Legal practice management software is a must-have for most law offices. It streamlines the process of handling and managing a case from start to finish. Law case management systems allow busy attorneys to keep track of contacts, documents, and calendaring, among other things, for each case that is added to the system; many offer time tracking and billing features as well.
For most law practices, purchasing practice management software that is well-suited for the size and specific practice areas of the firm is a good investment that saves time and money in the long run.
One decision lawyers must make when choosing legal practice management software is whether to purchase a web-based law practice management system or a traditional desktop system that is installed and housed on the law firm’s server. Once you’ve decided which type of platform you intend to use, you can then narrow down your choices based on the specific features offered by a particular system.
The American Bar Association’s Legal Resource Center offers a very useful comparison chart, which lists and compares the features of some of the more popular legal case management software systems, including both traditional and web-based systems. The traditional desktop systems included in the chart are:
The web-based legal practice management systems included in the chart are:
Next week we’ll compare Clio and Rocket Matter along with a few other web-based law practice management platforms, including LawRD and VLOTech, and will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of web-based practice management systems.
Many lawyers express concerns regarding whether web-based systems conform with their ethical obligations. Security is also a very valid concern raised by attorneys. Accordingly, we’ll follow up the post on web-based practice management systems with a post that provides an overview for these issues and will then delve into specific ethical and security issues in subsequent posts.
In the meantime, feel free to raise any specific concerns that you may have in the comments following this post.
