In a consumer bankruptcy practice, the slow part often isn't the petition software. It's the hour a paralegal spends retyping a client's handwritten intake packet into it: every creditor, every account, the car, the lease, the paystubs. Casewell is built to remove that step. You upload the completed packet, or the notes from the interview, and it hands back a Best Case file with the schedules already filled in.
This review covers how Casewell works, what its export does and doesn't include, what it costs, how it handles client data and where it falls short. It's based on Casewell's public site, read in October 2026. Casewell has no public demo, and we didn't run client files through it for this review, so nothing here is a claim about time saved at a particular firm.
Here's the TLDR:
- What it is: intake software that turns a handwritten or typed bankruptcy intake packet, interview notes or a recorded consultation into a native Best Case .BCB file.
- Key point: it works with Best Case, not instead of it. Your firm keeps preparing and filing in Best Case.
- Best part: each page is read five times, disagreements go to a person beside the original handwriting, and the exported file is checked against what staff confirmed before you get it.
- Price: free during the beta, no card, up to 10 intake packets per firm per day. Paid pricing isn't published.
- Main limits: Best Case only; no Schedule C, Schedule H, means test or full Statement of Financial Affairs in the export yet; no SOC 2 report.
- Verdict: our pick for consumer bankruptcy firms on Best Case whose clients still fill out paper. Skip it if you're on NextChapter or Jubilee, or if your clients already finish an online questionnaire.
What Casewell is
Casewell sits in front of Best Case, the petition software from Stretto. Its input is whatever your firm already collects: a handwritten scan, a typed or filled-in PDF, phone photos of pages, pasted interview notes, live dictation or a recording of the consultation. Its output is a .BCB file, Best Case's own case file format, which staff open with File, then Restore Client from Disk.
The site is blunt about the boundary. Asked whether it replaces Best Case, its FAQ says: "No. Casewell runs before Best Case." There's no plugin to install, no migration and no change to templates, review steps or filing. It doesn't file with the court, doesn't reach legal conclusions and won't export a value nobody confirmed. Casewell is independent and not affiliated with Best Case or Stretto.
It's aimed at three kinds of firm, per its pricing page: solo practitioners doing their own intake and prep; small firms of two to ten people where one or two paralegals carry most of the data entry; and established filing practices that don't want to change software, only to stop retyping.
How it works
The walkthrough has five steps:
- Start with what you have. Upload a PDF, PNG, JPEG or WebP, or dictate or paste notes. Manual schedule-by-schedule entry is there too.
- Five independent reads. Each uploaded page is read five times and the results are compared field by field. A full packet usually takes a few minutes, in the background.
- Staff review. Fields where the reads disagree appear beside the cropped handwriting, with the competing values (for example, three reads for one figure and two for another). Staff pick one or type the right value, and each confirmation is recorded against the case.
- Fixed-rule mapping. Confirmed values go onto Best Case fields by fixed rules rather than a model deciding, so the same intake always produces the same file.
- Verified export. Casewell writes the .BCB, reads it back and compares it with the confirmed values. If they don't match, the file isn't released.
Casewell is candid about handwriting. Cursive is "the hardest case for any OCR system, and accuracy drops on it," and a messy packet "produces more confirmations and less time saved." The point of comparing five reads is that a bad read shows up as a disagreement for a person to settle rather than as a wrong number in a petition. Corrections your staff make are used to read your own firm's form better over time, and aren't used for anyone else's.
What the Best Case file includes
This is the part to read before you sign up, because it decides how much typing is left. Per Casewell's Best Case import page:
| In today's export | Listed as coming soon (not in the export) |
|---|---|
| Schedule A/B, property | Schedule C exemptions on the right property rows |
| Schedule D, secured claims | Schedule H codebtors and joint filings |
| Schedule E/F, with every creditor's address and account detail | Means test inputs to Form 122A-1 |
| Schedule G, leases and contracts | The full Statement of Financial Affairs, all 28 questions |
| Schedules I and J, income and expenses |
The homepage adds that Casewell "does not produce Schedule C, perform the means test or generate the creditor matrix." So exemptions, codebtors, the means test and most of the SOFA are still done by hand in Best Case. For a typical individual Chapter 7, that still takes the creditor schedules, property, income and expenses off the paralegal's plate, which is where most of the keying is. For joint filings, the gap is bigger until Schedule H ships.
Other features
- Recorded consultations. Casewell can record the intake meeting in the browser or take an uploaded phone, Zoom or Teams recording, transcribe English and Spanish with speakers labeled, and turn what the client said into proposed petition fields for staff to review. Transcription runs through AssemblyAI under a signed business associate agreement.
- Spanish intake. It reads Spanish and mixed-language packets, notes and recordings into the English fields a petition needs, keeps names exactly as written and converts Spanish number and date formats before review.
- Converting a petition from another program. It can read a text-searchable printed official-form package of up to 200 pages from Jubilee, NextChapter or another program and write a Best Case Desktop file. Only individual Chapter 7 packages are supported, and exemptions, codebtors, intentions, most SOFA answers and the means test come across as notes for manual entry. The conversion page lists exactly what carries over.
Pricing
Casewell is free while it's in beta: $0, no card, no contract and no minimum term. Each firm can prepare up to 10 intake packets a day, and can ask for more. The beta includes scan, typed and dictated intake, the verified .BCB export, tuning to your own intake form, users for the whole team, case history and "a direct line to the founder."
Paid pricing isn't published. Casewell says beta firms will get the details before anyone is asked to choose a paid plan. In exchange for the free beta it asks firms to run real cases rather than test files and to report problems. Onboarding is creating the account: it reads a general bankruptcy intake packet out of the box, and a few setup questions ask which court you file in so a case gets the right local forms.
Security and data handling
An intake packet holds Social Security numbers, dates of birth, bank balances and a full creditor list, so this section matters more than usual. Per Casewell's security page:
- client-identifying data (debtor names, case information, read results, file names) is encrypted at rest;
- a daily sweep deletes uploaded scans, recorded meetings and generated .BCB files older than seven days, and captured case data is redacted 30 days after the case was created;
- cases, files and learned corrections are scoped to each firm;
- reads use the Anthropic API, whose commercial terms exclude API data from training by default, and servers are in the United States.
The same page says, in its own words, "There is no SOC 2 report yet, and no third-party penetration test has been completed." It also notes that for scanned intakes, recommended values can continue automatically into file generation, so the attorney's review of the imported case in Best Case before filing is the real check.
Limits
- Best Case only. There's no export to NextChapter, Jubilee or any other petition software.
- Partial export. No Schedule C, Schedule H or joint filings, means test inputs, full SOFA or creditor matrix today.
- Beta product. It's newer, with a short track record, and we found no third-party reviews. The 10-packet daily limit is fine for most small firms but worth checking against your intake volume.
- No published price. You can't budget for after the beta yet.
- No compliance paperwork. No SOC 2 report and no completed third-party penetration test.
- No client-facing questionnaire. Casewell reads what your firm collects. If you want clients to fill in a web form themselves, that's a different tool.
- No public demo. You create an account to see it.
Alternatives worth comparing
Casewell solves one problem: intake that arrives outside Best Case. The alternatives solve it in different ways.
- Best Case's own questionnaire. Best Case Cloud ($99 per user per month) includes a client portal with an intake questionnaire and document exchange. On Best Case Desktop, the questionnaire comes through MyCaseInfo, which Stretto lists as an add-on at extra cost with no published price. It works well when clients actually finish an online form. Casewell is for the packets and interviews that don't come in that way.
- BK Questionnaire. A client-facing online questionnaire and document collection tool for Chapter 7 and 13 firms, with English and Spanish tutorials. Its pricing page lists plans at $39.99, $89.99 and $129.99 (billing period not stated) plus $15.99 per debtor for credit reports. It exports CSV files it says import "into most major petition preparation systems", without naming Best Case.
- Glade. An AI case platform that covers intake, documents, petition assembly and filing in one system. Glade's bankruptcy page positions it as a replacement for petition software rather than a feed into Best Case, and pricing isn't published.
- Switching petition software. NextChapter and Jubilee each have a client portal that feeds their own petition software. That's a bigger move than adding an intake step, and it doesn't help a firm that wants to stay on Best Case.
For a broader look at where AI already fits in a practice, see our guide to AI for law firms.
FAQ
Does Casewell replace Best Case?
No. It produces a file you open in Best Case, and you keep preparing, reviewing and filing petitions there.
Is Casewell free?
Yes, during the beta, with no card and up to 10 intake packets per firm per day. Paid pricing hasn't been published.
Does it work with Best Case Cloud?
Casewell says its .BCB export goes into Best Case Cloud or Best Case desktop. The printed-petition conversion writes a Best Case Desktop file.
Can it read cursive?
It tries, and says accuracy drops on cursive. Those fields are the most likely to come back as disagreements, which sends them to your staff with the handwriting shown.
Does Casewell file with the court or give legal advice?
No to both. It's a software tool, not a law firm. Attorneys review the case and file through their existing process.
The fair test is simple: run your next few real intake packets through Casewell alongside your normal process and count what your staff still had to type. Casewell is also one of the examples on Digital Mundo's software for law firms page, for firms that want something built around their own intake.
Disclosure: Casewell is made by Digital Mundo LLC, which has the same owner as Gold Penguin LLC.
