Law office timekeeping software

Document management, matter management, task management, client communication tools, reporting, marketing, etc. Litify Matters is a great fit for mid-sized and large law firms especially but can be used by in-house counsel, nonprofits, and even government agencies as well. Running a solo practice? Clio is a great software for attorneys — solo practitioners and small law firms. As your firm grows, you may want to look into a practice management solution built for larger firms, but Clio is a great tool to get started with.

One of the most important elements of your legal practice is your documents. Every day your staff interacts with legal contracts, case files, non-disclosure agreements NDAs , intake forms, and more.

Document management software helps you not only store these documents, but generate new copies quickly when you need them. Google Drive and Dropbox are the familiar faces that most firms already know about and look to first for document management.

If your document management needs are small, they can definitely cover the basics and do the trick. But the more detailed your document requirements become think advanced document templates, complete control over user access or connecting folders to specific matters —the more difficult it becomes to rely solely on the big box tools. On the opposite side, you have Conga Composer. The challenge you may face as you generate more and more documents will be how to efficiently store them, connect them to specific matters and share them with clients.

If your practice relies on being able to efficiently generate and manage large amounts of files, having a document management tool that excels in both document generation and document storage and management is key. Docrio combines the storage functions you get from the big box tools with the document generation features you get from a tool specialized in easy-to-use templates.

On top of that, it also adds the ability to directly connect everything to specific clients, matters or cases, and integrate document management directly into your current workflows.

Still, at its core, the goal of task management software is to keep track of what actions need to be taken throughout the duration of a case. For simple and straightforward project and task management, Trello is a great option. Rather than updating one task or project one time, your workflows will need to include manually updating Trello and your practice management software separately every time. Similar to Trello, Asana is a multi-purpose project and task management program.

Your best bet would be manually creating new sections in Asana every time a new client is signed on. When it comes to managing tasks specifically related to legal matters and cases, the best solution is going to be one that directly connects to your overall practice management software. This will help your entire firm operate more efficiently, and open the door for powerful automated workflows that can be triggered based on task completion or matter status changes.

With COVID forcing law firms to adopt remote work systems essentially overnight, video conferencing and video call software has become a lot more popular worldwide. By now, pretty much everyone is familiar with Zoom. Zoom is a great software used by law firms. That said, there have been security issues in the past with Zoom, like hackers being able to access private meetings and fake, unsecure links that contain malware designed to trick meeting attendees.

Similar to Zoom, Google Meet is a video conferencing tool for organizations needing to host video calls with their staff or clients. Google Meet had been in second place mostly because of performance and quality issues that would pop up as more people joined a call, but the product has been making positive strides recently. The alternative to the two major video conferencing players above is Uplink by Litify—the main difference being Uplink was built specifically for lawyers to communicate with clients.

There are three major benefits to using Uplink rather than Zoom or Google Meet. And third, an activity log of every call is stored directly within Litify. Keep these considerations in mind before finalizing a vendor:. These are some common questions you can consider asking vendors to shortlist the right timekeeping software for your law firm:.

To find your ideal software match, you need information you can trust so you can save time, stay on budget, and focus more on growing your business. Note: The content in this piece that provides opinions and points of view expressed by users does not represent the views of Capterra. Writer Capterra, helping digital Davids beat Goliaths. I cover small business trends in CRM, accounting, real estate, insurtech, and emerging tech.

A English, University of Delhi. Comment by Elian Khan on Jul. The features you highlighted will be surely appreciated by most lawyers. All these features are presented in TMetric time tracker that my team used for collaborating and calculating work time on several projects.

Comment by Angela Keshner on Nov. Comment by Kate on Aug. It also has idle time detection and it can be used on Mac, Windows and Linux. Pingback by Need Some Inspiration? Read These Productivity Articles!

Comment by John Hoffman on Jan. Comment by Manuel on Mar. We are building the worlds first haptic time tracking device and would love if you can give shoot us your opinion! Helping businesses choose better software since Software Categories. Who We Are. The software also makes it easy to transfer large amounts of data or to make system-wide adjustments, such as billing code or staff changes.

A small or solo practice might choose basic timekeeping software because it is easy to use, inexpensive and requires little maintenance. Timekeeping software is available for law offices that specialize in one area of law, such as criminal law, workman's compensation or estate planning. Billing software incorporates timekeeping for the purpose of creating bills. A practice might choose the more complex practice or case management software that connects modules for timekeeping, email, file management, document control, calendaring, contacts and referral lists, deadlines, docket information, work delegations and accounting.

Practice management software can help a busy practice manage operations with little or no staff. The choice might rest on how much training is required to use the software or the cost of technical support. Gail Sessoms, a grant writer and nonprofit consultant, writes about nonprofit, small business and personal finance issues. She volunteers as a court-appointed child advocate, has a background in social services and writes about issues important to families.

Sessoms holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in liberal studies. By Gail Sessoms. In addition to the base billing features time tracking and payments , TimeSolv also offers:. Smokeball is an all-in-one cloud-based legal case and law practice management platform.

Among their vast list of features is a powerful legal time and billing software. A complete law practice management software, MyCase is a popular platform in the legal industry. Its suite of tools includes case management software, client communication tools, and a legal billing system, to name a few. Their end-to-end legal billing software offers just about everything you would expect from a decent tool, including:.

According to their website, the tool also offers QuickBooks integration. FreshBooks also has a powerful, highly-customizable invoicing tool. Rocket Matter is an end-to-end law practice management platform, with a special time and billing system designed for legal professionals. A cloud-based legal management platform, Clio offers almost everything a law firm needs. Their feature set includes powerful legal billing software that focuses on getting their clients paid faster.

Here are a few reasons why you may want to consider Clio over others:. With their starter plan, you can get access to their legal billing solutions. CosmoLex is another complete legal practice management software, which includes law office accounting and legal billing software.

Bill4Time offers a legal time tracking and billing management platform. This includes all of the basic features you can expect from a legal billing tool, such as:.