Estate planning software organized by client, not by document.
Sapphire Legal holds the client, their goals, their relationships, every version of every will and trust instrument, and the asset inventory behind them in one record — on private, per-tenant infrastructure, because an estate plan is a complete financial portrait of a family.
- Quick answer
- What is the best case management software for estate planning attorneys?
- Sapphire Legal is Private Legal Intelligence for estate planning practices: a per-tenant legal AI platform organized around the client rather than the document. One client record carries their planning goals, their key relationships, every will and trust instrument with full version history, and an asset inventory with valuation tracking — so the question "what does this plan currently say, and does it still match the assets?" has an answer without opening six files. Drafting works from the firm’s own templates in its House Style, review dates sit on the file as tracked deadlines, and every client’s financial and family detail stays in the firm’s own isolated database and private AI environment.
The plan is fine. The problem is knowing what the plan says now.
Estate planning is the one practice area where the work is finished and then quietly goes stale. The will was correct the year it was signed. Then a beneficiary died, a business was sold, a child divorced, a property was bought in another state, a trust was funded only partially, and the plan on file no longer matches the family or the assets. Document-centric software stores all of this as a folder of files named by date. It cannot tell you that the residuary clause now points at an entity that no longer exists.
Versions multiply and no one is sure which governs
A will, two codicils, a restated revocable trust, a pour-over will, a draft that was never executed, and a scanned original held at the client’s bank. Without version history attached to one client record, establishing which instrument currently governs is its own research project.
The asset inventory drifts away from the plan
Plans are drafted against a snapshot of what the client owned. Accounts are closed, businesses are sold, real property is acquired, and beneficiary designations on retirement accounts quietly override the will. The drift is invisible until someone reconciles the two by hand.
Relationships are the substance, and they live in the file notes
Who the client trusts as fiduciary, which child is not to be told what, the second marriage, the beneficiary with a disability, the estranged sibling: this is the substance of the engagement, and in most firms it exists as prose in a note from four years ago.
One client record, versioned instruments, a live inventory.
Organized by client, not document type — because the client is what persists across every revision of the plan.
An estate planning matter in Sapphire opens as a client record rather than a document folder. It carries the planning goals in the client’s own terms, and the key relationships that drive the plan: the intended fiduciaries, the beneficiaries and their circumstances, the family structure the plan has to accommodate. Will records attach to that client with full version history, so the instrument that currently governs is a property of the record rather than something inferred from filenames. Trust structuring is held as structured data — the instrument, its role in the plan, and the beneficiaries attached to it — rather than as a PDF whose contents have to be re-read. Alongside it sits the asset inventory, with valuation tracking, so the plan can be checked against what the client actually owns rather than against what they owned when it was drafted. Drafting then runs from the firm’s own template library in its House Style, with templateless drafting and automatic formatting for the instrument that has no template yet, and review dates sit on the file as tracked deadlines so the plan gets revisited on purpose rather than when a client calls.
- 1
Client intake and conflict check
Intake captures planning goals, family structure, and the key relationships, and runs a conflict check against existing clients and parties — which matters in a practice that routinely represents both spouses, and sometimes two generations of the same family.
- 2
Instruments with version history
Wills, codicils, trust instruments, and powers of attorney attach to the client record with full version history, so which instrument currently governs is a fact on the record rather than a filename convention.
- 3
Trust structuring and beneficiaries
Each trust is held with its role in the plan and its beneficiaries as structured data, so a beneficiary change can be traced to every instrument it touches instead of being found by reading the documents again.
- 4
Asset inventory and valuation tracking
The inventory records what the client owns with valuations over time, so a plan can be reconciled against current holdings — and the gap between the plan and the assets becomes visible rather than inferred.
- 5
Drafting, review dates, and the client portal
Drafting works from the firm’s templates in its House Style, review dates sit on the matter as tracked deadlines, and the client gets a white-labeled portal for the documents they need to keep — provisioned in minutes.
What ships for estate planning
Each item is a module in the platform, not a roadmap entry — one of the fourteen practice areas Sapphire ships, each with its own workflows rather than a generic matter record under a different label.
- Client records carrying planning goals and key relationships
- Will records with full version history
- Trust structuring held as structured data, with beneficiary management
- Asset inventory with valuation tracking over time
- Drafting from the firm’s template library in its House Style, plus templateless drafting with automatic formatting
- Conflict checking on intake — built for a practice that represents both spouses
- Review dates and statutory deadlines tracked on the matter with the rule behind each
- White-labeled client portal provisioning, and Ask Sapphire answering from the client’s own file with sources
An estate plan is a complete financial portrait of a family.
Why per-tenant matters hereNet worth, business interests, who is being left out and why, a child’s disability, a second family: estate planning files hold the most private information a client will ever hand a professional. Sapphire Legal runs each firm in its own isolated PostgreSQL database and its own private AI environment. Client detail is not pooled with other firms’ matters, is not used to train a shared model, and is not routed to a third-party model provider. Access is logged. The isolation is architectural, not a permission setting, which is why it holds for a practice where the clients are often related to each other.
Where to go next
The platform underneath the estate planning module.
Estate planning questions
- Does Sapphire Legal draft wills and trust instruments?
- It drafts from your own template library, in your firm’s House Style, with field auto-population from the client record — and it can draft without a template when one does not exist yet, classifying the document type and applying formatting such as margins, fonts, spacing, section headings, and signature blocks. It does not supply a pre-written form book, because a will is a jurisdiction-specific instrument and the firm’s own precedents are the right source.
- How does version history work across a will, its codicils, and a restated trust?
- Instruments attach to the client record rather than to a folder, each with its own version history. Which instrument currently governs is therefore a property of the record, not something inferred from filenames and dates. A restatement does not overwrite the history of what it replaced.
- Can it tell me when a plan no longer matches the client’s assets?
- The asset inventory records what the client owns with valuation tracking over time, and sits on the same client record as the instruments, so the two can be reconciled directly rather than by reading documents against a spreadsheet. Ask Sapphire answers questions from that record and attaches the source behind every line, so "which instrument covers this property" has a traceable answer.
- Does it handle conflict checks when I represent both spouses?
- Conflict checking runs on intake against existing clients, matters, and parties — which is the specific reason it matters in estate planning, where a practice routinely represents both spouses and sometimes two generations of one family. The check surfaces the relationship; the judgment about whether to proceed stays with the attorney.
- Who can see the client’s financial information?
- Only your firm. Each firm runs in its own isolated PostgreSQL database inside its own private AI environment. Client detail is not pooled with other firms’ matters, is not used to train a shared model, and is not routed to a third-party model provider, and access is logged. That isolation is architectural rather than a permission setting.
- How is this different from estate administration software?
- This module is for planning the estate while the client is alive: goals, relationships, instruments, and the asset inventory behind them. Administration after death — asset and liability ledgers, transaction journaling, court-ready accountings, statutory deadlines — is the Fiduciary Services module, and Sapphire ships both. Firms that do only administration work, including trust companies and professional guardians, usually want the fiduciary side.
Put the client back at the center of the plan.
A 30-minute demo on one of your own files: the client record, the instruments with their version history, and the inventory they are supposed to match.
Private, per-tenant infrastructure from the first client record.