Most guides to legal practice management software are written for firms in London or New York: hourly billing, one language, one court system. A firm in Dubai or Abu Dhabi asks different questions, and a system that answers the American ones well can still fail on the first day of real work in the Emirates.
This guide sets out what to check, in the order that rules vendors out fastest. Each section ends with the questions to put to a vendor. They are collected at the end, so you can send the same list to everyone on your shortlist and compare the answers side by side.
1. Start with your courts, not the feature list
The UAE does not have one court system. The federal courts serve most emirates, while Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah run their own local judiciaries. Two financial free zones add common-law courts of their own: the DIFC Courts and the ADGM Courts. Each has its own case types, its own stages, and its own deadlines.
This matters more than any screen in a demo. If the system does not know how your courts are structured, someone in your firm will build that structure by hand, and then maintain it. The most dangerous version of this is the appeal period. It differs by case type, and it runs from the judgment whether or not anyone has written it down. A system that holds one appeal period for everything is a system that will one day show the wrong deadline.
Ask: Which UAE court systems is it configured for on day one? Is the appeal period held per case type? Can the daily hearing list be filtered by court and emirate?
2. Arabic and English, in the same matter
In most UAE firms the court file is in Arabic, the client's correspondence is often in English, and the team works in both. "Supports Arabic" can mean anything from a translated menu to a product built right-to-left from the start. The difference shows up quickly: Arabic names that cannot be searched, invoices that print with the text reversed, a screen that works in Arabic until you open a report.
The useful test is to try it rather than read about it. Type an Arabic client name and search for it. Print an engagement letter and an invoice in Arabic. Switch one user to Arabic and leave another in English on the same matter, and check that each reads the matter in their own language.
Ask: Is language set per user or for the whole firm? Can every document the system produces be printed in Arabic? Can scanned Arabic documents be searched?
3. VAT has to be right on the invoice itself
UAE VAT has been charged at a standard rate of 5% since January 2018, and legal services are taxable. A tax invoice has to carry your firm's Tax Registration Number (TRN) and, where the client is VAT-registered, the client's TRN too. Not every client is treated the same way: some services supplied to clients outside the UAE can qualify for zero-rating, subject to conditions your tax adviser should confirm.
If the practice system cannot hold the TRN and the tax treatment on the client record, someone will correct invoices by hand, and the quarterly VAT return becomes a spreadsheet rebuilt from scratch.
Ask: Where are the firm's and the client's TRNs held? Can the VAT treatment differ by client? Does the system produce the figures for the VAT return, input VAT and output VAT, for any period?
4. E-invoicing is coming, so ask where invoices go next
The UAE is moving to mandatory e-invoicing. Invoices will be issued in a structured format (PINT AE) and exchanged over the Peppol network through an Accredited Service Provider approved by the Ministry of Finance. The largest businesses, with revenue of AED 50 million or more, go first, from 1 January 2027; smaller businesses follow later in 2027. Most law firms will be in the later group. The deadlines for appointing a provider have already been adjusted once, so check the Ministry of Finance's e-invoicing pages for the current dates. If your firm also works in Saudi Arabia, ZATCA's e-invoicing (Fatoora) is already in force there.
Your practice management system is where invoices are created, but it is rarely the thing that will transmit them. That is usually an accredited provider, often reached through your accounting software. What you need from the practice system is a clean, complete invoice that can travel onward without retyping.
Ask: How will an invoice created here reach our accredited provider: directly, or through which accounting software? Does it carry the TRNs and VAT treatment with it? What happens to an invoice that is edited after it has been sent?
5. Know where the data lives, and where the AI runs
A law firm's files are its clients' confidences. In the UAE, personal data is governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 (the PDPL), and firms in the free zones also answer to the DIFC Data Protection Law 2020 or the ADGM Data Protection Regulations 2021. Clients, especially banks and government bodies, increasingly ask where their data is held before they instruct you.
With AI features, there are two separate questions, and vendors often answer only the first. Where is the data stored? And where is a request processed when the AI reads a document? A vendor can keep the database in the UAE and still send every AI request to a model hosted elsewhere, or to a provider that may use it for training.
Ask: In which country, and which data centre region, are the database, documents and backups stored? Where is an AI request processed, and by which provider? Is anything we submit used to train a model? Who at your company can see our data, and is that access approved and logged? Is an on-premise installation available if a client requires it?
6. Conflict checks and KYC are compliance, not admin
Under UAE anti-money-laundering rules, lawyers count as designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) when they carry out certain work for clients, such as property transactions, managing client funds or setting up companies. Onshore, the Ministry of Justice supervises them; in the DIFC and ADGM, the free-zone regulator does. Either way, the firm has to identify its client and the client's beneficial owners, assess the risk, and keep the record.
A conflict check that searches only your client list misses the more common conflict: a company you are about to act for is the opposing party in another matter. And a KYC process kept in email and shared folders is hard to produce when a supervisor or a bank asks for it.
Ask: Does the conflict search cover clients, opposing parties and related parties across every matter? Is the KYC decision recorded with who approved it and when? Can the client complete their own KYC form, in Arabic or English? Are beneficial owners and PEP status captured?
7. Bill the way your clients pay
Many UAE firms agree fixed fees, retainers and staged payments more often than pure hourly billing: a sum on signing, another on filing, another on judgment. Software built around the timesheet treats that as an exception. The result is a payment schedule kept in a spreadsheet beside the system, and reminders that depend on someone's memory.
Time recording still matters, because it tells you which matters make money. But the fee agreement is where the money is decided, so the system should be able to act on it.
Ask: Can the engagement letter's fee terms create the payment schedule? Do reminders go to clients automatically, in their language? Can we see, in one place, what each client owes and how overdue it is?
8. Price the whole thing, then test it on a real matter
Compare the full cost, not the headline. Per-user prices often exclude modules a firm assumes are included, such as client portals, accounting or AI. Ask what is charged on top, how AI use is billed, and what migration from your current spreadsheets or system costs. Ask who answers support questions, and in which language.
Then insist on a trial with your own work. A demo shows the product at its best on the vendor's data. A week with one of your real matters, in Arabic, with your own courts and your own fee terms, shows you what the next five years will be like.
The questions to send every vendor
- Which UAE court systems are configured on day one, and is the appeal period held per case type?
- Is language set per user? Can every document, including invoices, be printed in Arabic?
- Where are the firm's and the client's TRNs held, and can VAT treatment differ by client?
- How will invoices reach an accredited e-invoicing provider?
- Where are the database, documents and backups stored, by country and region?
- Where are AI requests processed, by which provider, and is our data used for training?
- Who on your side can access our data, and is that access approved and logged?
- Does the conflict search cover opposing parties across all matters? Is KYC recorded with an approval trail?
- Can fee terms in the engagement letter drive the payment schedule and the reminders?
- What is the full price per user, what costs extra, and can we trial it on a real matter?
Ask for the answers in writing. A vendor that is confident in its product will not mind. Ours are below.
How CasEngine answers them
CasEngine was built in the UAE, and it is configured for seven jurisdictions: the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain. What follows is only what our product pages and published documents state.
- Courts. It ships configured for the Federal Courts, Dubai Courts, DIFC Courts and ADGM Courts, with case types, stages and an appeal period held per case type. The daily hearing roll can be filtered by emirate and hearing type, in Arabic or English.
- Language. Language is set per user. An Arabic-speaking associate and an English-speaking partner work the same matter, each in their own language, and engagement letters and invoices print in either.
- VAT. The firm's and the client's TRNs are carried on the invoice record, VAT is set per client, and the VAT report gives input VAT, output VAT and the amount payable for any period.
- Data. Your data is stored in Microsoft Azure's UAE North region. AI requests are handled only by Microsoft Azure, and nothing you submit is used to train a model. Each point is a commitment in our Terms, set out with its clause on AI and your data.
- Conflicts and KYC. Conflict checks run against your whole book of business, and KYC is bilingual, with UBO and PEP declarations and a documented approve or reject decision.
- Fees. Engagement letters structure the fee terms, and instalments fall due from them, with bilingual reminders.
- Price. One plan at $59 per user per month with every feature included, AI charged on use from a prepaid balance, and a 15-day trial with no card. Enterprise, for on-premise hosting, is by quote.
There is more on what is specific to the Emirates on our page for law firm software in Dubai and the UAE, and for firms with work across the border, on Saudi Arabia.
The best way to check any of these answers is to try them on one of your own matters. Start a free trial, or talk to us and we will walk through it with your team.