Legal Software

Buyers guide

What is legal practice management software?

Legal practice management software is technology that streamlines lawyers’ workflows with a centralized database, fast and flexible searching, calendaring, task tracking, phone messaging, mobile access, app integration, and much more.

Law firms are famous for the high volume of paperwork they must manage. Additionally, attorneys must keep track of their time for billing purposes, which is challenging when they have multiple clients or are working on contingency.

Legal practice management software streamlines the lawyer’s workflow with a centralized database, fast and flexible searching, calendaring, task tracking, phone messaging, mobile access and app integration and more. It helps enhance firm efficiency and prevents attorneys from being buried under physical files. Moreover, it helps prevent calendar and deadline-related errors, which are responsible for most legal malpractice claims (according to The American Bar Association).

Most practice management systems offer the same applications for all practice areas, but provide some degree of customization. And while many providers only offer their applications as a package, some are sold on a best-of-breed or “stand-alone” basis (e.g., time and billing systems). This guide provides an overview of legal practice management software to help you research and narrow down the best option for your firm.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

Common Features of Legal Practice Management Software
What Type of Buyer Are You?
How Is It Priced?
Benefits and Potential Issues
The Best Tactics for Evaluating Software
Market Trends to Understand

Common Features of Legal Practice Management Software

What Type of Buyer Are You?

Prior to purchasing software for your legal practice, it’s important to understand your organizational needs and how a practice management solution can help meet those requirements.

Solo or small practice with 2-5 employees. The majority of U.S. law firms have fewer than five employees, yet they’re often in need of the same suite of applications that benefit larger firms. Small practices we’ve spoken with have cited the following as reasons they are evaluating practice management software for the first time, or for replacing an existing system:

• Enhance office efficiency and accountability.
• Consolidate case information across applications.
• Need better technical support.
• Want a single, integrated system rather than multiple, disparate applications.

Best-of-breed buyers. As mentioned, most firms will need an integrated suite of applications. However, some providers do sell stand-alone options, which is especially true for time tracking, billing and accounting systems. Many buyers we’ve spoken with who seek these applications had been using pen and paper or off-the-shelf options such as Outlook to manage their needs. Reasons they decided to switch to practice management software include:

• Tracking everything by hand is too slow and inefficient.
• Need software with industry-specific features.
• Want a more modern system with significant tech support.

How Is It Priced?

Cloud-based legal practice management software is typically priced on a per-lawyer, per-month basis, with systems starting at about $50-$70 per user, per month. Some vendors will provide discounts if you pay annually instead of monthly.

On-premise software, on the other hand, is most often priced according to the number of perpetual licenses required. These fees are typically paid upfront for the right to use the software in perpetuity (as opposed to paying a monthly or annual subscription). Some vendors, such as HoudiniEsq, offer their software for free to solo attorneys.

Regardless of whether the software uses a perpetual license or subscription pricing model, many vendors will offer packages with varying levels of functionality. In these cases, the price of the system typically increases with the breadth and depth of features offered.

Most often, basic software packages are best suited for solo practices, or very small groups, while “Pro” versions are better for larger organizations. This is because more expensive software might include features that are only relevant to larger practices (e.g., batch billing and team collaboration).

Benefits and Potential Issues

Legal practices that adopt the right types of software may realize many benefits, such as:

• Improved task coordination among attorneys and support staff. Firm efficiency is enhanced when duties are appropriately delegated and deadlines are managed.
• Linking all notes, tasks, calendar additions and contacts to specific cases and matters. This saves sanity and time by keeping cases organized.
• Reducing the paper shuffle with fast and efficient searches of digitized documents through use of document management applications. These systems can be especially essential during client calls when there is a need to rapidly reference many different documents.

Law firms that fail to realize some of these core benefits might do so because they:

• Didn’t disclose that they have an international office—Some software systems are not formatted to handle addresses and phone numbers for non-U.S. countries; some also don’t support international currencies, making invoicing for global clients problematic.
• Didn’t take adequate advantage of the software’s customization option to optimize usefulness for their practice area and specialties.
• Didn’t ensure that the best-of-breed software bought integrates well with their existing software and systems. If they opt not to purchase a software provider’s full application suite, firms must make sure to investigate the compatibility of the purchased applications with those they are already using.

The Best Tactics for Evaluating Software

Reviewing legal management software can be overwhelming. There are literally dozens of options to choose from, each offering potentially very different features. The system you choose will depend on your practice’s unique needs. So, how do you make sure you choose the right system?

We recently surveyed hundreds of real software buyers to determine which tactics are most effective for evaluating software. From this analysis, we discovered that “checking vendor references” (meaning feedback from real customers) and having an attorney review your license or subscription agreement are the two best tactics for evaluating software. Additionally, any tactics listed in the green corner of the quadrant below were deemed highly effective.

Quadrant indicating where selection tactics fall on the “impact” and “satisfaction” spectrum

To determine which tactics were considered “most effective,” each was evaluated against two metrics:

• Y-axis: How much the tactic impacted the outcome of the project, meaning whether people in the sample who applied it experienced a different outcome than those who didn’t.

• X-axis: The likelihood of being highly satisfied with your software selection, based on the percent of people in our sample who applied the tactic and rated satisfaction a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale.

Our hope is that adhering to the selection methods in the “most effective” quadrant (while avoiding those in the least effective quadrant) will help buyers save time and ensure they choose the right product for their needs.

Market Trends to Understand

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). Cloud practice management software gives your staff and clients the ability to access sensitive data from any computer with an Internet connection. Based on our conversations with buyers and vendors, most purchasers feel confident with cloud security—this makes sense because cloud providers’ data centers are often more secure than those of individual practices.

Multiple state bar associations have issued formal ethics opinions on the security of cloud computing, saying it adheres to attorneys’ confidentiality-related obligations. However, it’s important that you ask what security measures are used by the cloud service providers you’re considering, as well as where and how frequently the information stored is backed-up. Also, how much bandwidth does your practice need to be comfortable? Will cloud options be able to handle your data load, or should you choose an on-premise solution instead?

Mobile computing. Attorneys are often on the go and accessing systems from other offices, home and mobile devices. Tablet (e.g., iPad) and smartphone application integration is increasingly common.

Mobile view of CosmoLex

A significant benefit of many legal practice management software options is the flexibility you have to securely access your client and case information while commuting or waiting in court, thus allowing you to maximize each moment. Therefore, when researching and evaluating legal practice management software, you should consider if mobile support is a requirement and ask vendors about what kind of options they have.

Do they have native applications for iPhone and Android devices (usually the preferred access method)? Or, do they simply provide access through a mobile Web browser?

And what kind of security do they have in place? Do their mobile apps allow you to control who at your office gets access to the system?