Practice Ignition — now called Ignition — is a popular tool for creating client proposals and automating billing collection. Some Ontario law firms use it for retainer agreements and client onboarding. But Ignition is not legal-specific: it has no trust accounting, no LSO compliance features, and no AI. Atticus includes client intake and engagement alongside full Ontario practice management.
Ignition's strength is its proposal and engagement letter workflow — creating polished client-facing proposals, getting them signed electronically, and automatically collecting retainers and ongoing billing. For accountants and business consultants, it is purpose-built. For law firms, its use is limited.
Ontario law firms that use Ignition typically do so for the client onboarding experience — but they still need separate trust accounting software, separate matter management, and separate document processing. Atticus delivers a complete system where intake is one feature among many, not the centrepiece.
| Feature | Atticus | Practice Ignition |
|---|---|---|
| Core purpose | Full AI practice management — intake, billing, trust, documents | Client engagement letters, proposals, and billing automation |
| Client intake | Branded intake forms auto-create client and matter records | Online proposals and engagement letters with e-signature |
| AI document intelligence | Extracts deadlines, parties, action items from any document | No AI document processing |
| Morning briefings | Daily 9am email summary of deadlines and open items | Not available |
| Ontario LSO trust accounting | Full By-Law 9 compliant trust ledger and reconciliation | No trust accounting |
| Matter management | Full matter management with linked documents and deadlines | Limited — focused on engagement and billing workflow |
| Billing & invoicing | Time tracking, invoices, Stripe online payments, HST | Automated billing from accepted proposals, Stripe payments |
| Retainer / engagement letters | Retainer agreements via intake — standard templates | Polished proposal and engagement letter builder |
| Canadian data residency | Data stored on Canadian servers | US-based servers |
| Conflict of interest checking | Built-in conflict search across clients and matters | Not available |
| Legal practice management | Built specifically for law firms — LSO rules, Ontario tax, deadlines | General professional services — not legal-specific |
| Pricing | From $49/month CAD — all features included | From $65 USD/month — billing and proposal tools only |
Practice Ignition has no trust accounting. Ontario lawyers who receive retainers must hold them in trust under LSO By-Law 9 until fees are earned. Ignition cannot manage this — it processes payments directly to your business account, which may not be appropriate for advance fees that are not yet earned. Atticus handles the full trust accounting cycle.
Practice Ignition was built for accountants and consultants. Its workflows reflect that. Atticus was built for Ontario lawyers — the terminology, the compliance features, the trust/general account separation, the conflict checking, and the Ontario limitation period tracking are all specific to legal practice.
Once a client is onboarded, the ongoing work is processing documents — emails, contracts, court orders, medical records. Atticus reads every uploaded document with AI and surfaces what matters. Practice Ignition has no document capability beyond what it generates.
Many Ontario law firms run: Practice Ignition (intake) + PCLaw/CosmoLex (trust accounting) + Google Drive (documents) + spreadsheets (deadlines). Atticus is one platform at $49/month CAD that replaces all of these for solo and small firm lawyers.
$49/month CAD
From ~$65 USD/month
Client intake, trust accounting, AI document intelligence, and daily briefings — all built for Ontario law firms and LSO compliance.
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