Not on the Mac App Store
The sandbox blocks the mechanism that types into another app. You download it here and grant two permissions. The download page explains both.
Roar for lawyers on a Mac
The dictaphone
came back.
It skipped the typing pool. Say the time entry while the call is still in your head. A moment later it's typed where your cursor is, with voir dire spelled voir dire.
- Hold a key
- Say the entry
- Let go. It’s billed.
Demonstration: a floating panel shows Roar listening, then a time entry narrative is typed into a practice management window at about 150 words a minute while a counter shows the rate.
In the app you’re in
150wpm
app.clio.com
Time entry, narrative
Telephone conference with client regarding revised indemnity language in the asset purchase agreement. Reviewed opposing counsel's markup of sections 7.2 and 9.1.
22 words in 8 seconds. Typed, the same words take about 26.
Bill the 0.1 you used to forget
Downloads Roar for Mac. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon (M1 and newer). Five dictations to try, no card.
The Rule 1.6 memo is below ↓The six-minute increment
You invoice 2.6 hours of an 8-hour day. Most of the rest is writing.
Clio's 2025 Legal Trends Report puts the invoiced day at 2.6 hours. The rest is written, not billed. Watch a narrative land both ways.
The call ends at 4:52. The next one is at 5:00. The narrative for the first call gets written at nine that night, from memory, and it says “correspondence, 0.5”. Roar is for the eight minutes in between. Hold the key in the time entry field, say what you did, release.
Demonstration: the same fifty-word paragraph is revealed twice, at about 50 words a minute as typing and about 150 words a minute as talking. Talking finishes at twenty seconds, typing at one minute.
Same paragraph, both ways
1:00.0
Typing
Done at 1:00
Telephone conference with client regarding revised indemnity language in the asset purchase agreement. Reviewed opposing counsel's markup of sections 7.2 and 9.1. Drafted email to client summarizing open points and recommended positions. Prepared for Thursday call with opposing counsel regarding the same. Reviewed engagement letter terms for the new matter.
Talking
Done at 0:20
Telephone conference with client regarding revised indemnity language in the asset purchase agreement. Reviewed opposing counsel's markup of sections 7.2 and 9.1. Drafted email to client summarizing open points and recommended positions. Prepared for Thursday call with opposing counsel regarding the same. Reviewed engagement letter terms for the new matter.
Fifty words. Twenty seconds said. A minute typed.
At $400 an hour a 0.1 is $40. One you'd have forgotten pays for the month.
Bill the 0.1 you used to forget
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Email is the volume
Short sentences. One ask. One deadline. Say the reply.
Clio emailed a thousand firms as a prospective client in 2019. Six in ten never answered.
Most of what a lawyer writes in a day isn’t the brief. It’s the reply to the client, the instruction to the paralegal, the note confirming Thursday. The six in ten didn’t go unanswered because lawyers don’t care. Because there are forty of them and it’s four in the afternoon.
Put your cursor in the reply. Hold the key. Say it the way you’d say it on the phone. Release. Read it once, send it, next. Smart formatting shapes it for an email when you are in your mail client.
The reply you send in forty seconds beats the perfect one you send on Thursday.
Custom vocabulary
Voir dire, not war diary.
Latin terms of art. Defined Terms with the capital letter. Party designations. Section references. The client's name, which is in no dictionary anywhere. You add each one once.
- war diaryvoir dire
- rest Judi katares judicata
- a firm of defenseaffirmative defense
- do processdue process
- statue of limitationsstatute of limitations
- certain rarecertiorari
- in lemonyin limine
- the purchaserthe Purchaser
- Ober gefellObergefell
- Weil got shallWeil Gotshal
Add it once. It’s right in every document after.
Roar won't build or check a Bluebook citation. It spells the case name the way you added it.
The objection
I think faster when I type.
If you type seventy words a minute and can’t compose a motion out loud, Roar doesn’t ask you to.
Roar isn’t for the motion. It’s for the four hundred things around it: the time entry, the reply, the note to file, the instruction to the paralegal, the first draft you were always going to rewrite.
Type the brief. Say everything else.
Before you install
Four things to know, so nobody finds out on Thursday.
Mac only
macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon. There is no Windows version, which matters if your firm runs Word through a Windows virtual desktop.
One person, one account
If six of you want it, six of you download it. Nothing for IT to roll out.
Verified in Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Gmail and Clio
If your document management system isn't on that list, try it in your first 5 dictations before you rely on it.
Rule 1.6
Your notes never leave your Mac. Written so you can paste it into the memo.
Model Rule 1.6(c) asks for reasonable efforts to prevent unauthorized disclosure. ABA Formal Opinion 512 asks you to understand the tool first. Here is what to know.
Fact one
Your notes never leave your Mac. Not to our server, not to anyone. There's nowhere on our server for them to go.
Fact two
The audio of your own voice, recorded only while you hold the key, goes to Roar's server, is transcribed, and is discarded. It is never stored.
For the memo
- What is transmitted
- Audio of your voice, captured while the trigger key is held, and nothing else.
- What is retained
- No audio, by design. The transcribed text is delivered to the field your cursor was in and Roar keeps no copy of it on the server.
- What Roar reads on your Mac
- The trigger key, and the name of the window you are in. Never your keystrokes. Never the contents of your screen.
- Where transcription happens
- On Roar's server, not on the machine. If your practice requires that privileged audio never leaves the Mac, say so before you subscribe and we will tell you plainly whether Roar fits.
- Deletion
- Delete your account and everything Roar holds about you is gone.
- Copy-only mode
- You can use Roar without granting it the Accessibility permission at all. The text goes to your clipboard and nowhere else.
Never your keystrokes. Never your screen. Never your notes.
Pricing
Download Roar. Your first five entries are on us.
Priced for one lawyer, not a firm. No card until you subscribe, from inside the app.
Bill the 0.1 you used to forget
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Your first 5 dictations are free. No card.
Monthly
$12a month
$12 billed monthly. $144 a year.
Cancel any time from inside the app.
Quarterly
$10a month
$30 billed every three months. $120 a year.
$144You save $24 a year
Best value, 33% off
Annual
$8a month
$96 billed once a year.
$144You save $48 a year
Questions
Answered as statements.
What happens if I let go of the key mid-sentence
Recording stops and what you said so far is transcribed and typed. Hold the key again to continue. Where the text lands is decided when you press the key, not when you release it, so if you switched windows while talking the text still goes where you started.
Does Roar read my screen
No. Roar reads the key you chose as a trigger and, for formatting, the name of the window you're in. It never reads the contents of your screen.
Is my audio kept
No. It's transcribed and discarded. There is no audio store.
What is the Accessibility permission for
Typing into the field your cursor is in. macOS calls this "control your computer" because the same permission covers many things. Roar uses it for one. The download page shows exactly what that looks like.
Can my firm buy it for six of us
Each of you downloads it and each of you subscribes. Accounts are individual; there's no team plan, nothing to administer and nothing for IT to roll out.
Does it work in iManage or NetDocuments
Not verified. Both are text fields and Roar types into text fields, but we haven't tested either. Try yours in your first 5 dictations.
Is there a Windows version
No, and none is planned.
Can I use it without letting it touch other apps
Yes. Copy-only mode puts the text on your clipboard and touches nothing else. You do not need to grant Accessibility for it.
Is Roar for the brief
No. It's for the four hundred things around the brief: the time entry, the reply, the note to file, the instruction to the paralegal. Type the brief. Say everything else.
One more time
Say the letter.
It is in Word.
Say the letter while the call is still in your head. A moment later it's in the document, spelled the way you spell it. Five dictations to see for yourself, no card.
Demonstration: a floating panel shows Roar listening, then the opening of a client letter is typed into a document window at about 150 words a minute.
Your next sentence
150wpm
Microsoft Word
Letter to client, draft
Further to our call this afternoon, I attach the revised indemnity language for your review and would be grateful for your comments by Thursday.
3x
Talking is three times faster than typing.
$40
One 0.1 at $400 an hour. The month, paid for.
0
Notes that leave your Mac. None, ever.
Bill the 0.1 you used to forget
Mac, Apple silicon. Five dictations to try, no card.
Not a lawyer. Roar also has pages for journalists