What it is
Confido Legal is a trust-compliant payments layer for US and Canadian law firms. It handles card and ACH collection, splits each payment between trust and operating accounts, moves money from trust to operating, and sends disbursements to clients and vendors. Unlike LawPay or Clio Payments, it is built mainly to be embedded: legal software vendors put Confido inside their own screens through a GraphQL API, and many firms never visit confidolegal.com at all. The company was called Gravity Legal until its rebrand at the end of 2023.
Confido says it serves more than 1,500 firms. In March 2026 it announced $9 million raised across two rounds, the latest led by Aquiline Capital Partners, with The LegalTech Fund, Breakwater Ventures, Live Oak Bank and Context Ventures also investing. In June 2026 it won Juniper Research’s Gold award for Embedded Finance Innovation. It is independent and was still shipping in the second half of 2026.
Why it shows up in Legal Ops stacks
- It is the processor inside software you already bought. Its integrations page lists Clio, Litify, Lawmatics, LeanLaw, Clarra, SmartAdvocate, Case Status, Neostella, Actionstep Legal Accounting, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, Salesforce and Zapier, among others. Partner vendors get a sandbox, webhooks, API tokens and the option to let Confido run onboarding and support for them. Fidu, one partner, says one engineer had its integration ready for production in about a week.
- Clio dropped LawPay, and Confido still plugs into Clio. Clio ended its LawPay integration on August 31, 2026. Firms that want to stay on Clio Manage without moving to Clio Payments can use Confido’s Clio integration, which syncs invoices, sends payment requests for Clio bills and trust requests, and takes one payment against a combined bill and trust request.
- It goes past collection. Trust-to-operating transfers and client disbursements happen inside the same app, with audit trails. LawPay and Clio Payments focus on getting money in. Confido also covers paying settlements and refunds out.
Pricing reality
There are no plans and no monthly, annual or termination fees. Cards cost a flat 2.95% for every type, American Express and debit included, with no per-transaction fee listed. ACH costs 1% capped at $30. Disbursements cost $3 each, and the recipient can pay 1% (capped at $95) to get funds in minutes instead of 4 to 6 days. Chargebacks cost $25. Firms that sign up directly rather than through a software partner pay a one-time $500 onboarding fee.
The ACH cap is the real saving. A $20,000 retainer by ACH costs $30 on Confido. At LawPay’s uncapped 1% eCheck rate it costs $200. On cards, Confido’s 2.95% matches Clio Payments’ advertised rate and beats LawPay once LawPay’s $0.30 per-transaction fee and network pass-throughs are added. A firm collecting $40,000 a month by card pays about $1,180 on Confido. Surcharging, where state rules allow it, moves that fee to the client entirely. Confido says surcharging usually cuts a firm’s processing cost by 50 to 80%.
Best for
Firm administrators and finance leads at US or Canadian firms whose practice management, intake or billing tool already embeds Confido, especially litigation and personal-injury firms on Litify, SmartAdvocate or Neostella that receive large ACH payments and send settlement disbursements. It is also a good fit for Clio Manage firms that left LawPay and do not want Clio Payments. And for legal software vendors, it is the fastest way to ship trust-compliant payments without becoming a payment facilitator.
Versus the alternatives
LawPay has the largest share of the market and the deepest bar-association distribution. Pick it if you run MyCase or CasePeer, where it is native, or if you want 8am’s lending and spend-card products. Pick Confido if large ACH payments make up much of your volume or you need disbursements.
Clio Payments is the default for Clio Manage firms. Pick it if you want the deepest Clio integration and one vendor for support. Pick Confido inside Clio if you want capped ACH, disbursements, or a processor that survives a later move off Clio.
Native processors such as PantherPayments in PracticePanther, or the processor built into Smokeball, win when you live in that system. MyCase, Smokeball and PracticePanther do not appear on the Confido integrations list we checked, so firms on those platforms should use the native option.
If none fit, you are probably outside the US and Canada or need more than payments. In that case, use a local processor through your practice management system, or a general processor with a separate trust reconciliation process.
Watch-outs
- Embedding means your software vendor owns part of the experience. Some partners handle support and onboarding themselves, and feature depth varies by integration. Guard: before you sign, ask your vendor whether Confido or the vendor answers payment support tickets, and which Confido features (disbursements, payment plans, surcharging) its integration actually exposes.
- Surcharging rules vary by state and card network. Confido automates surcharging “in most states”, but the firm is still the merchant responsible for compliance. Guard: have someone confirm your state’s rules and your bar’s ethics guidance on passing card fees to clients before you turn it on, and keep surcharging off for trust deposits if the guidance is unclear.
- There is no AI layer or MCP server. Confido is payments infrastructure. Guard: evaluate it on rates, trust controls, disbursements and integration fit. Do not buy it expecting AI billing or collections features.