Welcome to Laminar
Laminar is practice management software for law firms that do a lot of transactions. Not ten files a month. Hundreds. Maybe thousands.
If juggling 200 balls and keeping them in the air is just a regular Tuesday for your team, this is the tool that was built for that specific problem.
What Makes It Different
Section titled “What Makes It Different”You’ve probably used legal software before. Maybe PCLaw, Clio, The Conveyancer, LawyerDoneDeal, or ProLegis. Most of those tools treat a file as a container you open, do stuff in, and eventually close. The file sits there whether you need it today or not, and it’s on you to remember what needs attention.
Laminar works differently. It’s closer to how project management tools in other industries operate, but adapted for legal work. Here’s what that means in practice:
Your work comes to you. Instead of scanning through a list of every open file trying to figure out what’s urgent, Laminar surfaces the tasks that need your attention right now. Everything else stays out of your way until it’s relevant.
Every matter moves through stages. Not just “open” and “closed.” A residential purchase might move through Leads, Necessary Information, Document Preparation, Signing, Requesting Funds, Closing, Reporting, and Completed. You can see where every transaction sits at a glance, and spot the ones that are stuck. These stages are fully configurable. Different matter types can have entirely different workflows, and every firm can set up their own to match how they actually work.
Every task has one owner. No more “I thought you were handling that.” Every piece of work is assigned to a person or a team, with a clear record of who’s responsible.
Nothing disappears. Every change, every assignment, every status update is logged automatically. When someone asks “who moved this forward?” or “when was this document uploaded?”, the answer is already there.
Who Uses Laminar
Section titled “Who Uses Laminar”Laminar is built for everyone in the firm, not just lawyers.
Most legal software hard-codes job titles into its permission system. You pick “Lawyer” or “Clerk” from a dropdown and that determines what you can do. That works until your firm doesn’t match the software’s assumptions. Maybe your paralegals handle things other tools only let lawyers do, or your office structure doesn’t fit neatly into the boxes provided.
Laminar takes a different approach. Instead of baking in assumptions about your organizational structure, it uses composition: you build up what each person can do by assigning them to teams, designating them as a responsible lawyer on specific matters, granting approval authority, or delegating specific capabilities. The system adapts to how your firm actually works, rather than forcing your firm to adapt to it.
In practice, this means:
If you spend most of your time working through tasks (updating statuses, uploading documents, moving matters forward), you’ll live in your task list and the matters assigned to you or your team.
If you oversee matters and approve transactions (reviewing what’s progressing and what’s stuck, signing off on trust expenditures), you’ll use the matter views, approval queues, and your team’s workload dashboards.
If you’re responsible for setting up and managing the firm (configuring workflows, managing users and teams, controlling who can do what), you’ll work in the administration settings.
Where to Go Next
Section titled “Where to Go Next”If you’re brand new, start with these in order:
- Key Terms will give you the vocabulary. Laminar uses some familiar words in specific ways, and a few new ones worth learning upfront.
- Your First Day walks you through the interface so you know where things are.
- Concepts covers the building blocks in more depth: matters, workflows, tasks, trust accounts, and how they fit together.
- Guides walks you through common tasks step by step.
If you’re an administrator setting up the firm, head to the Your Firm section after you’ve read through the basics.
If you’re migrating from PCLaw, Clio, The Conveyancer, LawyerDoneDeal, ProLegis, or another practice management system, check back soon. We’re preparing migration guides that map familiar concepts to how Laminar works.