You may be adopting legal practice management software for the first time, or you might be considering a change to your long-held platform.
Regardless, the latest technology promises key upgrades in your ability to achieve all of your business goals.
The best legal practice management platforms will bolster areas as varied as business development, case and matter management, document management, e-signature portals, and time tracking — all while maintaining the highest standards of data security.
The reviews in this buyers guide will also help you upgrade with ease — providing guidance in plain English with processes geared for a fully booked schedule.
Downloading our Legal Practice Management Buyer’s Guide is just the first step. Come back to the Non-Event often and find answers to all of your technology questions.
Welcome to the Non-Eventcast! In this inaugural edition, host Jared Correia discusses practice management software — the backbone of any small firm or solo practice — with experts from Clio, Filevine, and Matter365. The Non-Eventcast brings the technology conversation to lawyers directly, in plain English and geared to meet a fully booked schedule. “Fun” can and will likely arise.
What does law practice management software do?
From finding new clients to accounting for payments received, the best law practice management software forms the backbone of a law firm’s business operations, bringing together varied tasks into one centralized system.
What are the best practice management systems?
The best case management systems — like the ones listed in our buyers guide — create a relational database that aggregates all kinds of information to specific matters and clients. This includes everything from intake to invoicing. Doing so allows for a holistic overview of your practice and breaks down silos between different types of information, allowing for greater efficiency, easier communication, and increased data security.
What are the top legal practice management software functions?
Lawyers live in emails and love to draft documents, and at its core this software provides one centralized trove of information. Key functions include filing systems, calendaring, real-time collaboration among lawyers and clients, deadline tracking, secure messaging, signature tools, and billing systems.
How do you set up new case management software?
There are two components: onboarding the new software, and getting the data into the new system. Migrating data like contacts and calendars is self-explanatory, but migrating more complex data should be done by a vendor with experience setting up these types of systems. The best software companies will provide on-demand training resources as well as support specialists who help to set it up and remain available to maximize its benefits upon implementation.
Lawyer 1: I just bought a new law practice management software, and I’m spending so much less time looking for everything because it’s all in one place now!
Lawyer 2: Yeah, you should see this Excel file I put together. It’s badass.
Lawyer 1: Just… stop.
Cf. Organization porn.
Cf. Law practice management software
Cf. The Oracle of (Kevin) Bacon.
Lawyer 1: The good news is that my clients can send me stuff via our portal. That’s also the bad news.
Lawyer 2: Ba-dum-cha.
Lawyer 1: Thanks. I’m here till Thursday. Try the veal.
Cf. Online document drives, most of which are de facto customer portals, also allow users to share information with others in a secure format. target=”_blank”Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, et al. offer such features. These can also be connected to law practice management software via integrations.
Cf. Like how in action movies, there’s always a portal with all these aliens coming in to invade the planet. Honestly, I don’t know which portal is worse: that one, or the one that drops a 90-page contract in your lap for review.
Cf. Linking a law practice management software to a productivity software (email, calendar) allows users to sync emails, events and tasks with client files within the law practice management software, cementing that program as a holistic solution for law firm data management. Linking an accounting program to a law practice management software allows users to push expense and invoice data into the accounting program.
Lawyer 1: How’s your P&L statement looking for the last quarter?
Lawyer 2: Uh. Um. Res Ipsa Loquitur.
Lawyer 1: Say what?
Cf. NOT the Edsel.
Jared Correia is the host of the Non-Eventcast.
Clio eases the day-to-day of over 150,000 legal professionals spanning 90 countries with intuitive time tracking, billing, matter management, mobile apps, and more to streamline every task from client intake to invoice. Clio Manage, the world’s most popular legal practice management software, and Clio Grow, a legal CRM platform designed to help you better manage your client relationships, provides everything you need to run, grow, and manage your law firm. Approved and trusted by over 66 bar associations and law societies globally, Clio continues to lead the industry with initiatives like the Legal Trends Report, the Clio Cloud Conference, and the Clio Academic Access Program. Learn more at clio.com.
Filevine is the leading cloud-based collaborative work solution for law firms. Powering everything from case management and document management to client communication and business analytics, Filevine’s custom and bespoke tools simplify and elevate practice management and growth. With over 20,000 legal professionals using Filevine every day, Filevine is the top legal software company on the Inc. 5000 list, has been named one of Utah Business Fast 50 and is among the top 50 fastest-growing privately-owned software companies according to the 2020 Inc. 5000 list.
Foxit is a leading software provider of enterprise PDF solutions for highly regulated industries such as legal, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and government. Foxit delivers easy-to-use desktop software (including virtual desktops), mobile apps, and cloud services to make knowledge workers more productive as well as best-in-class technical support and customer service. Featuring enterprise deployment with simple license management, Foxit PhantomPDF offers businesses flexible budgeting with subscription and perpetual pricing options at a fraction of the cost of legacy PDF editing software.
At Matter365, we make Microsoft 365 feel as though it was built for lawyers. Our clients get a full-featured practice management solution that is fully-integrated with the Microsoft tools they already know and use. We help our clients streamline their matter management, track time and expenses, automate billing, and more effectively collaborate.
In today’s world, your business needs a digital branch where you deliver premier service to your customers. This means providing a digital destination where your customers can call-in at their convenience and receive a one-stop service experience. Moxtra powers your OneStop Customer Portal – your digital branch, with continuous collaboration experiences, helping you retain and grow customers, manage your distributed organization, and lower your costs for doing business. Moxtra’s Customer Collaboration Platform can power your branded OneStop Customer Portal as a fluid extension of your existing website, web or mobile app, or as a standalone web and mobile app.
MyCase is a complete law practice management solution that helps firms run efficiently from anywhere, provide an exceptional client experience, and easily track firm performance so that they can reach their business goals.
SmartAdvocate is a fully integrated legal case management system made to handle the challenges of today’s fast paced, highly competitive, and technologically demanding world. Initially designed by and for personal injury and mass tort litigation firms, SmartAdvocate is now used by a wide range of practices.
Available in both the Cloud or Server, plus entirely browser-based and accessible via the mobile app for iOS and Android, SmartAdvocate provides secure access so users are able to work remotely from virtually anywhere. With robust, exclusive features and 100+ integration partnerships, firms are able to customize SmartAdvocate to achieve exactly what they need.
Smokeball is the only cloud-based legal practice management software that automatically records time for you, allowing you to increase your firm’s profitability and productivity by over 30%. Our library of over 18,000 preloaded forms combined with the most robust Microsoft Word and Outlook integration in the industry allows you to complete forms with just a click. Access all matters on the go with Smokeball’s mobile app built for iPhone and Android. Whether you bill hourly, fixed fee, or on contingency, Smokeball provides you the insights and tools to bill more and get more hours back in your day. Learn more at www.smokeball.com.
In curating the Non-Event, we’re lucky to have some of the best data regarding our audience’s general areas of interest. Our top resource is our marketing partner Bombora: the largest B2B data cooperative, where numerous publishers pool anonymized user data to determine areas of reader interest.
Courtesy of Bombora, we bring you the practice management-related topics of interest to Above the Law readers, based on surging interest from April–June 2021. (Figures will be updated periodically.)
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‘Intent data’ reveals high-interest topics related to practice management — the focus of the first installment of our Legal Tech Non-Event for perplexed lawyers.
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Read on for proactive and reactive steps your organization should consider now.
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