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Contributor Guidelines

As the leader in cloud-based legal technology, Clio hosts an award-winning blog, hosts regular webinars, produces in-depth white papers, and publishes the Legal Insider Magazine to provide best practices and actionable ideas for running more efficient, profitable law firms.

If you’re a forward-thinking lawyer, legal professional, or legal tech entrepreneur who’s interested in contributing to the Clio Blog or the Legal Insider Magazine, we do work with guest writers from time to time. Read on to learn about what we’re looking for and how the process works.

Please take the time to review our guidelines in full before reaching out to us.

What we’ll publish

Simply put, we’re willing to publish content that is objectively useful for lawyers, paralegals, and others working in the legal space. What you write about (and how you write about it) should be something that you’d be excited to share with a close friend in the legal industry.

Example formats include:

For the Legal Insider Magazine, articles must be 1.000 words or less.

General topic areas that many of our posts fall under include:

  • Legal technology and AI
  • Law firm marketing and business development
  • Starting a law firm
  • Client intake
  • Law firm client service
  • Lawyer mental health
  • Billing and collections
  • Document automation and document management
  • Security
  • Accounting
  • Using data in law firms

However, the best way to get a sense of what kind of pieces we’re looking for is to read a few posts on the Clio Blog, or review the latest issue of the Legal Insider Magazine.

What we won’t publish

It’s important that any pitches we receive adhere to our submission guidelines so that they align with our content strategy and goals. We can’t accept pitches that don’t follow the guidelines on this page, or pitches that:

  • Have already been published elsewhere online (please don’t submit these).
  • Are overly broad, or are overly similar to another post already published on the Clio Blog or in the Legal Insider Magazine. (e.g., we wouldn’t accept a pitch for a general “10 law firm marketing tips” post.) Check whether we’ve already written about your idea by typing “site:clio.com “your contribution idea”” into your search bar.
  • Are not written for our audience (lawyers or other legal professionals)
  • Provide commentary on changes to the law, rather than tips on the business of running a law firm.
  • Are overly promotional for a product or company.
  • Are inaccurate or not well-researched.

We strongly prefer to receive pitches over completed drafts, so it’s always best to send in a pitch before writing a post.

Voice and tone

It’s important that pieces published by Clio have a consistent voice. Read a few posts on the Clio Blog and/or the latest issue of the Legal Insider Magazine to familiarize yourself with our voice and tone, and keep the following guidelines in mind:

  • We’re professional, but approachable.
  • We actively listen.
  • We can be funny, but we’re always respectful.
  • We’re invested in other people’s success.

Important things to know before you submit

If your pitch aligns with our quality standards and content strategy, we’ll reach out to you. It may take up to a week for our team to evaluate pitches, and unfortunately, we won’t be able to respond to all submissions.

Here are a few other important housekeeping items to consider before you hit send:

  • After your pitch is accepted, you’ll receive a deadline and style guidelines from our content team.
  • If your draft doesn’t meet the team’s quality standards, or if the deadline is missed, your post may not be published.
  • For the blog, you won’t be able to republish your guest post on your own blog or elsewhere online in full unless certain conditions in your contributor contract are met. However, you’ll be able to promote the post, distribute it via email, or distribute printed versions as long as Clio is credited as publisher. The same guidelines apply to articles contributed to the Legal Insider Magazine.
  • We reserve the right to edit all submitted content for grammar/style, trim for brevity, and update in future for accuracy and to add new information.
  • We reserve the right to include links and calls to action to Clio content, products, and features.

IMPORTANT: Again, we cannot accept posts that have been published elsewhere, so please don’t submit them.

How to submit your pitch

Submit pitches to submissions@clio.com (or legal.insider@clio.com for submissions to the Legal Insider Magazine) with the subject line “Clio Content Pitch: [Proposed title here]”.

What makes a good pitch? Your pitch should make it clear that as a writer you have a really good sense of what will go in the article. This is more than a content overview: Your pitch should have a bit of an angle to it. It should be exciting and engaging and in reading it we should be able to quickly get a good idea of the tone and feel of the piece. Ideally, you’ll also include a few bullet points with some data points, interesting tidbits on the topic, or other information to demonstrate that this isn’t just a paragraph. Show us why there’s more to cover here, and if applicable, what type of conversation is already happening around this topic.

Your pitch should also include:

  • A working title for your post
  • Your intended audience (lawyers? paralegals? A specific firm size or practice area?)
  • What format you hope to see this content take (e.g., blog, white paper, webinar, article in the Legal Insider Magazine)
  • How you’d promote the post
  • A short introduction to yourself.

Please note: Due to the volume of submissions we receive, we only accept pitch submissions via submissions@clio.com or legal.insider@clio.com, and that we’re not always able to respond to each and every inquiry. Ideas or requests submitted via phone or to direct team members will not be reviewed.