B2B buyers now make first contact with a supplier 61% of the way through their journey, about 27 weeks in, according to 6sense's 2025 survey of nearly 4,000 buyers. For a legal-tech company that means most of the evaluation happens on pages it does not control and on its own website, before anyone in sales hears a name.
This page collects the buyer journey numbers that matter for a legal-tech marketing site: how long buyers research, how many prefer to do it without a rep, which sources shape the shortlist, and how law firms and legal departments add their own steps. It ends with our read of 19 legal-tech vendor sites and a five-page test order. No survey isolates legal-tech buyers, so the general figures are proxies, labelled as such.
Why the numbers here are proxies
We found no published survey of the legal-tech buyer journey: nothing on how long a law firm researches a practice management tool before calling, or how many general counsel would buy contract software without a meeting. Legal surveys measure adoption, budgets and sign-off. Buyer journey surveys measure B2B buyers across categories, with software among the largest groups.
So this page pairs the two. Several of the buyer journey publishers sell to the marketers who read them, and we say so beside each one.
For the wider B2B picture, including AI search click-through and site speed, see our post B2B Website Statistics 2026: Buyer Behaviour, AI Search, Conversion, Speed and Content.
Research time: most of the journey happens before the first call
6sense surveys buyers of purchases above $25,000 and sells buyer-intent software, so it has an interest in showing that buyers decide early. Its 2025 report is still the most detailed public source on timing.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Point of first supplier contact | 61% of the journey, down from 69% | 6sense, 2025 |
| Weeks before first contact | About 27, down from about 34 | 6sense, 2025 |
| Average buying cycle | 10.1 months, down from 11.3 | 6sense, 2025 |
| Time spent per vendor evaluated | 2.0 months, down from 2.6 | 6sense, 2025 |
| Interactions with the winning vendor | 16 per buyer | 6sense, 2025 |
| Buyers who research before first contact | 90% | Responsive, Fall 2025 |
| Buyers who start with a preferred vendor | 61% | Responsive, Fall 2025 |
Sources: 6sense 2025 B2B Buyer Experience Report; Responsive, Inside the B2B Buyer's Mind 2025, a vendor-published report
The cycle is getting shorter, but buyers still spend roughly half a year before making contact. When they do, the order is set: 94% have ranked their shortlist, and the vendor favoured before contact wins 77% of the time in 6sense's data.
6sense also reports that software cycles run about two months shorter than services. No legal breakdown is published. A practice management tool bought by a five-lawyer firm will sit well below 10.1 months; a contract platform bought by a legal department with procurement involved may sit above it.
Self-serve preference: research alone, validate with a person
The preference for doing the work without a salesperson is consistent across sources, with one caveat that matters for legal technology.
| Measure | Figure | Source and sample |
|---|---|---|
| Prefer a rep-free buying experience overall | 61% | Gartner, 632 buyers, August to September 2024 |
| Avoid suppliers whose outreach feels irrelevant | 73% | Gartner, same survey |
| Activities done via self-service only, reps only, or both | 1.8, 2.3 and 3.0 on average | Gartner, same survey |
| Report inconsistencies between the website and the seller | 69% | Gartner, same survey |
| Prefer to engage sales only after doing their own research | Two-thirds | G2 2025 Buyer Behavior Report |
| Bought some form of trial before committing | More than 60% | Forrester, nearly 18,000 buyers, 2026 |
Sources: Gartner sales survey, published June 2025, as reported by Mi3; G2; Forrester State of Business Buying 2026
The caveat is in Gartner's activity counts. Buyers who prefer no rep still complete more steps with a rep, or with a rep and digital tools together, than through self-service alone. They self-serve for general information and want sellers for questions that need context. Legal technology is heavy on context: jurisdictions, matter types, data residency, ethics rules on AI.
The 69% figure is the one a website owner can act on. On a legal-tech site, the usual mismatches are a pricing page that says "contact us" while the seller quotes per user, security claims that differ from the questionnaire, and AI features described more broadly on the homepage than in the demo.
Forrester adds that just over a third of trial buyers planned to convert with the same provider. A self-serve start is common; it is not a commitment.
Where the shortlist comes from, and where the website ranks
G2 sells reviews and buyer-intent data to software vendors, so its findings favour review sites. Its 2025 survey of about 1,100 decision-makers still gives the clearest ranking of what shapes a shortlist.
| Source | Share of buyers citing it |
|---|---|
| Generative AI chatbots | 17.1% |
| Software review sites | 15.1% |
| Vendor websites | 12.8% |
| Market research firms | 10.6% |
| Peers and colleagues | 8.9% |
| Salespeople | 8.8% |
Source: G2 2025 Buyer Behavior Report, about 1,100 B2B decision-makers
Vendor websites come third, and the two sources above them both draw on the website. G2's March 2026 follow-up, with 1,076 buyers, shows how fast the first one is growing. 51% now start research with an AI chatbot more often than with Google, against 29% a year earlier. 85% think more highly of a vendor that a chatbot names in its answer, and 69% chose a vendor they had not planned to because a chatbot recommended it.
TrustRadius, owned by HG Insights and also selling to vendors, surveyed 1,862 buyers in January 2026. 63% used AI during the purchase and 94% of those fact-check its answers at least some of the time. 74% use reviews, 83% shortlisted three products or fewer, and analyst reports informed only 13% of decisions, down 63% since 2022. Transparent pricing has topped buyers' wish list for vendors four years running.
A buyer who asks an assistant which practice management systems handle trust accounting gets an answer assembled from vendor pages, comparison pages and reviews. A site with no comparison page and no plain statement of who the product is for leaves that answer to competitors.
The legal buyer: a committee, and partly still at the starting line
The legal-specific surveys describe who joins the journey and how far along they are.
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Partners or senior leadership give direction | 74% | Agile Market Intelligence, 2025 |
| Staff end users play a role | 46% | Agile Market Intelligence, 2025 |
| IT teams play a role | 37% | Agile Market Intelligence, 2025 |
| GCs only just becoming aware of what tech could solve | 40% | GC Pulse 2025 |
| GCs actively implementing a chosen vendor | 15% | GC Pulse 2025 |
| GCs who trust AI as a reliable legal resource | 40%, up from 21% | GC Pulse 2025 |
| Law firm technology spending growth, rolling 12 months to Q3 2025 | 11.2% | Thomson Reuters Law Firm Financial Index |
Sources: Agile Market Intelligence Legal Tech Review 2025 interim results, 1,250 Australian legal professionals, via Lawyers Weekly; GC Pulse 2025, more than 150 GCs, Legal Business with Thomson Reuters; Thomson Reuters press release, November 2025
Law firms. Partners direct the purchase in three firms out of four, and end users weigh in at nearly half. A site written only for the managing partner, or only for the daily user, misses one of them. The same Agile survey found 74% of firms test functionality through vendor demos and 47% run a security or compliance check, which our post on legal-tech website conversion rates covers in more detail.
Legal departments. GC Pulse shows a split market: 40% of GCs are only becoming aware of what technology could solve, while 15% are implementing. Many are early in a long journey, reading to build a business case before they request a demo.
The money is moving. Law firm technology spend grew 11.2% on a rolling 12-month basis to Q3 2025, according to Thomson Reuters. More buyers are entering the journey, and most start it alone.
What 19 legal-tech sites give the buyer who researches alone
We read the sitemaps, pricing pages and homepages of 20 legal-tech vendors on 21 October 2026, the same list as our legal-tech demo request post. Clio returned a bot challenge to every tool we used, so the counts cover 19.
| Touchpoint | Vendors with it | Which |
|---|---|---|
| Public prices on the pricing page | 3 of 19 | MyCase, PracticePanther, CosmoLex |
| Full self-serve trial | 4 of 19 | MyCase, PracticePanther, CosmoLex, Spellbook |
| Security or trust page | 14 of 19 | All except CosmoLex, Actionstep, Litify, NetDocuments, iManage |
| Competitor comparison or alternative pages | 14 of 19 | All except Filevine, Litify, Lawmatics, Harvey, Legora |
| ROI calculator | 7 of 19 | Smokeball, CosmoLex, Lawmatics, Harvey, Legora, Spellbook, Juro |
| Recorded demo, demo library or product tour | 7 of 19 | MyCase, CosmoLex, Litify, Harvey, SpotDraft, LinkSquares, Everlaw |
| Four or more customer story pages | 15 of 19 | All except PracticePanther, Actionstep, DISCO, NetDocuments |
Source: Octo Agency read of each vendor's sitemap, pricing page and homepage, 21 October 2026; Filevine's AI trial does not include its case management product and is not counted as a full trial; iManage's security link opens a 2021 PDF datasheet
Price is the gap. Transparent pricing has led TrustRadius's buyer wish list for four years, and 16 of 19 sites publish no number. The three that do sell practice management to small firms, the segment most likely to buy alone.
Comparison pages are common, but uneven. Spellbook lists 72 comparison briefs and Juro 46 comparison or alternative pages; five vendors, including the legal AI companies Harvey and Legora, have none. Those pages are the raw material an AI assistant uses when a buyer asks it to compare tools.
Security is covered, demos are not. Only seven vendors let a buyer watch the product without booking a meeting, though three in four firms want to see functionality before deciding.
What this means for a legal-tech site: a five-page test order
A legal-tech site has to win the shortlist without a seller in the room. We build marketing sites in Webflow, which is our bias, and we redesigned the USLege legal-tech marketing site; this is the order we would test in on a legal-tech account.
1. The pricing page. Gartner's 69% inconsistency figure and TrustRadius's pricing wish list point at the same page. Publish at least a starting price or a pricing model with a worked example, and measure qualified demo requests from the page, not visits.
2. A comparison page for your most-searched competitor. Write one honest table, including where the competitor fits better, and watch chatbot referrals and branded search.
3. A recorded demo or product tour. Twelve of 19 vendors make a buyer book a meeting to see the product. Test an ungated five-minute walkthrough beside the demo button and compare demo-request quality.
4. A security and procurement page written for the committee. IT is involved in 37% of law firm decisions and procurement is a decision-maker in 53% of purchases in Forrester's data. Give them the certifications, data location and a questionnaire contact in one place.
5. Role pages for the partner and the end user. Partners direct 74% of decisions and end users influence 46%. Test separate entry pages for each against the single product page most sites run.
Our marketing website service builds legal-tech sites around this journey, with the tracking in place to measure each page.
