The Advanced Guide to ClioCon 2026

ClioCon 2026 lands in Boston October 26-27 at the Hynes Convention Center. It's one of the biggest legal tech conferences of the year - 10 session tracks this time, plus a keynote from Wharton AI researcher Ethan Mollick. 

Maybe you're still deciding whether the trip is worth it, or maybe your flights are booked and you want to squeeze more out of the two days. Either way, the plan below covers before, during, and after.

What ClioCon 2026 Is (and Why Boston Again)

ClioCon 2026 is Clio's 14th annual legal technology conference, running October 26-27 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston's Back Bay. Early registration opens October 25 at 3:00 p.m. The theme is "Go Beyond Limits."

The first confirmed keynote speaker is Ethan Mollick, a Wharton School professor named to TIME's Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence list and author of Co-Intelligence. He studies what happens to day-to-day work when AI gets involved, and his talks lean practical - bring a notebook, not existential dread. 

More keynote names are coming; Clio announces them in waves.

If you want more from his keynote, read Co-Intelligence beforehand. It moves the question from "will AI replace me?" to "what can I do with AI that I couldn't do before?"

Last year's edition was in Boston too - it drew 2,700 in-person and 2,600 virtual attendees plus 91 sponsors. The organizers liked that momentum, and the city's mix of legal heritage and tech ecosystem, enough to come back.

The Hynes sits right in Back Bay - you can walk everywhere, the hotels are next door, and getting in from Logan is painless.

Build Your Budget Before You Build Your Case

Budget somewhere around $2,800-$3,500 per person, all-in. Here's where it goes:

Team discounts kick in automatically at checkout once you're buying four or more passes.

Prices climb as October gets closer, so the cheapest move is just registering early.

Make the Case to Your Firm

Clio has a customizable justification letter on their website, which is a start. The stronger argument is what you actually bring back:

• CLE/CPD credits. Sessions are eligible for up to six hours of continuing education credit - professional development your firm would've had to source and pay for anyway.

• Compressed vendor evaluation. Two days walking the sponsor hall with a shortlist beats weeks of scheduling demos, sitting through pitches, and chasing internal feedback. ClioCon 2025 had 91 sponsors. The 2026 roster is still filling in, with Ajax, Scorpion, Lawmatics, 4LegalLeads, Case Status, Hona, Studio 3, and VXT Phone already confirmed.

• Retention. Clio's own Legal Trends Report found that nearly 1 in 5 lawyers left their firm in the past 12 months. Professional development is one of the few retention levers that improves your operations at the same time.

Two days away from billable work isn't nothing. Weigh it against how long your firm has been meaning to evaluate the tools your competitors already run.

Choose Your Sessions by Role and Goal

ClioCon 2026 has 10 dedicated tracks. The detailed session agenda hasn't been published yet, but the track structure is confirmed, and each track targets a specific audience. Go in without a plan and you'll drift between rooms all day, missing the sessions that actually matter to your firm.

Here's how to prioritize by role:

• If you run the firm (managing partner, firm owner) - Business of Law is your track: pricing strategy, profitability metrics, and KPIs. Layer in a session or two from Mid-to-Large Firms or Solo & Small Firms depending on your size, plus at least one Tech & Innovation session to stay current on AI adoption. Keep the keynotes on your calendar too, even when the topic looks tangential - past years put Seth Godin, Arianna Huffington, and Mel Robbins on that stage.

• If you manage operations (firm admin, legal ops, office manager) - Clio Advanced and Clio Spotlight are where the workflow material lives, with Tech & Innovation as your tool-evaluation track. Treat the sponsor hall like a research trip. List out five to seven tool categories (billing, CRM, intake, document management, AI timekeeping) and ask every vendor the same three questions, so the answers are actually comparable when you're back at your desk.

• If you practice law (associate, partner, solo practitioner) - Culture and Clients has the client-experience and retention material, your size-appropriate track (Solo & Small or Mid-to-Large) covers the business side, and one Clio Foundations or Clio Advanced session will pay for itself in daily platform time.

Maximize Your CLE/CPD Credits

Eligible sessions get marked in the published agenda. Here's how it works:

• Register early on Day 1. Check in at the CLE/CPD desk, then keep track of which eligible sessions you actually sit through.

• Expect your affidavit about a week after the event from mcle@americanbar.org. Approval then takes four to eight weeks per jurisdiction.

• Virtual attendees must attend live and answer the polls - on-demand viewing doesn't qualify for credit.

Plan your CLE sessions first, then fill around them with everything else. Trying to backfill credits at the end of Day 2 is how people end up in sessions they don't care about.

Work the Hallways as Hard as the Sessions

Sessions are only half of it. A lot of the real decisions - which tools to buy, which ideas to borrow - happen in hallways, at the evening events, and on the sponsor floor.

Evening Events

Two events anchor the evenings:

• Clio After Dark - Day 1 (October 26) at MGM Music Hall at Fenway. Included with your conference pass - just wear your wristband and show up. 21+ only.

• The Wrap Party - Day 2 (October 27) at Time Out Market Boston, a 29,000-square-foot food hall. You go booth to booth grabbing curated tasting plates from different vendors - last year's tacos and barbecue were genuinely excellent - with cocktails, a live DJ, shuttle service to official hotels, and an outdoor fire area with blankets and shawls if the night gets chilly. Requires a separate ticket and sells out every year. Buy early if you want in.

The most honest conversations about what's working (and what isn't) at other firms happen at these events, not in session rooms. Aim for three to five meaningful conversations a day - meaningful as in you traded a specific idea or a contact, not just a handshake.

Sponsor Hall Strategy

Wandering is the default mistake. Walk in with your shortlist of tool categories, ask specific questions, and take photos of anything you want to remember - two weeks from now the booths all blur together.

If AI timekeeping is on your evaluation list, dig into how each tool handles your specific practice management integration. Ajax runs a deep, two-way sync with Clio - entries flow straight into the billing workflow you already have instead of a separate system you now get to manage. That integration depth tells you more than the length of any vendor's feature list.

Book a demo before the conference and you'll show up with sharper questions than you'd come up with cold at a booth.

Take Notes That Lead to Action

Write down action items instead of inspiration. "Implement automated billing reminders by Q1" survives the flight home. "Billing is important" doesn't. For every session, jot one thing to stop doing, one to start doing, and one to look into further.

Turn the Conference Into Firm-Wide Value After You Land

The 48 hours after you land matter more than the two days in Boston. What the firms that actually get ROI from conferences do differently:

• Debrief within 48 hours. Get a 30-minute team meeting on the calendar before you even leave for Boston. Cover your top three takeaways, the tools you evaluated, and the one workflow change you want to make first. If your firm split up across different tracks, this meeting is what multiplies the value of every ticket.

• Follow up on connections within one week. Send LinkedIn requests or short emails that reference something specific from the conversation. Generic "great to meet you" messages get ignored.

• Implement one change immediately. Pick the single highest-impact takeaway and act on it your first week back. One shipped change beats ten good intentions sitting in a conference notebook.

• Watch what you missed. Competing tracks mean you missed half the content, and the on-demand library covers the gap - though on-demand viewing doesn't count for CLE credit.

• Measure the impact. Go back to the goals you set before the conference. Did you find the tool you were evaluating? Did you earn your target CLE hours? Can you put a number on the revenue impact of any change you made? That's what turns "ClioCon was great" into "ClioCon delivered $X in value" - and makes next year's trip an easy approval.

Plan Your Boston Logistics Early

Hotel blocks and Wrap Party tickets sell out. Book both as soon as you register.

Book through the official portal after registering - calling the hotels directly won't get you the ClioCon rate.

Getting there: Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) is 15-20 minutes from Back Bay.

• Taxi/rideshare: 15-25 minutes depending on traffic

• MBTA Blue Line → Green Line: Blue Line from airport to Government Center, transfer to Green Line (B, C, or D) to Hynes Convention Center. Budget 30-40 minutes.

• Airline discounts: Clio is lining up airline pricing for attendees - details will be posted on cliocon.com.

Key dates:

Final Thoughts

The difference between attending ClioCon and getting value out of it comes down to a plan. Set goals before you fly. Pick sessions by role instead of wandering. Treat the evening events and the sponsor floor as seriously as the breakout rooms, and change one real thing your first week back.

Registration is open at cliocon.com. Current pricing is $999 and it only moves in one direction. 

If you're evaluating AI timekeeping tools, book a demo with Ajax before the conference and come prepared.