal message thread decides who covers a hearing next week, and the client portal posts a draft for review.
Process
How it works with each buyer
In each buyer's own published words. Where a buyer publishes nothing, we say so rather than guess.
micro1
- Internal docs, SOPs and playbooks, knowledge bases, project management workflows, internal comms, templates, CRM and workflow metadata, task histories12
- 30 to 200 employees38
- $100K-$2M+ per data package; over $1M for unique data8
- PII removed "when relevant"13
- The company keeps ownership of its data and reviews samples before release43
- Not published
Polyshares
Selling or closing
Selling or closing your firm? License its data first
Firms merge and partners retire, and a Clio account has a clock on it when it closes: the terms give 90 days to retrieve Content before it is deleted. If a sale or closure is coming, ask any licensing company whether its work can finish inside that window, and decide what is exported before the subscription ends.3
FAQ
Clio data: questions, answered
An administrator opens the Exports page and downloads each of ten data types as an Excel ready CSV: matters, contacts, contact notes, matter notes, communications, tasks, time entries, calendar entries, expense entries and contact related matters. Clio says only administrators can export in bulk.1
Clio's Terms of Service, effective 2026-08-04, say in section 3.7 that as between Clio's company Themis and the subscriber, any Content remains the property of the subscriber. Section 2.13 says the subscriber may replicate all Content on its own storage device. We quote these terms; we do not interpret them.46
Yes, for Clio's own AI features. Section 14.3(b) says the subscriber will not use Clio's AI Services or Outputs to train any AI or machine learning model. We found no clause naming the subscriber's own Content in an AI training restriction. Put the question to the buyer in writing.49
Several list law firms. micro1 and Mercor name legal among their industries, the brokers Endless and Pewter list law firms, and Clova Data names Clio in Meta ads aimed at firms with 30+ staff. None publishes a Clio price. Polyshares excludes data held on behalf of clients, and Return My Time leaves privileged legal material outside its initial scope.11,21,40,39,2,6,16,50
No buyer prices Clio data on its own. Published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims: micro1 states $100K-$2M+ per data package, Cognor Labs and Ventra $100K-$2M, and monsterdata.ai $50K-$1M for a one-time sale. Matter notes and filed email linked to outcomes are what buyers describe valuing; client-held material may shrink what is in scope.8,51,52,53,16
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company: their team reviews this with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Legal questions go to the licensing company
We do not answer legal questions. Ask the licensing company before you sign: their team reviews these with you.
Questions for this kind of business
- Which Clio export method will you use, and does it fit section 3.8 of Clio's terms on automated access?
- How will client, opposing party and witness names be removed from matter notes and email logs, and who checks the result?
- Will matters for current clients be treated differently from closed files?
- How is ABA Formal Opinion 512 handled in your process?
- Do customer, vendor or platform contracts, NDAs or API terms restrict this?
- Could the data include privileged material or trade secrets?
- Do professional rules apply (AICPA, IRC 7216, HIPAA, ABA Model Rule 1.17, insurance agency contracts, adviser rules, state boards)?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?