The marketplace is full of legal software solutions which all claim to “make your life easier.” While some of these programs can deliver on that promise, others may not be a good fit for your practice. This makes it difficult to determine which ones are worth your time and money.
- 1What is Law Practice Management Software?
- 2Common Features of Law Practice Management Software
- 3The Right Law Practice Management Software for Your Firm
- 4Clio
- 5MyCase
- 6Bill4Time
- 7Legal Files
- 8Zola Suite
- 9Practice Panther
- 10CosmoLex
- 11TimeSolv
- 12ActionStep
- 13GrowPath
- 14Digital War Room
- 15Perfect Practice
What is Law Practice Management Software?
Law practice management software streamlines your daily operations and manages all aspects of your firm like client and case records, documents, appointments, schedules, deadlines, and accounting. If you or your team are trying to manage these things manually or with several different programs, having an all-in-one legal software can completely transform the way your firm operates.
Common Features of Law Practice Management Software
Law practice management solutions come with a range of features tailored to legal firms. Here are some of the most common:
- Case Management: Track the status of your cases and maintain a single source of truth for all communications, notes, and documents.
- Legal Document Management: Store, organize and easily search through all your documents securely, including client contracts and case files.
- Contact Management: Store and manage contact information and stay on top of client interactions.
- Calendar and Scheduling: Schedule events, meetings, and appointments using an easy-to-use calendar interface and keep up with deadlines.
- Time and Expense Tracking: Spend less time tracking hours and expenses and more time billing with an efficient tracker that you can access when and where you need it.
- Billing: Automate invoicing and payments so you get paid faster.
- Accounting: Simplify reconciliations and comply with trust accounting regulations. Automatically sync with your accounting system, such as QuickBooks.
- Reporting and Analytics: Find ways to improve productivity and efficiency by generating reports on key metrics such as billable hours, utilization rate and revenue.
- Mobile Access: Access information on the go using a mobile app or mobile-friendly website.
- Security & Compliance: Ensure data is compliant with industry regulations and protect client privacy.
The Right Law Practice Management Software for Your Firm
First, it’s important to know that there is really no such thing as the best legal practice management software. The best program is the one that works for your firm, and that may be different than what works best for another firm.
When you’re looking for legal software, it’s important to think about what areas your practice needs the most help with. For example, if your law firm struggles with document management, look for software with exceptional document management capabilities. If billing is a weak point, software with comprehensive billing features will make the biggest impact.
To help you find the best law firm management for your firm, we’ve compared 11 of the top options on the market.
We chose the software in this list based on three factors:
- They must have 4+ star reviews on Software Advice and/or Capterra
- The software must utilize a mobile-app or must have another form of remote access since attorneys often need to access data on-the-go
- Their website has to have enough information about the product, pricing, and support to allow users to make an informed decision before reaching out to the company for a demo or trial
Top 12 Legal Practice Management Software Solutions
Clio
Clio is a cloud-based law practice management software solution that provides several general practice management features, such as time and billing and client management for all areas of legal practice.
Among many of the features this software offers is task management, scheduling, time tracking, accounting, and document management. It also integrates with over 200+ popular apps like Google Calendar, Outlook, Quickbooks, and Allocate Legal.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: There are three versions of the software with monthly pricing ranging from $39 per month to $129 per month.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: Free, on-demand training is available online through the Clio Academy.
- Support: There is an extensive online support library and you can contact their support team by phone any time during the week or via online chat from 5AM-12AM PST.
MyCase
MyCase is a web-based legal software that allows you to keep your case files in one place. While case file management and client communication are its strong suits, it also provides a complete billing solution and even has legal marketing tools to help you grow your practice even further.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: $39 per user per month for the Basic plan, if billed annually. The price goes up to $49 per user per month if billed monthly.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: MyCase offers regularly scheduled live online training webinars as well as a large online library with training and support articles.
- Support: Contact their support team via chat, email, or phone (phone support available 6AM-5PM PST.)
Bill4Time
Bill4Time is a sleek, user-friendly legal software option. Main features include time tracking, billing, and complete case management. It has integrations with programs and websites like PayPal, Quickbooks, UpTime, Outlook, and more.
One feature missing from Bill4Time is contract management so if this is important to your practice, it may not be the best option for you.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: There are three tiers of service that start at $27 per user per month when billed annually.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: The Bill4Time YouTube channel has several training videos and there are pre-recorded webinars on their site to help new users get started.
- Support: There is an extensive online help section and you can contact their support team via phone or email.
Legal Files
Legal Files offers users a “big picture” look at their firm, including caseloads, schedules, and case statuses. Need a closer look at a particular issue or case? Legal Files does it with ease. Key features include report generation, response tracking, note-taking, scheduling, docketing, and messaging.
- Free trial: Legal Files does not offer a free trial, but you can schedule a free demo.
- Price: Legal Files does not publicize their prices. You can contact their sales team for a quote.
- Mobile app: Yes, although it is only available for Apple devices at this time.
- Hosting: Cloud-based but can be installed on Windows machines.
- Training: Training is included with your subscription and you can schedule it on-site at their headquarters in Springfield, Illinois or online via web conferencing.
- Support: Support is available via phone and email.
Zola Suite
Known for its easy-to-use interface and convenience, the Zola Suite provides an affordable solution to time and case management.
This software is equipped with a variety of different features, such as built-in email and accounting capabilities, bulk billing, document management, task management, and more. It also allows for LawPay, Quickbooks, and DropBox integrations.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: Zola offers three tiers of service starting at $59 per user per month when billed annually.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: Their YouTube channel and website have several training videos and webinars available. They also schedule new webinars periodically.
- Support: They have an extensive online support center where you can find help articles or submit a support ticket.
Practice Panther
PracticePanther is a general management and billing legal software solution that is powerful but easy-to-use. Among the lengthy list of features this software offers a one-click billing, time tracking, task management, legal calendaring, matter management, client management, and expense tracking.
Practice Panther also offers a client portal for your clients to view invoices, make payments, and receive/respond to messages.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: There are three tiers of service starting at $49 per user per month when billed annually.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: Schedule private online training or get acquainted with the software through their training video library.
- Support: Contact their support team via phone, email, or chat. There is also a support forum and FAQ section for additional assistance.
CosmoLex
CosmoLex provides a cloud-based all-in-one practice management solution, giving you document and email management, scheduling, case workflow, a client portal, and comprehensive accounting capabilities.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: CosmoLex offers simple pricing: $89 per user per month when billed annually or $99 per user per month when billed monthly.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: CosmoLex offers free one-on-one onboarding, as well as daily and monthly training webinars on specific functions and features of the program.
- Support: There is an extensive online knowledge base where you can browse help articles or submit a support ticket.
TimeSolv
TimeSolv Legal is a web-based time, billing, and project management solution. This software is equipped with several helpful features, such as time tracking via many timers, case management, conflict management, trust accounting, performance monitoring, billing and invoicing, and much more.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: TimeSolv Legal is $35.95 per user per month for an annual plan, or $39.95 per user per month for the monthly plan.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for iOS and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based or self hosted.
- Training: All new customers are offered free online administrator training and a one-time setup to ensure that your account is configured to meet your needs.
- Support: TimeSolv offers customer support at no cost and has an extensive knowledge base online.
ActionStep
ActionStep is a complete practice management software to help law firms ease their challenges for client/case management, billing and other administrative tasks.
One challenge users find is initial setup can be cumbersome and usage requires commitment to fully utilize the features to improve workflow.
- Free trial: Yes
- Price: $49 per month, per user.
- Mobile app: Yes, available for Apple and Android devices.
- Hosting: Cloud-based
- Training: Training is available via in-person, online meetings or with a certified consultant.
- Support: Contact ActionStep support via phone, email, or chat or browse the online knowledge database for answers to your questions.
GrowPath
GrowPath is an all-in-one case management system for law firms seeking to accelerate their growth. The legal software offering is a complete firm management solution, encompassing client intake, case management, and business reporting and analytics.
GrowPath’s technology incorporates multiple patented mechanisms, including an automated lead scoring tool that helps identify high-value intakes.
- Free trial: Free demo; deferred initial costs may be available.
- Price: Client onboarding can be customized. For service, clients pay a base user fee, starting at $79 per user per month. Annual price savings available upon request.
- Patents: 18 relating to client management systems
- Hosting: Cloud-based SaaS offering
- Training: In-person training is available as part of the client onboarding process. On-demand training videos can also be accessed online.
- Support: Clients are assigned a unique customer success manager to guide them through transitioning their software, as well as any ensuing technical difficulties. Customer success managers have extensive experience working in law firms as office managers and paralegals.
Digital War Room
Digital WarRoom is a cloud-based and desktop eDiscovery platform which allows law firms to be fully proficient in processing, reviewing, and producing documents. The tool improves workflow efficiencies through a drag-and-drop processing interface that automatically extracts and indexes metadata from files, ensuring easy filtering and searching.
Key features of Digital WarRoom include right-click and mark functionality which allows you to easily mark documents as privileged, an automatic Privilege Log, redactions, email thread visualizer, who to whom email analysis, language identification and translation, and more. Businesses can choose from a range of deduplication settings which includes an option to propagate work product across duplicates of a single document.
- Free trial: Free demo
- Price: Pricing options include monthly and annual subscriptions
- Hosting: Options include Pro Software (Desktop), Single Matter (Hosted) and Private Cloud (Hosted)
- Training: One-on-one training via screen share is available as part of the client onboarding process.
- Support: Support is included via email help desk.
Perfect Practice
Perfect Practice gives you the full array of tools you require to operate your practice. This software’s adaptability, flexible reporting, and intelligent workflow will help move your case load in a smooth manner. Billing and accounting, marketing, matter management, time tracking, and CRM are just some of the benefits of this very useful tool.
- Free trial: No free trial offered, but they do offer a free demo.
- Price: The starting price is $44.50 per month, per each user.
- Mobile app: No mobile app, but is accessible remotely since it is server and cloud based
- Hosting: Web-Based, Cloud, SaaS
- Training: Training is available in-person, online, and through webinars
- Support: Support is available during their business hours
Find the Right Legal Software to Grow Your Law Firm
Your next step is contacting TheeDigital for website development and digital marketing. We’re an experienced digital agency, well-versed in what it takes to grow your law firm and get you more cases. Contact our team today by calling 919-341-8901, scheduling a free website audit here.
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