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Law Practice Management Software
Compare All Law Practice Management Software
Matters.Cloud
Matters.Cloud
Matters.Cloud is a cloud-based legal matters management platform designed to provide businesses with the tools to manage new and existing clients, capture billable time, and collaborate with colleagues on tasks and deadlines. Matt...Read more
Actionstep
Actionstep
Actionstep is a cloud-based legal practice management solution designed for growing and midsize firms. The integrated solution offers tools for managing cases, billing, invoicing and accounting as well as enables businesses to aut...Read more
Expert Sierra
Expert Sierra
Expert Sierra is a cloud-based legal practice management solution designed to help mid to large-sized law firms assemble, store and manage financial data of cases. Key features include billing, time tracking, team collaboration, t...Read more
Rocket Matter
Rocket Matter
Rocket Matter is a cloud-based legal billing and management solution designed to cater small and midsize law practices. It features time and billing management, calendar, document management, payments and collaboration management ...Read more
Centerbase
Centerbase
Centerbase is the leading cloud-based legal accounting, billing and practice management application for mid-sized firms in any practice area. By integrating GL accounting, law firm billing and practice management into a single sys...Read more
Jarvis Legal
Jarvis Legal
Jarvis Legal offers small to midsize legal firms a management system that supports overall client and case management as well as automatic time tracking, document management and reporting. It supports all operating systems....Read more
Law Ruler Software
Law Ruler Software
Law Ruler is redefining what legal practice management and intake software should be for volume litigation practices focused on mass tort, personal injury, social security disability, immigration, civil litigation, employment, cri...Read more
CoCounselor
CoCounselor
CoCounselor provides a cloud-based legal management solution tailored specifically to the needs of plaintiff’s lawyers. With CoCounselor, users gain access to a suite of solutions that provide information on the performance of the...Read more
Software pricing tips
Read our Law Practice Management Software Buyers GuideSubscription models
- Per employee/per month: This model allows you to pay a monthly fee for each of your employees.
- Per user/per month: Users pay a monthly fee for users—normally administrative users—rather than all employees.
Perpetual license
- This involves paying an upfront sum for the license to own the software and use it indefinitely.
- This is the more traditional model and is most common with on-premise applications and with larger businesses.
Rated best value for money
HoudiniESQ
HoudiniESQ
HoudiniEsq is a hybrid law practice management solution that caters to law practices of all sizes and provides them the functionalities to manage various business routines which include cases, billing, invoicing and several other ...Read more
Firm Central
Firm Central
Firm Central by Thomson Reuters is a cloud-based legal management solution. It features matter management, time and billing, scheduling and document assembly. All Firm Central packages offer client, matter, document and task ...Read more
The Legal Assistant
The Legal Assistant
The Legal Assistant is a cloud-based and on-premise legal management solution available for either cloud-based or on-premise deployment. It is suitable for legal practices of multiple sizes. Different modules are available for spe...Read more
PracticePanther Legal Software
PracticePanther Legal Software
PracticePanther Legal Software is a legal management solution for small to large practices specializing in areas including bankruptcy, personal injury, family, divorce, estate planning, litigation, criminal law and many more. The ...Read more
SmartAdvocate
SmartAdvocate
Conceptualized by a partner at a personal injury law firm, SmartAdvocate is a legal management platform that offers flexible deployment options and a modular suite of applications. In addition to case management, attorneys a...Read more
Popular Law Practice Management Software Comparisons
Buyers Guide
Last Updated: March 11, 2022Attorneys and law firms have to manage several administrative tasks, such as scheduling appointments, handling documents, keeping tabs on court schedules, tracking finances, and communicating case updates to clients. Handling these processes manually not only requires significant effort and time but also increases the chances of human errors.
Law practice management software automates legal workflows to help law firms streamline their daily operations. It reduces the manual efforts needed for handling multiple clients/cases and delivers insights to improve overall productivity.
A wide range of law practice management solutions is available on the market, and choosing the one that best meets your needs and budget is important. To help you with decision-making, we’ve curated a buyers guide that includes all the information you'll need.
Here's what we'll cover:
- What is law practice management software?
- Common features of law practice management software
- What type of buyer are you?
- Benefits of law practice management software
- Market trends to understand
What is law practice management software?
Law practice management software is a software tool that helps law firms and individual attorneys manage case-related workflows, documentation, calendars, contacts, and client communication. It offers electronic billing and payment functionality to help users maintain an accurate record of client receivables.
The software automates routine administrative tasks, which helps save time and allows legal practices to provide better services to their clients. Automation also reduces the chances of manual errors and prevents any repetition or conflict of facts during documentation.
Reporting, activity dashboard, and rate management are some advanced features of law practice management software.
Common features of law practice management software
The software features you'll need solely depend on the scale and size of your legal practice. Here are some common features most law practice management solutions offer.
| Document management | Lets you collect, store, and share case-related documents and legal files. |
| Matter management | Allows you to manage and monitor the complete lifecycle of a case, including case activities and hearing schedules. |
| Billing and invoicing | Lets you generate bills and invoices for employee billable hours and other expenses. |
| Calendar management | Offers a shared calendar that helps view tasks, deadlines, appointments, court dates, etc. |
| Activity management | Lets you manage and track case-related workflows, timesheets, case updates, client updates, etc. |
| Contact management | Allows you to store clients’ contact details and case information, including name, address, billing cycle, and communication history. |
What type of buyer are you?
Before you start evaluating software options, you'll want to know which buyer category you belong to so that you pick the right software. Most buyers belong to one of the following categories:
- Individual attorneys: These buyers are individual attorneys with their own legal practice. They generally have fewer clients compared with large law firms and need help with streamlining daily operations to serve their clients better. A standard law practice management solution with case management, document management, billing, and invoicing capabilities would be a good fit for such businesses.
- Law firms: These buyers include law firms with many attorneys as partners. They have several clients and handle multiple cases simultaneously. Besides client management, optimization of team performance is a top need for such buyers. A fully featured law practice management solution with case management, activity and task management, and advanced reporting capabilities would suit their needs.
Benefits of law practice management software
In this section, we’ve listed the most notable benefits of law practice management software.
- Optimizes performance: Law practice management software automates the majority of legal administrative workflows, such as billing and case information management. This leaves you with more time to focus on your clients and their cases, which helps optimize the productivity of your legal practice.
- Centralizes document storage: The document management feature of law practice management software lets you store all case-related documents in a centralized repository that can be accessed by all users in the law firm. You can also save legal intellectual property in this repository for company-wide consumption. The software also allows you to set up access control rights so that your documents are safe.
- Bills accurately: Law practice management software lets you track the work done by your team members and records their billable time. This helps create accurate client invoices as well as ensures complete transparency of work.
Market trends to understand
Based on our research, the following is the key trend in the law practice management software market:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) to make legal due diligence and research easier and cost effective: AI can help attorneys speed up laborious manual tasks that are otherwise time-consuming. When combined with law practice management software, AI can assist with legal research and due diligence tasks, such as fact checking and background vetting. It can also improve the accuracy and speed of the document reviewing process to help law firms save costs and efforts.
- Smart legal contracts are on the rise: Law firms are witnessing an increasing usage of smart contracts over traditional paper-based contracts due to the former’s time-saving and cost benefits. Since they are computer coded, smart contracts can eliminate ambiguity in the language used for explaining legal terms, accurately interpret international contracts written in different languages, and even incorporate industry regulations into the code to make compliance easier for law firms.
Note: The application selected in this article is an example to show a feature in context and is not intended as an endorsement or a recommendation. It has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable at the time of publication.