Permits me to practice law. Amicus is easy to use and very intuitive. It's just clicking away, and getting things done. Now, I can be anywhere and use it from my tablet or a laptop computer if I am out of town

I was never able to incorporate Amicus' billing software so I continued to use Timeslips, and both work well together. Now that Timeslips is getting expensive, I may give their billing software another try. Perhaps now it is intuitive as Amicus Attorney.

Overall I like Amicus. I looked at a number of applications, some less or more costly and settled here after talking with other attorneys who use a number of different applications. Amicus helps you become more organized, particularly if you are in a smaller firm environment. It can also reduce your overhead by reducing the need for staff because of how it integrates information, particularly timekeeping and billing.

This program is a good integration of: document management for clients; contacts; task and deadline tracking; timekeeping; billing; and, an email program. The fact that it can be accessed online and via a phone app is a major plus. You don't have to travel with a laptop and can access all of your files anywhere. The way it sorts emails, documents and everything else by client files that you can create is very useful in keeping you organized. Depending upon the settings you select, much of this is done automatically by the application. Multiple users can access and work on client files and immediately share their work with other attorneys in the firm. It's a very collaborative platform. I like the integration with QuickBooks and truly appreciate the ability to work with operating and client trust accounts. However, QuickBooks is the only financial management program with which it integrates. I have been at this almost a year and learn a new function daily that improves my effectiveness for clients. Their technical support has been great. I am crazy about their support staff and can tell you this is a major reason that I have stuck it out through a steep learning curve. I also appreciate the fact that it has an open forum where users can recommend changes and improvements. I am impressed that Amicus actually takes action on suggestions and has adopted user recommendations. This is a nice value add proposition.

There are some significant limitations. The application integrates seamlessly with Microsoft Word but not at all with the WordPerfect suite of programs that many attorneys find to be the standard in the practice and better that their Microsoft counterparts. Amicus indicates that it is considering creating an integration with the WordPerfect suite. Amicus limits users to 20 GB of space that is not much in this day and age. Expanding the account size within Amicus is very expensive. The application integrates with Dropbox, which is a more affordable option to add storage space. Yet, oddly, it does not integrate with Microsoft OneDrive. This is also a new functionality that Amicus says it is considering. When evaluating this program be mindful of this restriction as it can easily double the actual cost of moving to this platform. Getting documents out of and putting them back into a client file is a bit cumbersome. It also takes time to learn how to save versions of the same document and the versions are not easily seen. Moving emails around is a awkward. It is time consuming to select a group of emails for filing. Similarly, you cannot select an entire conversation on a subject, regardless of whether it is in your Inbox or Sent box, and place them in the client file. So, in some cases you need to clean both Inbox and Sent mail and place items in the client file. A real time killer. I have found that the application times out or snags on occasion.

TIME & MATTER MANAGEMENT: Timers and time entries are pretty simple. Knowing all people involved in a matter all in one place; engineers, judges, etc. is a great feature. Adding emails to a file is a good idea but time-consuming. Having all the data for a client in one place is good. BILLING: I like that the Billing and Attorney sides are separate. Billing and accepting payments works quite well. Amicus can do split billing which is important to us. The interface with Quickbooks is quirky but after 1.7 years of working with it we've figured out most of the issues and found workarounds. Reports can be downloaded to Excel which is vital to my managing the firm.

CONS: The end-user learning curve is huge and not intuitive which has led to a lot of attorneys entering time and not using Amicus for anything else. Text onscreen is exceptionally small, and for most users, problematic. The interface is not intuitive and takes a lot of trial and error to find the best ways to find what you want or report on the issue. We were lead to believe that the document management interface would work for us, but upon trial found out it would not work with our setup. So we're still dealing with Microsoft Explorer for managing documents, which is problematic. Overall our approval level with Amicus is likely only around 50%. There are so many features that we liked in the concept that has been difficult to get attorneys to do because the interface is not user-friendly. TIME & MATTER MANAGEMENT: Data for our conflict database did not translate well from our previous system so conflicts checks take too long. Adding emails or files to the matter is very clunky. Ticklers are quirky and hard to work in Outlook. Tickler Reports are too limited events with no date range, or date range but no file selection. Running tickers for only one matter is impossible. Need more filters. BILLING: Reports downloaded to Excel are impossible to use due to all the merged fields and lack of use of tables. We have to download Reports to CSV and spend time figuring out what the column headers actually are. I use the selection tools to view onscreen matters or time entries by

Attorney Schaeffer and I chose Amicus Attorney for our firm many years ago when we went to a legal tech show and I think Amicus was first coming out. We have been through I don't know how many upgrades through the years. My favorite version we have used was the one for small firms. That was our last version. It was easy to use. It had a great look to the program when you opened it up like having a file cabinet. For someone like me with dyslexia it was much easier to view the client page. To me the old version was something Steve Jobs would look at and have approved. It had a good feel and look. I used to like showing it off to visiting attorneys because it was so cool. This new one is just a program. I like the way the documents open with this new upgrade when attached but other than that there is very little I like about this new one. It is a little more confusing to explain the process of inputting new clients. I write our policy and procedure book and I always want to make it so anyone could pick up the policy book and be able to use the program and put in a new client, attach documents, write letters, etc. Maybe it was just that I was used to the old program but there were things that made more sense with it when explaining the process.

Amicus always trys to make a product that is easy to use and learn which this product is. I really like the way it brings up the documents to be able to see them once they are attached to the file. It is also easy to put in notes about the document. I review the medical records and put notes on the file. Your tech people are always helpful and pleasant.

Unfortunately I have found many glitches with this upgrade that I do not like. One is when you are attaching a new person to the file you get choices from the contact list but there is no way to review the person to see if the address for that person is correct. We have doctors who work out of multiple locations. I asked someone at Amicus and they told me there was no way to do it. Our old Amicus program allowed us to do this. Another thing was if someone else has the file open I can not cut and paste from the custom pages area. I prepare depo billing while the attorney is preparing the client and if the attorney has the file open I can not cut and paste info from it. Also because most of us have older eyes we need the resolution made larger on our computers. This distorts the info on the people on the file. You can not see all the phone numbers or the e-mails. Another thing is there any way to make the program use fax numbers with out the ( ) on the area code number. We use ring central for computer faxing and it takes twice as long to try take the () out and put a hyphen in when copying and pasting into our outlook.

For the cost, it is a good program, and it allows all attorneys and paralegals to both communicate and keep track of the status of all cases.

this program is excellent for keeping track of cases, clients, court dates, to-do notices, escrow accounts & billing.

When closing elements of the program, one has to be careful not to inadvertently close the entire program on the user's computer. There is no warning that you are about to close the entire program on your computer. While the escrow (trust) account feature is good, it has limitations. It cannot interface with the bank, so auditing the account is a manual procedure. Also, the escrow function is limited to a case by case report. The program does not give the user an overview of the entire status of all escrows )in a separate report.

Abacus must be in real financial trouble because now they are employing callers who threaten old Amicus customers with risk of data loss or hacking if you continue to use the old Amicus Small Firm Edition. Thank goodness the old program still works great. These callers are really obnoxious and unprofessional. I will never buy anything from Abacus software. I really miss the Canadians with the old Amicus company.

The old Amicus Small Firm edition was THE BEST database system for small law firms until Abacus bought the Canadian company that created Amicus. The old program was easy to learn and use. All of your data remained your data on your computer. No cloud requirement. It interfaced with e-mail and Time Slips. The pricing was good... everything was really great for the small firm law office. Customer support was the best; nice Canadians answered all of your questions. I really, really miss the Canadian company.

When Abacus bought the company they eliminated the Small Firm Edition. They tried to force everyone onto their platform. They went to monthly billing for maintenance and they could terminate your data if you failed to remain with their captive service. I refuse to use a "Cloud" based services because of the risk of hacking. In addition, Abacus almost doubled the price of the old Amicus maintenance plan. I will never do business with Abacus.

I have used various versions of Amicus continuously since 1999. When it works it is very good. The program kind of reminds me of the General Motors cars that my parents used to buy. Every car had it issues. GM always promised that next year's care would be trouble free and better than ever. But it never happened. I keep Amicus because there is to my knowledge nothing better in marketplace and because the cost of replacement is probably not justified. However the Amicus program that I use is still very flawed.

I like it because it organizes me. It is easy to use (when it works) and very logical.

I am unhappy with the many flaws and quirks of the system. If you buy it you will have to become best friends with a really smart computer geek who will be able to sort out the many idiosyncrasies of the system. It crashes routinely. I am happy that I pay my computer technician a fixed monthly fee because otherwise I would be in financial trouble.

I like the overall software. However, for the cost, the accounting side is lacking, and the tech support is horrible. For the price of this software, I expect more.

The cost and the tech support. If you are going to double the cost of the software, you should at least have good tech support. The last couple of times I have called in I was told my issue needed advanced technical support. I have still not had a call back, even though I was promised a call back in 24 hours. I have had to hire an outside consultant at my expense to fix this problem. I have difficulty justifying paying a monthly subscription fee for this horrible support. I would love an answer to this, but when I ask on tech support calls they have no response.

Keeps records of everything through one program. All my correspondence/ communication, contact info, file info, documents, timekeeping, calendar, etc. is tracked through Amicus. It's like a "one-stop-shop" deal.

I try to keep the People (contact list) cleaned up, i.e. consolidate multiples or delete them. My People section looks fine after I "clean up" but no one else's is, because, each User has their own module/domain. Just wish that when I make those types of changes it would be effective for every User.

Some frustrations here and there, but benefits greatly outweighed the issues. The best thing is that I can sleep at night without waking up wondering about this or that case. Really has improved my professional life and hugely improved my personal life, because the software really ties up the loose ends.

Handles all aspects of a law practice: (1) contact management (2) file management (3) document management (4) communication management. I love having everything at my fingertips.

Nothing comes to mind. Works pretty well.

I have a small 5 attorney firm. with a large support staff. At any given time, we handle about 1,000 active files. Our practice is very paper intensive. We've tried to go paperless, but it doesn't quite work with out type of practice, so we still do things the old fashioned way ... with file folders and legal pads. I've been an Amicus Attorney user for over 10 years. Prior to that, I tried and use several other "name brand" case management systems. Until about a year ago, we used the Amicus Small Firm program and it worked great. We switched to the Premier edition when we upgraded our server and all of our workstations. The premier edition was more adaptable to our practice. First of all, it was faster, second, we liked the better document management and third, for a rather small increase in cost, we got more bells and whistles. There are at least a half dozen firms in my area that are now using Amicus because of my recommendation. The links with other programs like Outlook are seamless. One calendar entry in Amicus updates Outlook and my laptop and my phone. I have not seen another case management program that has a document assembly system for letters, pleadings, emails, faxes anywhere as sophisticated as Amicus Attorney's. Also, check out their "Do" button and their "precedent" processes.

Their support is fantastic. Very little wait time. The support people are courteous, knowledgeable. and patient.

In many ways, the program is overwhelming for some of our staff. It takes a lot of time to train new staff members on the program. Also, there are many things that the program does that I haven't been able to use because it takes a lot of time to set up those things. This is probably more of a problem with smaller firms that don't have staff who just handle equipment use. In addition, we're WordPerfect users. I feel that the program works slightly better with MS Word.

Overall it is okay. I have not changed to another program due to the disruption and cost involved however, I am not sure I would but this product if just entering the market.

It helps keep everything in on place on a file and client making it easier to find. It is helpful in tracking your time so you can accurately bill your clients. It is good fro conflict checks which can be done in a minute or less if you keep information current. As with any product it depends upon you to keep the information correct and up to date.

Since being bought out by Abacus the tech support has dropped. Most issues my be upgraded as the person answering the telephone is doing nothing more than searching database as you can here them typing. When they do an update it generally does nothing but appearance changes while causing other features not to work. It also causes other prormas like Quickbooks to break.

Cloud Amicus Online. Generally good. Customer support has been decent. Occasionally access is slow during particular times of day. This can be annoying if one is trying to upload/download large documents or use email during these delays. Would like to see maintenance schedules published so we would know when to anticipate delays. Would also like to pre-release information and a users' organization set up to provide feedback for new features and revisions to old ones.

Product is generally intuitive. Email, phone, task, calendaring, contact management, and document management, time keeping, expenses and billing are well integrated. New client portal is very usual.

Client portal features need to be expanded to allow cases (files) to have finer level of access control when multiple clients within a file require different levels and different document access. We would be more inclined to use document templates if we understood them better, in particular setting up logic driven variable paragraphs. Security controls relative to document folders need to be expanded to allow different levels of access for different levels of users. E.g. I should be able to delete and rename folders I create, but without admin privs, not delete/rename folders created by others. Would like to see editors incorporated into document management instead of requiring that these be done off line and then uploaded.

I liked it a lot and used it since about 2001 or so, until they went to subscription. Now I still use my standalone Amicus Attorney program and continue to hope that it holds up over time.

Amicus Attorney was a wonderful program back when you could actually purchase the software. Great time and billing functions, great calendar and client/contact management, and just great overall legal case management. Then they switched to subscription only, and it basically quadrupled my overhead cost.

It was only about $399 or $499 per year for the first user license before it became a subscription, and you could get away with upgrading ever other year. Now an annual subscription is ~$828 per user, and you have no choice but to pay that every single year if you want to use the program. It’s highway robbery. Also, integration with Quickbooks has always been a bit rough, but it’s manageable once you figure out the quirks. I refuse to subscribe as the pricing is way too high. Now that they have all gone this route, there are few (if any) good and AFFORDABLE case management solutions for very small firms.

We capture a lot more billable time and central data provides easy case history. Someone can catch up on the file just by looking at history of events.

Cloud based availability everywhere. Invoice generation is simple. It is LEDES compatible.

Freezing/speed/connection reliability. Program will oftentimes cause you to lose an e-mail in the midst of generating it.

Easy billing, easy task and event addition with precedents, streamlining processes, effective & efficient if used correctly. The best feature is it allows me to have everything remain on my desktop and not in the cloud as I have a small practice that needs all the info protection it can get and not putting it on the net limits the opportunities for hacking. To me, it also allows more control over info flow to clients.

I am able to use precedents to ensure no missed billing opportunities from events or tasks associated therewith. The forms and "Do" buttons make it even easier to maximize return on effort.

Crashes more than I'd like. There are constantly phantom tasks that repeat with a category of "meeting" for the newly created duplicate tasks. I cannot seem to keep all tasks in Amicus synched with my tasks in Outlook when they should be complete duplicates of each other. It's frustrating, but suspect it has to do with the duplicate tasks.

I have been using Amicus Attorney since 1997. The office suite provides the backbone to my small sole practice. It keeps me and my two paralegals apprised of all activities, and admirably helps us record time accurately. In its conjunction with Abacus, Amicus has made my practice more adaptive to changing circumstances. The billing features have cut hours each month from my back office labors. I recommend Amicus Attorney to all the young practitioners I mentor.

I have no complaints with Amicus Attorney.

Our firm has used Amicus since its early days and it has been a valuable addition to our practice, saving lawyers' time by making it easy to keep track of contacts, time, billing information, and for document generation. From an administrator perspective, it is easy to maintain and upgrade with good developer support and admin tools.

The core functionalities of Amicus are so ingrained in our firm's work process and so easy to use that most users take it for granted. Features added in recent years, such as Amicus Anywhere, give us confidence that Amicus is changing in the same direction as our firm while maintaining the core functionalities that we rely on.

Our worst problems with Amicus have always been caused by integration with third-party programs such as PCLaw and especially Outlook/Exchange. Integration is a huge part of what makes Amicus useful, however.

I like where you can see the expenses you have in a case. Also, you can charge a credit card payment to a client in Amicus.

It does not allow you to have some features that other leading legal software has right now on the market.

When I first started using amicus attorney my overall billing went up at least 30%. Over time I've been able to build a substantial database of all my contacts, communications and time history.

Integration with all of my practice needs including Outlook and Quickbooks and especially linking contacts and calendar data to my iPhone. Amicus allows me to track all of my activities, bill more of my time, follow the progress of cases and easily communicate via email and snail mail.

The online help function is somewhat cumbersome but is useful.

We are able to exchange all information for a client between PCLaw and Amicus. Cuts down on the double re-entries. I can attach files to the contact for quick reference. Clients are able to have their copies of pleadings and correspondence, cuts down on mailing expense.

The calendar. Ease of creating an event and tagging files to the event.

When setting a new appointment I can not go to new contact and fill in that information and tag it to the Soderstrom New Client File and then when the new client hires us and I open a new file in PCLaw and do the exchange, Amicus creates a new contact and now I have two contacts for the same person. It would be nice if there was some way to merge the contacts into one and then I would only have to enter the information once.

I like the overall management capabilities and ability to keep track of time and bill. Although I have not used it yet, I like the client portal idea and ability to accept payments.

The email system is inconsistent. Sometimes, cutting and pasting into a message will disrupt the formatting of the email and often times, different fonts are used in the final message even though the message you are writing - those inconsistencies do not show up. Oftentimes, the server is slow and cannot send the message or loses the message and you have to start all over - this is the worst. I often have to reload Amicus because it gets "stuck" on a page and cannot move forward. I wish the phone app was more functional.

It keeps a large database where each client's information, files, and communications are accessible.

Not very user friendly. Lots of blank space and small text -- why not make the text larger?? Many simple user-friendly features could be added, but they seem to always be playing catch-up with other problems they are not able to fix. Updates containing fixes are often promised, but not forthcoming. They would rather sell the next "Upgrade" product than fix the current release. The Quality Control department has no incentive to fix things. Customer Service is really awful. A government bureaucracy might be the only customer service department that is worse than Amicus.

We first purchased Amicus Attorney in 2007. Installed on our network server and five workstations. Entered all of our client data, easily uploaded our documents, and it has been a breeze to work with since. Wouldn't trade this program for the world!

Calendaring events is easy, which negates the risk of failure to timely file lawsuits, responses to motions and requests for admission, etc. We sleep much better knowing our risk in these areas is so low.

Had a bit of difficulty getting used to emailing from Amicus rather than Outlook as we had in the past, but it was a low learning curve. Entering time through Amicus also took a bit of getting used to, but once we got used to the process it has gone smoothly.

We are pleased to have the software. It simplifies our schedules and provides all the client information that allows the office to streamline our work.

The software is very easy to learn and use. It helps arrange all of our cases in an organized manner. Calendar features provide our office with a day to day schedule. The software allows the office staff to leave case notes and memos without the use of extra paper.

The required updates. It has been difficult trying to updated abacus changes through our server. Once the changes have been made, it appears that software enables our staff to keep track of client files efficiently.