All PracticePanther Legal Software Reviews
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Thalia
Verified reviewer
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed December 2017
Working with Practice Panther
The user-interface is designed for quick and easy navigation. You can look at your dashboard and very clearly see everything you need to know for your day to run smoothly (well as smoothly as possible). It is cost effective and the onboarding and training are taken care of with Practice Panther's incredible customer service.
PROSBefore PracticePanther we had started an Excel spreadsheet to log our contacts for conflicts checks. We created a joint email account with Gmail so our email would be centralized and that also gave us a central calendar that we all had access to in order to set appointments, record deadlines, etc. We also created a Dropbox account for file storage. While everything was low cost or free, all the parts felt scattered. PracticePanther pulls it all together in one beautiful, user-friendly interface. Now, instead of having to pull up 5 or 6 different apps/websites, we are able to pull up just one site and have everything right there. All of the components of PracticePanther are really easy to use. The entire program is designed for efficiency and ease of use. Color-coding allows you to see and understand your financial details in mere seconds. Tasks, events, and timekeeping are easy.
CONSI would like to see the software integrate with more programs. Quickbooks is great, but my brain works better with Wave Accounting; LawPay is great, but being able to integrate with PayPal also, would be even better. However, these are minor things and not worth seeking a different program I like as much as Practice Panther. I had shopped around quite a bit before choosing Practice Panther; I doubt I would find anything I like as much. Hands down, our favorite thing about PracticePanther is the superior support staff. If you have a problem and leave a message after hours in the chat box, you get a response generally within the hour. There is also training videos and a help center that will help you find the help that you need.
Vendor Response
Thalia, I am so happy to let you know we are about to release our new API and Zapier integration, which will open the door to MANY more integrations. We highly recommend LawPay for a number of reasons, but if you must use PayPal, we do have an integration available. We will reach out to you to show you how it works. Thank you so much!
Replied December 2017
Paige
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed August 2021
Great Software - Would be Lost Without It, but there are still some kinks to work out.
My overall experience is amazing. I love this software and it makes my life so much easier. I would recommend to anyone with a law firm.
PROSI love how seamless this software makes my practice. It is so user-friendly. The client portal is wonderful, and I love how the accounting features are organized. Customer service is amazing. The templates feature saves me countless hours. The tasks feature really keeps me on track. I love how you can link relationships, create emails that sync automatically with the matter, and create events that send text notifications to clients. The support is quick and always friendly and helpful. The e-signature feature is also really cool.
CONS(1) the phone app should be able to have multiple timers up at once, so you can go back and forth between working on different projects, like the desktop version. (2) The "history" section at the bottom of matters should include time entry descriptions. I cannot stress that enough. I do not use the "history" section at all as it is currently operating, but it would be invaluable if that one change was made! If time entry descriptions were included, the "history" section would actually tell me the history of the work that's been done on the matter. (3) We need a better text integration that's part of Practice Panther, so that clients can text us through the software, or something like how we can create a new email that links with the matter, but for texting. (4) Company contacts - love the idea, but when you link a subordinate member of a company contact to a matter, the only email address you can actually auto-populate is the number one contact of the company contact. It's very annoying. I've had to create separate individual contacts for all the members of a company contact. Like for court services, I would like to be able to have all the employees of court services under the Court Services company contact, and then be able to link the particular officer assigned to supervise my particular client. But right now I have to link the court services company contact AND the individual contact to be able to send emails to the correct officer.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
I felt like Practice Panther was just as good as Clio, but more cost appropriate for my smaller firm. Also, I liked that I always have the option to figure things out myself, or with a virtual helper, instead of having to call support. The same was true with the purchasing experience. I didn't get bombarded with phone calls, but I knew someone would be available to speak with me if I wanted to have a conversation. I felt that spoke volumes to the kind of company you are and the understanding and respect you have for your customers' time.
Danielle
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
2
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed July 2020
Loved it at first, disappointed after 6 months
I purchased PracticePanther about 6 months ago, and I was initially very happy with it. I hadn't used a practice management software before, so it felt pretty life-changing. The platform felt intuitive and user-friendly, and it simplified everything from time tracking to billing. However, after 6 months of use (and data loss), I have become increasingly frustrated with PP and have finally made the (costly and inconvenient) decision to switch to Clio. There have been a lot of glitches with the platform and things that don't work intuitively. But the most frustrating and costly glitch occurred when I downgraded my plan to the "middle" plan, and it somehow deleted all the custom rates I had set for each matter. No one at PP could figure out why this happened or how to undo it, so I spent half a day re-reviewing engagement agreements, and re-creating new matter rates -- in addition to spending an hour or so on the phone with PP customer service and sending emails explaining the issue (and didn't even get a response). The "solution" PP offered was to upgrade me back to the higher level for one month (about a $30 value)! That provided absolutely zero benefit to me (I downgraded because I didn't need the features from the highest plan). The amount of money I've lost using PP has been in the thousands! I've switched to Clio now, which seems better so far.
PROSThat it made time tracking and billing easy
CONSToo many glitches in the software that caused serious issues with my pricing and billing
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
The interface seemed more intuitive and seemed more geared toward transactional law (rather than litigation)
Vendor Response
Hi Danielle. We appreciate your honest feedback on PracticePanther and are using it to better support our customers going forward. We apologize for the inconvenience you experienced with our plan downgrade experience. Our engineering and support teams are working hard to address this issue so this doesn't happen again. If you need any help exporting your data, please feel free to reach out to us. We want to make what is left of your experience with us as easy and smooth as possible. I wish you the best of luck and want you to know that should you ever be willing to try us again, we'll do our best to make it a world-class experience.
Replied August 2020
Barbara
Legal Services, 1 employee
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed December 2023
Great software. Highly recommend it for small businesses
Very good. Human beings actually helped and knew what to do. Not very common in the software industry. Great customer support.
PROSIt was so easy to retrieve client information and edit it. Invoicing was a dream. Loved the online pay option.
CONSI could not batch invoice. This was a real pain as I sent out hundreds of invoices.
John
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed February 2020
Great product
Easy to learn. Easy access to tutorials and the help area is full of information. It has been a great decision to switch. I know that i have been able to capture more of my time and reduce time needed for billing.
PROSI like being able to bill, take credit/debit card payments, and tell clients their balance with the app while in court. There are simple reports and a great dashboard to see how much is outstanding, to be billed, and the amount in my trust account. Practice panther has cut down on the time it takes for billing and made my office more efficient.
CONSI print checks directly from practice panther, which takes several steps, but it makes it easy to add the cost to the client's billing. I would like the software to allow a report of vendors/payees' payments over various time periods as it does with tags and categories.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
quick books was overly cumbersome with numerous unnecessary features. Practice panther has needed features for a law firm that are not available in quick books. It is much easier to use than quick books.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
I used to use quick books for billing, but it is not as geared to attorneys as practice panther. Contingency cases were especially difficult. Practice panther even has a feature for evergreen retainers.
Alexis
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed August 2019
Best practice management system I have used
I use Practice Panther as my main case managment system. My team and I LIVE on this software. It is far better than the alternatives I have used in the past and in other firms. We have it downloaded on all computers and phones for easy access in court at all times.
PROSI like the intuitive interface, clean look, and the ability to customize my own workflows.
CONSI would like to see a private server capability added in instead of having to rely on Box. One that we can access via VPN would be helpful. I wish we could add in a bit more automation customization. For example, I would like to be able to send my clients a customized email with attachments and helpful info before specific events, rather than the generic reminder email. I would also like the ability to create conditional logic in certain events.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
The main reason I initially chose it was price and interface look. Now I wouldn't change for anything because it is constantly evolving with my firm's growth and provides all the support we need.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
There was much more functionality and customization available with PP than Abacus.
Haley
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed June 2020
The team at PracticePanther is Great.
They add features on a regular basis and have loads of training. The support staff is super helpful and if they don't know the answer they will try to find it. I understand that every system is different and every one has it's pros and cons. I really think once we utilize every single feature this program has we will be a much better law firm.
CONSThe email integrations phase in and out on working. It may simply be the plugin I have for Gmail but that can be a struggle.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
The pricing and some of the features. I think Cosmolex may have the accounting side better locked down but I liked the ease of PracticePanther.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
Leap was far too expensive for what they provided.
David
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2021
PracticePanther has helped keep my firm organized and grow
PracticePanther has helped keep my firm organized. We handle a large number of cases and we needed software that could help us manage them all, stay on top of tasks, and store information efficiently. PracticePanther has also been key in allowing for rapid growth in my practice. My favorite feature is the payment plans through PantherPayments. My collections are significantly higher than some of my colleagues and it helped simplify this process. We can easily set up payment plans that automatically pull funds from a credit card or bank account which means I don't have to spend a ton of time chasing clients for money that I could be spending on their case.
CONSI started out practicing solo and quickly grew to more staff. Every firm has growing pains, so I was initially worried about acclimating new staff to PracticePanther. Thankfully, those hesitations were put at bay and we've been able to use the platform with ease.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
I researched several different software options, such as Clio, before making my final decision. I found that PracticePanther provides all of the same features as Clio and more, but at half the price. No other software in PracticePanther’s price range is anywhere near as robust.
Joseph
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed February 2023
PracticePanther Integrations with Key software is a great advantage
I am very pleased with PracticePanther. Very easy to use. Does what we need.
PROSIntegration with quickbooks and the ability to take credit card payments through PP helps make collections and billing work well with all team members being able to take payments without needing all of them to be able to get into quickbooks.
CONSHaving restart searches for contacts or matters when we did not find the one we were looking for i.e. multiple persons with same name. and having to search again. Would like to be able to have reporting using matter type. Being able to customize reports would be great. Some reports show graphs but are hard to get the information ranked like the graph
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
Vendor at Conference provided a demo which was very compelling.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
PP was web based and had more intuitive interface.
Sofia
Verified reviewer
Legal Services
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2018
A well designed CRM and so far, we cannot be happier with the product
Part of M Legal's mission is to stay innovative. Practice Panther (PP) as a case relationship management (CRM) tool has redesigned how the firm works overall. The user experience from the moment a client logs onto our website, uses the embedded intake form, to create a client profile to PP is seamless. This is just one of the time-saving tools we have discovered. This automated way of working and being able to integrate systems has forced M Legal to rethink how we work and more importantly, how to we can simplify our working processes. This has been a real game-changer for the business. While many of us worked with CRMs in the past, most of them were clunky and stand-alone systems that could not work with other applications or software. PP has made managing clients much easier, where our lawyers are in control from the moment a case is initiated, all the way through to billing clients. This has also given a level of transparency across the practice as lawyers can pick up any file from where the last person left off and delegate their work during absences. This transparency was a key selling point for us as we believe it is a core component of running an effective law firm.
PROSThe user experience from the moment a client logs onto our website, uses the embedded intake form, to create a client profile to PP is seamless. This is just one of the time-saving tools we have discovered. This automated way of working and being able to integrate systems has forced M Legal to rethink how we work and more importantly, how to we can simplify our working processes. While many of us worked with CRMs in the past, most of them were clunky and stand-alone systems that could not work with other applications or software. PP has made managing clients much easier, where our lawyers are in control from the moment a case is initiated, all the way through to billing clients. We have experienced our fair share of poor technical support teams when using other software programs. With PP, despite the time differences between Miami and Sydney, their technical support team are always available, whether it is through the chat portal, email or by phone. Each technical person is professional, knowledgeable and continues to take care of your matter until it is resolved. Further, they always have something new to teach you about the PP system on each call. I cannot express how impressed we are, with what we consider as stellar service from this tech support team.
CONSNaturally, a product such as this is not going to have universal application across all legal fields. I would say that in the immigration space the status of a case is really important, so having a status bar that is customisable would be a feature that could be improved. Also, a lot of our data from clients are taken from in-take forms - we require intake forms that are easier to build and that have the capability of storing more information. While these are work in progress type issues, this certainly does not take away from PP's product, which we believe is a well designed and thought through CRM system.
Aska
Law Practice, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed May 2019
User-friendly software but there are still room for improvement to effectively serve larger firms
(continued from Cons) This sorting function for customized fields will potentially save us a lot of time. (3) Tags are great features, but the ability to sort the data using the tag is very limited. When you search using multiples tags, the software only recognize it as Tag 1 "AND" Tag 2, and gives you data that has BOTH tags. For instance, it's only "Show data that has Tag A AND Tag B". You can't do "Show me the data that has Tag A OR Tag B". You can't search data that DOES NOT have the specific tag either. If the search function in Tags was more comprehensive, it will allow users to expand the usage of tags and give users more flexibility as to how we can efficiently search the data we need. Practice Panther Tech Support has been aware of the suggestions listed above. However, there has not been any update on the progress, and we do not know if these functions will be ever available. We definitely would like to see them implemented very soon. I am open to revise this review once these functionalities become available.
PROSThis software is intuitive, easy to navigate and very user-friendly. Tech support is promptly available and they are very patient. Practice Panther continues to make improvements on the software and they listen to their customers feedback. They have fixed our issues with our calendar being very slow to load. It's fast now and working very well.
CONSThere are still room for improvement in terms of features and functions. (1) The format (layout) of the calendar is not user-friendly for mid to large firms with more than 10 employees. Everyone's events are scattered across the calendar and overlap with each other which makes difficult to identify availability for specific staff. Events are displayed with different colors assigned to each staff. It's hard to follow 10+ different colors on computer screen and it is definitely not working for staff who are color-blind. It's really difficult to see who has appointments at each hour throughout the day. We suggested to have columns for each staff so that it only takes a glance to identify who is available when, just like how calendars are in Time Matters from Lexis Nexis. (2) Sorting function for customized fields is not available unfortunately. What makes this software great is the customization you can make to fit it to your exact needs. However, customized fields are not sort-able, and without the sorting function for the customized fields, data is not as valuable and usable as it should be. As a legal administrator who manages the data and runs productivity report for legal staff, we are currently spending a lot of time downloading the information from the software to MS Excel, sorting and manipulating the data in Excel, and finally coming back to the PracticePanther to make necessary changes within the software. (Continues to overall experience)
Tara
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2017
PracticePanther has cut the amount of time I spend on my office management duties by about 65%.
Before PracticePanther my client information was all over my computer. I kept track of billable hours and financials in Exel, client emails in Google, and my forms (intake, representation, agreements, court filings etc) in Word. This meant in order to have everything as it pertained to a specific client in one place, I had to print everything out. And, I was using nonlegal software to send out billing invoices which lead to long hours of transcribing information from Excel to the service I was using. The rate of error of retyping information like addresses or agreements or billable hours into different software programs was high. I am a solo practitioner who does not have a clerk, secretary or paralegal. So after a long day of work, I then had to become the marketing, IT and accounting departments. I spent a lot of time doing things two and three times. I knew I needed a case management system but was afraid it would be too expensive or time consuming to learn. After doing my due diligence I found PracticePanther. Not only was PP one of the most affordable options out there, they had very intuitive methods of doing things so the learning curve did not take much time. Now anything and everything pertaining to a specific client is kept in one place. All billables, emails, evidence, representation agreements I even enter details of phone calls and meetings I have on matters in the Notes section for each matter so I have a documented history of what was discussed on what day. PracticePanther has cut the amount of time I spend on my office management duties by about 65%. I use that time to grow my practice, network or do pro bono work.
PROSI love the IT help, the invoicing system and the templates feature. I had a lot of questions and needed a lot of help in the beginning. Being able to schedule times to discuss my issues with the IT guys at PracticePanther was great. The fact that they can take over your computer remotely so they can see what you see in real time is even better. Their response time to non-scheduled issues is pretty fast. I have also found their FAQs and how to videos to be extremely helpful but having a live person to speak with who can access your computer is just as good as having someone standing next to me while I work. The invoicing system is phenomenal. It keeps track of all of my client banking accounts. I can see at any time how much is in my IOLTA account, how much is in my operating account, how much a client owes, how much a client has paid and how much I have billed a client but not yet invoiced. I can do this client by client, matter by matter or as an overall total. LawPay is free if you sign up through PracticePanther which is awesome because it handles my credit card transactions and when a client pays, it automatically updates my invoicing and accounts. PracticePanther also knows how to deduct things from a client's retainer when sending out an invoice so you don't have to worry about that either. Their timing device feeds right into the system. It is awesome.
Kathleen
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2021
PracticePanther
PracticePanther is like having a full time employee at a fraction of the cost without any employment law issues. I couldn't run my law firm without PracticePanther. The software is easy to use, the PP support is excellent, and the company is always rolling out new features to make running my law office easier and more efficiently!
PROSIt's very hard to pinpoint what I like the most about PracticePanther since there are so many features I rely on for my law practice. I very much like that I can find everything related to a contact or matter in one place. All emails and their attachments, notes, documents, billing, payments, calendar, "to do" list (Tasks), time entries, and communications for a contact and matter can be found in PracticePanther. I use the templates and workflows on a daily basis, which save me time and keep me on track. With a simple click I can send an online questionnaire to a client that, once completed, is kept in the client account. The tags allow me to filter and label my contacts and matters any way I want. I use PantherPay for online payments which is very easy and shows all payments in the billing account immediately. I also like that new features are made available regularly - the software is always improving!
CONS1) Would like for clients to start, save, and continue an intake form at a later time and have them receive a copy of their answers after being submitted. 2) The timer buffers endlessly if the page has not been refreshed. I realize you are working on this. :-/ 3) If a client has a PP account with another law firm, that client cannot open a new account with my firm using that same email address. Is there a way to fix this? 4) Would love to have conditional/dynamic fields in the intake forms.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
PracticePanther had a good online review and the cost was reasonable. But, it was the template feature that really made the decision for me.
Michael
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed June 2018
After years of begging them for real fixed price billing, I'm giving up.
It was a good start to law firm management, now I need something that works like a law firm needs to work, not force my law firm to work like the software wants me to.
PROSIt's easy to learn the basics. The calendar is good, it's helpful that they show tasks there. Searching is great. It's totally adequate if all you do is bill for time and integrate with Quickbooks.
CONSPanther has no report on Items (e.g. how much of your revenue is from Document Drafting vs Litigation). To get such a report, you MUST integrate with Quickbooks. But the biggest problem is that Fixed Price billing (what they call "Flat Fee") is worthless. Fixed Price billing was clearly an afterthought, and their implementation has not changed at all since the early days when I started using it: 1) It does not let you assign an Item as you can with time entries, so you can't easily tell Quickbooks that a Fixed Price invoice was for a trademark application, not doc review; 2) You can't assign a lawyer to a Fixed Price billing, so you cannot get a report to help you pay everyone proportionally to their Fixed Price billings; 3) Fixed Price matters become immediately billable even if no work has been done, so you must manually keep track of when it's time to invoice for a Fixed Price matter, and there's no report on billable Fixed Price matters; 4) When entering time on a Fixed Price matter, there's way no way to check whether you are about to exceed the budget, and no way anywhere to compare budgeted vs actual. If you're a modern firm moving to fixed price as much as possible, you'll spend a LOT of time looking for work-arounds, and you'll find that implementing your work-arounds will chew up any time saving you might have gotten from using the rest of the software. I can't wait to change to software that does Fixed Price right.
Vendor Response
Hey Michael, thank you so much for you feedback. I just wanted to let you know that based on the feedback of our users, yourself included, we have implemented a NEW FLAT FEE pricing option. We are the ONLY ones in the market to offer this function! We understand that the needs of our firms are constantly evolving and we value the suggestions and feedback of all of our users. You can check out the guide published by our training department here: https://support.practicepanther.com/contacts-and-matters/getting-started/flat-fees-tutorial Furthermore, visit our updates page for past and future releases. https://www.practicepanther.com/law-firm-practice-management-software/ Thanks for being a valued customer from the beginning!
Replied August 2018
Daniel
Legal Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed October 2021
PracticePanther helps me complete tasks 5 times faster than before
We chose PracticePanther to modernize our paper-based and labor-intensive data reporting system that was 10 or 15 years old. It was very important for us to choose a product that was intuitive so that our employees could adopt it easily, PracticePanther is so simple that anyone can pick it up quickly. PracticePanther was also willing to help us customize our setup when onboarding, if we needed a change in the software to adapt to the way we do business, the answer was always yes. Since implementation, I am able to complete tasks using workflows and automations that would normally take a lot of phone or face-to-face time to work out, which means I save time and made my job so much easier.
PROSBefore PracticePanther, there was no aggregation of data that would allow me to analyze in real-time how we were performing, and we were leaving a lot of pennies on the table because of it. We were able to take an outdated, paper-based reporting system and modernize it. This allowed us to get a clear picture and make adjustments as needed. In a world where there is more remote work, it becomes more important than ever to be able to track those things so that your business is maximizing its profitability and efficiency with its employees.
CONSThe most stressful part for us was getting all the data into the system in a format that would work. Once it’s in there and rolling, it cuts down on so much work. There’s a little pain upfront, but you’ll find that with any software like this, that it takes a bit of time to get it right, once it’s in there you really do wonder how you lived without it.
Thad
Legal Services, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
2
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
2
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed July 2019
Slow and often times down.
When it's working properly, it is easy to use and intuitive. Unfortunately, it gets hung up a lot when you're trying to sort activities and task lists. It seems to be down quite often on Monday mornings. At least once or twice a month in the last six weeks or so. It's down right now (Tuesday, July 2, 2019) and my firm of 27 people cannot use the software. It was down last week for over an hour. Yesterday, it was getting hung up when I was trying to view the "task list" and there are several tasks that I needed to complete for my clients. In the past, the calendar kept getting hung up and our front desk team of three people had to keep our clients on hold for extended periods while they were waiting for the program to load. We went through their customer service channels and ask them nicely and with increasing urgency to please resolve the issue. Nothing happened until we posted a negative review and they fixed it within a day. Then they caused by telephone and asked us to take down the negative review. I'm starting to wonder whether they actually work weekends in order to do system maintenance of the program is not down during the week.
PROSIt's very intuitive which makes it easy to use. It integrates well with Law Pay.
CONSIt gets hung up a lot. The program is down for long stretches during the workday.
Vendor Response
Hi Thad, Thank you so much for your review. Ease of use stands at the top of our priority list, so we're glad to hear that you find PracticePanther to be intuitive. We pride ourselves with an uptime of 99.9% and we do apologize for any slowness you may have experienced over the past month. We have seen higher than usual spikes on the server and have implemented upgrades to scale our environments which should prevent these slowness occurrences in the future. Regarding July 2, there was a widespread issue with an application PracticePanther utilizes called CloudFlare that caused errors for some of our users. For immediate server updates, you can also subscribe to our Status Page to receive real time server status updates: https://practicepanther.statuspage.io/ We apologize for this inconvenience, understand your frustration, and appreciate your feedback.
Replied July 2019
Michael
Legal Services, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed September 2019
Practice Panther Time Keeping and Billing for Attorneys
I have always been terrible at time keeping and billing. I have probably left Hundreds if not Thousands of dollars on the table by failing to properly keep track of my time and billing. With Practice Panther I am encouraged to keep track of my time and billing because it is fun and easy to do. And I am now on top of past due bills, who is paying on time, and when to prompt clients its time to pay up!
PROSI really like two features the most. First, is the absolutely fabulous customer support that I receive. I get answers within less than 60 minutes from the time I contact them. Second is the ease of use. Practice Panther is almost intuitive in its use. If the answer doesn't jump out at you, there are tons of training videos available and the online customer help is spot on.
CONSI use the basic Essential Monthly Plan. It is the lowest cost but the value is exceptional. I do wish I had some of the additional features in the higher priced plans but those don't fit my budget currently. Those features I can supplement with my own documents or programs.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
The alternatives were good but way more expensive and not flexible like Practice Panther. I can add additional users as the need arises without costing me that much more in program costs.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
Tussman is a good program. But it is hard to set up the first time and if you make changes they do not always carry through. I very much enjoyed working with the folks at Tussman but dreaded having to input my time and work charges. Practice Panther resolved all of those issues for me. Even though Practice Panther is a subscription model software and Tussman is a single purchase software, I prefer Practice Panther.
Debra
Legal Services, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2020
Great, comprehensive law office management program
We transferred over from another database program in a period of a month or two. All our contact information was integrated in from the other system, as were our case matters and billing information. At first we bemoaned the loss of our old cumbersome system that we'd gotten to know so well over 20 years, but within a few weeks our outlook brightened up and within a little over a month, literally everyone in the office was so happy that we had made the changed. Now after a year or two, we couldn't be happier. AND, the customer service is really good, they call you back asap and always have answers. I'm sure we won't be changing this database program ever.
PROSThis is a really easy to use program, that covers everything from client information, billing, document management, time tracking, and reports that are actually used a lot and simple to both run and understand. It comprehensively runs our entire office and makes our jobs A LOT easier. Plus, it's accessible from any phone, tablet or computer wherever you are.
CONSE-mails pose a little difficulty in responding back and forth, because you have to start a new e-mail each time, although it may be because we don't have ours set up right. But it's still workable, and when they are saved into the program, it's as clean and easy to use as the rest of the program.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
First, because Practice Panther was on-line and our old system had to be logged in to from the office. Second, we wanted something smooth and quick and modern, which Panther is.
Terry
Law Practice, 1 employee
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2017
Easy and efficient
Being a new firm and a newly solo practitioner, I wanted the most efficient way to do it all enter my time and expenses, invoice, communicate with clients, use intake templates, etc. More, I practice throughout Northern California and log a lot of travel time meeting with clients, attending arbitrations or court appearances, or at speaking engagements. With that, I needed easy access on my laptop or phone to a law practice management system. Previously, I did not have the ability to easily and quickly access a law practice management system. I also had numerous systems for entering time, tracking potential clients, invoicing, and the like. I love that I can use Practice Panther as a "one stop shop", even to pay bills, and that I can use it anywhere and on any device. It has made the hectic life of a newly solo and "on-the-go", mobile attorney much easier. I no longer have to worry about spending too much time on pesky administrative tasks.
PROSOther than it being a "one stop shop" and the ease of accessibility, I have been impressed with Practice Panther's ability to respond to my specific needs. A significant amount of my work is for unions and clients with multiple matters. Initially, Practice Panther was unable handle invoicing and billing for an individual contact with multiple matters. However, I approached them with my needs and they created a "fix" to their system within a week. They also followed up to ensure that I was satisfied. I was certainly impressed by Practice Panther's speed and attentiveness.
CONSI am still trying to learn all of the ins and outs. I need a bit more tutelage on the nuances. At times, customer service may not answer all of the questions, however, they have been very responsive to my needs once I call or make them known.
Jonathan
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed January 2018
TOP NOTCH CUSTOMER SERVICE AND THEY CAN ADAPT TO MEET YOUR NEEDS!
The customer service reps are always available (through the website/app!) and are extremely flexible as far as meeting individual requests. The software overall is very intuitive and once the basic information is inputted, training other attorneys and staff is easy. The PracticePanther reps even offered to help with training and do individualized training as necessary! The iphone app is simple yet you can do everything on it you need to - right from court. I never have to worry about missing court dates or even reminders to review certain files or specific documents because in less than a minute I can have a task set, reminders set, and it will popup as I set it. The calendar syncs with Google Calendar and they imported all of our client contacts from Quickbooks Online, saving us many hours of data entry. We are getting into the more advanced functions like templates, workflows, and other automation and that's really where the software shines. You create the custom fields, you choose what information is important for every matter, and you can add-on as you are creating matters. The flexibility and ease of access to everything - including client files from DropBox, which can mirror any network - is unrivaled. Really happy we went with PracticePanther. The amount of time saved having customer care/customer service always available is invaluable. Highly recommended for law firms of all sizes.
CONSStill working on getting the office transitioned from a paper filing and calendaring system to online. So the one suggestion I would have is to maybe have an app for the calendar that is independent from the phone app - similar to google calendar. Also, there should be a way to turn the default settings to "Do not email assignees" when a workflow is applied. But that's a tiny suggestion. Overall no major complaints.
Robin
Law Practice, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed October 2022
Love it
I used to spend HOURS every month doing my billing, and invoicing. I absolutely hated billing. Now it takes me a few minutes and a few clicks of a button and its finished, and the invoices are on their way to my clients, with an easy way to pay online.
PROSI really love every aspect of this operating software. It saves me time, and frustration. It is also accessible from anywhere, and extremely easy to use.
CONSThere is nothing that I do not like. When I find something that can be "improved" such as adding sound to reminders... they added it into the software.
Reason for choosing PracticePanther Legal Software
Ease of use, and all the integrations features that save me time and money.
Reasons for switching to PracticePanther Legal Software
I needed a program that worked on my Mac.
Randy
Law Practice, 1 employee
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed May 2021
PracticePanther - Software Equivalent of a Part-Time Administrator
So many features and components of administering a law practice are included with PracticePanther that make the daily operation of the business more efficient. I used to use separate billing software, calendaring software - including court calendars for assorted federal and state courts, and task management software. PracticePanther replaced all of them and combines them in an easy to use format. Plus with the credit card payment feature, I now get paid faster (more than 14 days quicker on average) than I have ever been before. It is like having a part-time office administrator on staff.
CONSI love PracticePanther's suite of features, but I wish it interfaced with my factual and legal research software so that engaging in online research could be automatically timed and the results saved in a way that is accessible through the PracticePanther website. For example, I use CaseText and if PracticePanther had an interface with CaseText, whenever I logged in to do research, I could enter the matter code and the time I researched was automatically billed to that matter and any cases I downloaded were linked to the matter in PracticePanther, I would be even more effective and efficient in getting work done and getting paid for it.
Jonathan
Verified reviewer
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
5
Reviewed May 2015
Incredible service for a great product
While one of the newer players in the field of practice management, Practice Panther excels in relationship building and care for its users. Having tried nearly every product available, I found that Practice Panther was a cut above the others by way of their desire to be the best. During the trial period, I send a large list of things that I would like to see implemented or improved in the product. Their response, that they have begun making a number of improvements and tabled some of the others for future releases, was impressive. Not only that, shortly thereafter they had some of the changes implemented in the product and live for all the users. Practice Panther is a great product that you can grow your practice with. The employees of the company are interested in making a superior product that exceeds the expectations of all its users.
PROSThe dashboard allows me to see, at a glance, my productivity and earnings for the month. I can add important calendar dates and reminders to the page quickly and get a high-level view of everything that I am working on at the time. Practice Panther also integrates with Google calendar, mail, and apps which is great. It allows me to assign emails to certain folders in gmail and then see the communication string within the program. I can put a calendar entry on my phone while away and it will sync into the app. It is a great tool to help track and grow my practice.
CONSAs I mentioned above, Practice Panther is newer than the others. There are some features that are coming down the pipeline, but not implemented yet. For instance, the trust accounting process is a little buggy. Some features take some getting used to, but all of this is countered by the fact that they are friendly, nice, and excited to make the program the best it can be. Overall, well done Practice Panther!
Vendor Response
Thanks for the great review Jon! We have upgraded our trust accounting to include over 35 reports you can export for your accountant. You can reconcile your account with your bank, view trust ledgers, sync with QuickBooks Online, use UTBMS codes or LEDES98B billing if needed, and much more. You can learn more and see some reports here: https://www.practicepanther.com/iolta-trust-accounting-software-attorneys/
Replied December 2016
Jeffrey
Used free trial
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed March 2017
Fantastic software that will change your practice. Amazing customer support.
After spending months researching, and receiving demonstrations on, dozens of case management software options (using Capterra as a starting point), I finally decided on PracticePanther. We are now in the process of fully integrating all aspects of our practice into this software and we are continuing to find new features that will make our office more efficient. This and the customer support continually prove to me that I made the right choice. PracticePanther is easy to use and incredibly customizable. In that it is web-based, it is accessible from any computer or device with an internet connection. We use it to store all pertinent case information and contacts, and to calendar appearances, tasks, court and internal deadlines and reminders. We use the feature which allows you to create workflows so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time we want to establish/calendar the same set of tasks on a new matter. PracticePanther makes it easy to track time spent and expenses on all of our cases. Also, it allows all users to view and track the activity of other all other users, which minimizes the need to constantly follow up with other members of the firm regarding status of task completion. PracticePanther integrates with Box.com. So if you house your case files within Box.com you can access them directly through PracticePanther. Because of this, we are now integrating all of our files with Box.com so that we can use this feature. The prospect of having all case information, calendaring, AND the case file accessible from any device anywhere, is very exciting. There is a great feature that allows you to create fully customized intake questionnaires that can be sent to potential clients via a link. Once the potential client fills out the information it is automatically uploaded to PracticePanther. There are great demonstration videos and articles on their website which really help you to familiarize yourself with the product, although it's very easy to figure out on your own as it is extremely intuitive. However, the greatest part of PracticePanther is its customer support. It is always easy to get a hold of someone to answer your questions. Best of all is that they listen to your feedback and use it to improve upon their product with regular updates. I have seen many of my suggestions come to life in a short amount of time. They truly want to hear what you have to say in order to make their product better!
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed November 2017
Fantastic law firm management software. So glad I found PracticePanther!
Too many to list. From accounting, billing, calendar integration, etc. The program has been fantastic for my law firm.
PROSPrior to PracticePanther, I used three pieces of locally-downloaded software one for billing, one for client management, and another for form creation. PracticePanther has provided the firm with a cloud-based solution that has replaced all three pieces of software. Additionally, because it is cloud-based, the firm can utilize the software on a number of platforms and in any location in fact, I am using it right now on my iPad at a coffee shop, after entering billable time on my Android phone earlier in the day. In addition, PracticePanther's client portal has been a game changer. While I have not yet fully utilized the email replacement offered by the portal (baby steps), it has helped immensely with billing and in giving clients a great image of the firm. I have received a number of compliments on the portal it makes sending bills easy, paying bills easy, and working with clients a breeze.
CONSI do wish PracticePanther had a more robust document preparation and CRM platform (like Lexicata). I am sure PP is working on integrating other providers into its software, and the pros FAR outweigh the cons.
Vendor Response
Thanks for the compliments! Would love to know what other document prep and CRM features you would like. Please contact us to let us know, thank you so much.
Replied November 2017