Intuitive & Robust

Much more effective reporting on intake, client contact, and staff management. Very effective case browsing and searching. Implementing SmartAdvocate has allowed us to move much closer to a "less paper" work environment.

Pros

I love the templates in SA. They are easy to create and administer as well as user friendly. I also really like the searchability of each window, particularly documents.

Cons

I like the UDF Editor, except for the way that items are re-ordered. It would be easier if there was a way to drag and drop to put the items in the order you want.

One of our tools for success

The problem of inefficiency corrects itself with many of SmartAdvocate's customizations and automation. For example, we are expediting electronic contracts/agreements to clients via text message and email, whereas other firms are still stuck on paper contracts. Never would I have thought clients would embrace technology, like the use of text over email. Yes, snail mail still has a role and a place, but the practicality and adaptiveness text messages give clients is excellent. This program stays relevant at the speed of shifts and trends, as well as changes with technology.

Pros

Our personal injury law firm switched from Needles to Smart Advocate about three years ago. The amount of growth we've had plays largely thanks to this case management software, especially after Covid-19 hit. This software made the transition from working in the office to working from home almost effortless. Our staff never missed a beat, and our clients never realize the change happened virtually overnight. While other firms struggled with technological, let alone case management issues, for us, it was business as usual. With Smart Advocate's features, updates, support, and innovation, there is no other way but growth. It's a powerhouse of a tool for great staff, which gives clients the most significant outcome.

Cons

There is not much to dislike, but there is always room for improvement. That said, when a dislike does arise, reaching out to SmartAdvocate usually remedies our dislikes. For example, the recommendation was to set up multiplaintiff parties under one case number. We tried that out and realized that would not work for our reporting and usage needs. Their development team quickly remedied a solution for each party to work with one case number while still giving us the linking ability needed for multi-party cases.

SmartAdvocate is useful for a large case load

Overall it's a good system, it just takes some getting use too.

Pros

I love the many diffrent ways we can pull-up a client, that my be in SA (Thats what we call it), wrong. I also, like the feature to look for someone by their first name. You just use *and name. Takes out a lot of guess work. Great feature!

Cons

I'm not real wild about, how many steps it takes to attach documents in the system.

not as flexible as I told it would be

case management of arbitrations status reports

Pros

assists with arbitration and personal injury departments / used and understood by all employees /

Cons

does not assist enough; limited capacities salespeople made promises that they could not keep overpriced for its value

Effect & Easy to understand Case Management System

Pros

Smart Advocate is an easy and self-explanatory case management system. Once you get accustomed to using inputting all the details, it helps a lot throughout all the stages of the case. Smart Advocate has helped us keep better track of all the deadlines. The note section specifically is helping everyone who needs to know the details of the case, what is going on, and should the client call and have any questions; anyone can help them once they read the notes on the case

Cons

No longer being able to add a new contact from disbursements directly. Also, not being able to save a word document from my Microsoft Word directly onto Smart Advocate.