Law firms are constantly busy. Employees must control all aspects of cases: deadlines, evidence, witness statements, paperwork requirements, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg in lawyers’ daily routines.
Even a minor case requires serious management because any error can lead to financial failure and reputational damage. That’s why law firms or corporations with in-house legal departments need a tool to optimize the workflow and keep things in order.
Let’s consider five leading legal case management software solutions that have proven highly efficient.
Legal case management software: supporting a growing legal practice
Legal case management software is a digital platform that automates tasks, helping lawyers manage legal cases. This software deals with many processes:
- It stores litigation information (participants’ contacts, documents, and communication);
- Helps specialists receive orders and accompanies clients from the beginning to the end of deals;
- Keeps records of working hours;
- Allows employees to issue invoices and track payments;
- Provides analytics to monitor company performance and profitability;
- Supports accepted document organization format;
- Automates processes that would take hours and days to complete manually.
LCMS products are all-purpose assistants that streamline the collection and storage of essential information related to law.
When selecting an off-the-shelf software product, make sure that:
- You can easily customize it to your firm’s needs;
- It seamlessly integrates with relevant third-party services;
- The software provider offers technical support;
- The company’s lawyers find the set of functions sufficient;
- Your employees are comfortable using the system.
Top software products that have been on the market for many years fit these parameters. Users gladly recommend them to their colleagues.
Top legal case management software: a brief overview of five successful solutions
Let’s compare software products that can speed up and optimize work processes at a law firm or department.
#1. Clio: an easily customizable tool for lawyers
For 15 years, Clio has been improving its product – a cloud-based legal case management software with the same name. Once expensive and difficult to use, this app is easily customizable now.
It supports more than 200 integrations, thus simplifying legal processes. With 150,000 users in 100 countries and an investment of $110 million, Clio is the undisputed leader in the law sector.
Clio has earned the trust and endorsement of 90 bar associations. It has invaluable options for legal departments:
- Billing automation. Employees set up automatic payment plans with flexible options and track payments through links.
- Digitalization of customer interaction. The system launches automatic data collection and offers a virtual calendar for making appointments for online consultations.
- Document flow optimization. You can upload business papers, images, and audio/ video files to unlimited cloud storage, with automatic backup.
- Legal calendar to schedule personal and corporate events. It includes an automatic reminder of meetings and court hearings.
- Enhanced security as a set of vital measures (office access rules, two-factor authentication, and cyber defense training).
- 24-hour support five days a week and free Clio training.
These options provide the platform with a powerful technology base. You can enhance it by integrating Clio with third-party services.
This product increases the efficiency of operations, makes it easier for employees to work, and saves money and time through automation. Thus, you can pay more attention to communication with customers instead of performing routine tasks.
#2. Lawmatics: an innovative platform for efficient workflow management
In 2017, Lawmatics, a young promising company, presented a software solution for the automation of key tasks in the legal industry. This CRM platform is primarily for individual entrepreneurs and SMEs. In 2020, $2.5 million was invested in its development.
The legal case management software helps lawyers run their businesses efficiently by simplifying and automating the following important operations:
- Customer engagement. The system collects information about clients and their cases. They need to fill out a special form. Data is securely stored in the app, and a client’s status changes depending on the stage of their interaction with a lawyer. This way, an employee doesn’t have to waste time checking and reconciling data.
- Scheduling meetings. Lawyers don’t have to conduct time-consuming email correspondence with clients to make appointments. The platform has a built-in calendar for quick approval and booking consultations.
- Electronic document collection. Lawyers also don’t have to “track down” clients to get documents for a case or request a signature. Customers send papers electronically and confirm their legitimacy digitally.
- Lead segmentation. The more detailed a questionnaire for clients in the intake form, the more opportunities for lawyers to classify leads and track the work with them.
- Optimized accounting operations. With Lawmatics, you can easily create granular invoices to give customers a clear idea of what they’re paying for. An embedded button in an invoice readdresses to a payment form, which speeds up billing.
- Analytical tool. The platform offers analytics, helping you to track where customers come from. You can also see which of them is “more valuable” and how well the company’s employees handle tasks.
Thanks to these and other options, Lawmatics boosts the growth and development of law firms. Increased workloads do not affect the productivity of staff members: they cope with tasks successfully, error-free, and without delay.
Thanks to this software product, such companies as Adaptive Law Firm PS and Andersen save thousands of dollars on operating expenses.
#3. Filevine for streamlining legal tasks
Filevine is another full-featured tool that allows law firms and departments to eliminate mess in operations. It is cloud-based legal case management software.
Bailey Glasser, Bradley, Rise, and other mid-sized businesses have already tested its high-quality performance.
Over 50,000 lawyers trust Filevine because it helps them to:
- Skillfully work with leads, from the engagement stage to closing a deal. The platform attracts more than 600,000 customers each year and forwards over 4 million messages;
- Manage the progress of legal cases: Filevine collects case information from various sources (emails, files, and messengers) in one place so that a lawyer has a complete picture of the project. The collected documents, facts, and details are stored securely in the cloud;
- Generate documentation according to standards: the app automatically extracts information from a client’s file and inserts it into pre-prepared templates. If a signature is required, an employee can get it from a client remotely;
- Track team performance with reports, set new goals, and skillfully distribute the workload among employees;
- Automate the flow of tasks and control the timing of their implementation so as not to miss scheduled consultations, meetings, and hearings.
Capterra and G2 have repeatedly recognized Filevine as best-in-class for these and other benefits that the platform gives to lawyers and paralegals. It does not fall below 4.5 out of 5 stars on rating sites.
#4. Litify: a tool that brings a team together
Like previous programs, Litify follows the same principle. The app performs routine tasks, freeing up time for law firm employees. Thus, they can build stronger relations with their clients.
A group of lawyers created this platform to develop an innovative way of doing business. Despite its “young age” (6 years on the market), Litify has attracted more than 33,000 grateful users.
The product simplifies work through the following well-designed and implemented features:
- Collection of client information: there is a separate card with detailed information for each lead. Based on this data, employees of a legal department can build efficient communication.
- Case management: the platform helps you create a detailed plan for each case type. You can set priorities and deadlines. Any activity concerning a case is also recorded (correspondence or meetings). Every employee is aware of the progress and meaningful updates.
- Cloud filing: Litify helps you securely store case documents. You can perform a quick search by property (title, author, text). OCR technology even finds relevant text in PDF files and images.
- Creating documents according to templates: you can edit not only text but also samples. Created documents are included in packages for convenience.
- Synchronization with email service to keep important emails in your case notes. Litify is synchronized with Outlook, so an employee won’t miss an appointment with a client or another important event.
- Generating invoices on templates with the ability to track statuses and payment deadlines.
Judging by its feature set and the number of clients, Litify makes the legal industry more accessible and efficient. LegalTech Breakthrough recently gave it the 2022 Overall Practice Management Solution Provider of the Year award.
#5. Law Ruler: a remarkable chance for success
Law Ruler takes legal services to the next level by streamlining work processes, from communication with clients to project management.
Despite its diverse functionality, the principal focus of this software is lead capture. By automating numerous tasks, the platform helps determine which marketing efforts are working:
- Answers to clients’ emails and calls: the software monitors incoming emails so that employees immediately respond to clients’ requests. If you are late with this, your client might leave you for a more responsive competitor.
- A built-in AI-powered dialer that tells you who needs a quick call and who is more likely to convert to a lead;
- Detailed analytics on staff productivity, case management metrics, and marketing ROI;
- Enhanced technical support, including integration with a law firm’s website, migration from previous software, and configuration of automation tools.
The remaining features concern customer acquisition and support, workflow automation, report generation, and integration with third-party software. The Capterra rating platform gave the app the Emerging Favorite 2022 status and 4.8 out of 5 stars. It mentions its usability, usefulness, and accessibility.
Conclusion
The five solutions mentioned above are not the only products you should trust. Law firms and corporations with legal departments use them together with other top-notch tools.
If your business strategy differs from those of your competitors and requires a unique set of features, think about custom legal software development by Andersen. IT specialists will help you consider current problems and foresee potential challenges.