Litigation-heavy general practice
The dominant shape of Egyptian practice: a mixed civil, commercial and labour caseload where the binding constraint is tracking dozens of live sessions across multiple courts without dropping one.
Law firm management software for Egyptian practices
Built around how Egyptian offices actually work: sessions that adjourn, files that live in three places at once, and clients who call to ask what happened at the hearing.
Most Egyptian law offices are not short of work — they are short of a single place where the work lives. A case file exists as a paper folder in the office, a folder of scans on somebody's laptop, a WhatsApp thread with the client, and a hearing date in a notebook. Nothing reconciles, and the cost shows up as a missed session or an hour that never made it onto an invoice.
The scale of practice here is distinctive. A very large share of the profession is solo practitioners and offices of two to five, often handling a mix of civil, labour, family and commercial matters at the same time rather than specialising. Software written for a fifty-lawyer firm in London assumes a practice manager, a billing clerk and an IT department. None of those exist in a five-person office in Cairo or Alexandria, so the tool has to be usable by the lawyer, on a phone, between sessions.
Arabic is not a localisation checkbox in this market — it is the working language of the file, the pleadings and the client. That means right-to-left layout that actually holds up, Arabic search that finds a client whose name is written three different ways, and a client portal a non-technical client will open more than once.
The second constraint is price. A licence quoted in dollars per user per month at international rates is simply outside the reach of the practices that most need the tooling. Pricing that starts at a level a solo practitioner can justify is what decides whether the software gets adopted at all.
Hearings, adjournments and deadlines
- Cases move through courts of first instance, courts of appeal, and the Court of Cassation, and a single matter can carry different reference numbers at each stage — so a case record has to hold more than one identifier without becoming confusing.
- Adjournment is the normal rhythm of litigation here, not the exception. A case may be adjourned repeatedly for pleadings, for expert reports, or for the other side to appear. Every adjournment produces a new date that has to reach the responsible lawyer and, ideally, the client.
- Court dates are what the whole practice hangs on. Smart Legal OS keeps hearings, filing deadlines and internal task deadlines on one calendar, with automated reminders running on a schedule so a session does not depend on somebody remembering to check a notebook.
- Administrative and economic courts, labour matters and personal-status cases each run on their own timelines. Grouping deadlines by case and by responsible lawyer — rather than one undifferentiated list — is what makes a mixed caseload manageable.
Billing, collection and the ETA e-invoicing shift
- Egypt's move to mandatory electronic invoicing through the Egyptian Tax Authority has changed the paperwork expectations on professional services firms, particularly for corporate clients who need a compliant document to book the expense. Invoices generated from the system carry structured line items, VAT treatment and client tax details rather than being retyped in Word each time.
- Fee arrangements in Egyptian practice are rarely a single clean hourly rate. A matter may combine a fixed fee for a stage, a success element, and disbursements advanced on the client's behalf — court fees, expert fees, filing costs. Those advances are where money quietly leaks: they are paid, not recorded, and never recovered.
- Billing in EGP with the option to quote corporate and cross-border clients in USD reflects how mixed practices actually invoice, without keeping a parallel spreadsheet to translate between the two.
- Collection is a workflow, not an event. Outstanding receivables per client, ageing, and what was actually paid against each invoice sit on the owner dashboard, because in a small office the person chasing payment is usually the same person arguing the case.
Practice types this fits
Corporate and commercial advisory
Firms serving companies need document version control, structured invoices their client's finance department will accept, and a record of advice given that survives the associate who gave it leaving.
Family and personal status
High matter volume, emotionally invested clients who call often, and long-running files. A client portal that answers 'what is happening with my case' without a phone call is worth more here than anywhere else.
Legal consultants and in-house teams
Consultants tracking advisory engagements rather than court files, and corporate legal departments that need internal matters documented and auditable.
Plans start at $49 per month — roughly 1,500 EGP — for a solo practice, including the client portal, billing and the mobile apps. The AI assistant is on the Professional plan at $149 per month. All plans start with a 14-day free trial and no credit card.
Pricing →Frequently asked questions
Does Smart Legal OS work in Arabic?
Yes, fully. The interface, the client portal and the mobile apps all run in Arabic with proper right-to-left layout. Case notes, client records and documents can be written and searched in Arabic. This is not a translated skin over an English product — Arabic is a first-class working language throughout.
Can it track hearing dates and adjournments?
Yes. Each case carries its own court dates, and when a session is adjourned you record the new date against the case. The calendar consolidates hearings, filing deadlines and internal task deadlines, and automated reminders go out on a schedule to the lawyer responsible.
Can I invoice in Egyptian pounds?
Yes. Invoices can be raised in EGP, with USD available for corporate and cross-border clients. Invoices are generated from recorded time and expenses rather than retyped, so what was worked is what gets billed.
How much does it cost for a solo practitioner in Egypt?
The Starter plan is $49 per month, approximately 1,500 EGP, and covers one lawyer with up to 100 clients, including case management, the client portal, billing, document management and the mobile apps. Annual billing saves 20%.
Can I move my existing cases and clients across?
Yes. We provide data migration tooling and our team will help you import existing cases, clients and documents from spreadsheets or another system at no charge. Most small offices are migrated well within the trial period.
Is my clients' data kept confidential?
Each firm's data is isolated from every other firm on the platform. Access inside your firm is controlled by role, so a paralegal does not see what a partner sees, and every action is written to an audit trail. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Markets
the UAE
One system for a practice that runs in two languages, across two legal traditions, for clients who expect to see their matter status without asking for it.
Saudi Arabia
Arabic-first records, invoicing that matches what the tax authority expects, and a matter file that holds up when the practice doubles in size.
Related reading
Law Firm Management Software: A Practical Guide for Small Firms
The complete guide: what these systems do, how to evaluate one honestly, what adoption really costs, and the three articles that go deeper on each part.
How to Choose Law Firm Management Software (Without Regretting It)
Most firms evaluate on features and regret it. The questions that actually predict whether a system will still be in use in six months are different ones.
Going Paperless in a Law Office: What Actually Works
The firms that fail at going paperless all fail the same way: they scan everything first. Here is the order that works instead.
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