By reducing administrative work and time tracking, legal billing software help legal practices minimize costs, generate more billable revenue, and more easily invoice and collect payments. Highly-customizable and automated features help stay within regulations and compliances, work within various billing guidelines, make fee-splitting simple, reduce human error, transparently communicate billable work, and more. Legal billing software is a critical component of case management that automates billing and invoicing for both inside and outside counsel.
They help track every minute and expense by allowing staff to bill from their offices, homes, or mobile devices with a simple log in.
By automating consistent and accurate records, legal practices can focus on the important casework, without worrying about costly and frustrating administrative duties.
These e-billing solutions also keep clients happy by being as transparent as possible, as accurate as possible, and as flexible as possible. Law practices can customize rates to bill the same task at different amounts, for different clients. These rates will be stored and calculated by the software tools, minimizing human error.
This allows for better estimates, more effective negotiations, and higher client satisfaction. And much like more complex practice management software, many legal billing software also come with internal, centralized client communication tools. That leads to faster responses and fewer missed messages from clients. They also sync with email services like Gmail and Outlook, and they will not only integrate the content of emails into the communication tools, but also any attachments.
Make billing easy by pre-formating various tools and templates for staff to fill out for particular matters. Make sure all billable items time, fees, and expenses are logged with the appropriate names, matters, times, dates, rates, descriptions, coding, types, and more.
And firms can tailor these billing tools to comply with various billing guidelines. After certain matters are complete, invoices can easily be generated by importing billing data into pre-made invoice templates. Invoices can then be linked with legal payment software, like LawPay or ProPay, or with credit card billing systems. These tools help businesses pay invoices with just a few clicks through intuitive systems. Add features like payment plans, discounts for early payments, interest rates for late payments, and more.
So clients will know exactly what they are paying. These legal billing software are extremely useful for auditing individual invoices or entire practices, as all billing data are fully stored and searchable. This leads to fewer rejected invoices and helps find and amend invoices when clients find issues.
Or if there is a dispute, these e-billing software store shareable contracts, billing times, billing codes, billing guides, and everything else. Legal practices store extremely sensitive data about clients, finances, cases, strategies, and more, so legal billing software come with high levels of encryption and security. And legal e-billing systems stay up-to-date and compliant with a variety of payment services, like being PCI-compliant with credit card payments. Keeping things like case progress, tax documents, financial information, contacts, receipts, reports, invoices, and contracts visible, searchable and shareable are vital for efficiently working legal matters within legal teams and departments.
You can easily organize documents by labeling them by things like client, case, date, or staff member. Some e-billing software will safely store your documents for you with regular backups. This makes document storage and retrieval simple, without compromising yourself or your clients. Many legal billing software will make you create a predetermined budget before beginning a legal matter.
Budgets will help allocate time, staff, and resources throughout a case. Some software even have a tracker at the top of the dashboard of each case, with a bar being filled as the case goes along. And most e-billing software will send alerts when certain milestones are crossed. Most software also have tools to track the same tasks as billable or un-billable. So even if you are not billing for a particular item, storing those hours and expenses will help determine internal budgeting and resource allocation.
These billing solutions will also run reports, letting you know how well certain individuals, teams, or departments are at sticking to a budget. 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. Westlaw Legal Calendaring is one of the better docketing software tools on the market today for law firms and attorneys. One of the most popular features with Westlaw Legal Calendaring is that it can automatically schedule deadlines and important dates to your Outlook calendar based on the current court rules, with these rules being monitored and updated on a regular basis by Thomson Reuters.
If you decide to use Litify as your primary practice management platform solution, you can also manage the calendaring and docketing aspects of your firm directly with Litify Inbox. One of the major features available is the two-way sync ability between Outlook and Litify. Plus, when you make changes from one location, it will automatically sync between the two. Another commonly used legal calendaring tool is CalendarRules. The main functionality for law firms is typically billing clients, tracking billable hours worked and managing costs and expenses.
Quickbooks is one of the leaders in the accounting software industry overall, and that extends to the legal vertical as well. You can manage standard accounting tasks, client billing, financial reporting, etc. Similar to Quickbooks, Accounting Seed is a popular tool in the accounting industry.
You can access most of the same functionality in Accounting Seed as you can in Quickbooks, and the same data can be integrated with your practice management software. At the end of the day, both are good choices for most firms and it likely comes down to which tool your accounting department prefers.
Customer Relationship Management CRM software is mostly used in the sales and marketing world, but most definitely plays a role in legal practice management as well. Law firms can use CRM software to manage intake, keep track of what stage a potential client is currently in, and monitor conversations happening with each client firm-wide.
Salesforce has been the 1 CRM in the world for 6 years running —and for good reason. The possibilities within Salesforce are virtually endless. The Salesforce AppExchange in particular is home to thousands of tools that can be directly integrated with your Salesforce organization.
One of the best parts about Salesforce for law firms in particular is Litify. Since Litify is built on Salesforce, you can connect your entire practice management platform to one of the most powerful platforms in the world in Salesforce—giving you access to all of the resources, capabilities and security features that come equipped.
Overall, HubSpot is a great platform with plenty of functionality across sales, marketing and customer service. The downside for law firms in particular though is that HubSpot is built mostly for sales teams without a lot of room for customization to fit the needs of a law firm. Internal communication software is used to move real-time conversations from email threads and in person to messenger-style tools.
The main goal is to help your organization communicate more effectively and efficiently—especially when working in part remotely or managing a fully remote law firm.
Plenty of organizations already rely on Microsoft for massive parts of their business. The complete Office suite, Outlook email and calendars, OneDrive for document storage, etc.
With Slack you can create multiple public or private channels related to specific clients, cases, matters, departments, social activities—you name it. For example, you can automatically send notification messages when the status of a legal matter is updated. The larger your firm becomes, the more difficult it can be to provide 1 to 1 support to every staff member when they need it.
Handshake from Aderant lets you house all of your data in one location, then access it through intranets, extranets and search features. One of their main selling points is speed—with their Handshake search and Expertise locator features built to speed up the process of finding information when you need it.
Another popular knowledge management system for law firms and legal professionals is West km from Westlaw and Thomson Reuters. West km is a great tool for storing and retrieving large amounts of documents through advanced searching that can be repurposed to save time.
With Litify, you can accomplish the same primary objectives offered by Aderant Handshake and West km—housing documents and data in one place, then accessing it easily through search. The added benefit to using Litify as your knowledge management system versus a standalone tool like the two options above is how it connects to your current workflows and systems. Plus, you can use the integrations built into Litify or an advanced API to connect your knowledge management software to any other tool you need.
Remote phone system software works the same way a standard phone system would in a support or call center—the main difference is that you no longer need actual phones to operate the system. Its unique workflow technology and integrated approach help you effectively run your business on both front and back ends. The highly flexible solution can address the simple requirements of small- to medium-sized firms as well as large law groups.
Going beyond case and matter management, ActionStep offers tools for time recording, billing, full general ledger, and trust accounting.
It even has features to manage marketing, sales, employees, passwords, facilities, and insurance policies. Its extensive feature set automates processes and workflows for document management, time recording, billing, accounting, payroll, email, and calendar management among others. Taking care of the business and administrative side of things lets you spend more time working on cases and providing high-quality service to your clients.
It can easily generate complete digital files and let you search and retrieve documents, emails, file notes, billing, and others in just a few clicks. With the use of live data provided by the system, you can quickly create letters, contracts, and other quality documents. ActionStep offers 3 pricing packages depending on the number of users. Rocket Matter is a highly-regarded cloud-based legal practice management software. First introduced in , it is one of the pioneering solutions in this category.
It is intended for law firms looking to enhance their revenues, go paperless, or increase confidence in their trust accounting. The solution gives you total control over your law firm business with features that can help you optimize your billing process, get paid quickly, manage case works, stay on schedule, know your numbers, work from anywhere, and connect with your firm. On top of these, Rocket Matter promotes paperless operation to help you save time, money, and resources.
Designed specifically for solo, small, and mid-sized practices, Rocket Matter provides speed and accuracy in the creation of invoices and the management of documents. You can store all essential documents in a single location through a document management system that comes with drag-and-drop functionality. You can opt to use other cloud storage services such as Dropbox and Box since Rocket Matter integrates well with third-party apps and services.
It allows you to import calendar dates for matters in jurisdictions all over the US, letting you know when published deadlines change so you can stay on top of your cases. Securely collaborate with your law firm through the Communicator—an instant messaging feature right inside the platform, enabling you to stay up-to-date with everything going on in your firm. With the feature, you can share files, make video conferences, and link your conversations with cases so you can see your correspondence on your matter dashboards.
CosmoLex is a web-based legal case management solution meant to help small law offices and solo practitioners stay on top of the business side of things. The software comes equipped with tools and features to manage billing, timekeeping, business accounting, trust accounting, calendars and tasks, documents, and emails.
Its Secure Client Portal makes it easy for you to organize and store all client information and case documents online. You also get an extensive set of practice management tools to handle documents, emails, contacts, case workflows, and case workflows. CosmoLex boasts of having its own built-in legal accounting which, combined with legal time and billing and law practice management, is a fully compliant law office accounting system.
With this feature, every work hour and expense you make is captured, all billing processes are automated, and accounting workflows are streamlined. This results in timely bills and payments of your services, improved cash flow, and higher profits for your business. But if you want to, you can have your external accountant or bookkeeper log in to your system once you give them permission.
The CosmoLex dashboard loads fast and the interface is user-friendly, allowing anyone to easily navigate the system. It is designed for ease, speed, and accuracy. Alt Legal is a legal case management software that is intended specifically to cover the practice of intellectual property law. The solution allows you to easily prepare and manage intellectual property documents by automatically updating case statuses, collecting key client details, reminding you of deadlines, and generating IP filings.
The system helps you get rid of repetitive tasks and guides you on the risky and tedious parts of IP law practice so you can put more time and effort into your IP cases and the growth of your law business. Alt Legal comes with a smart docketing feature that enables you to file on time for your clients their trademark, patent, and copyright applications. The software can manage global IP deadlines as well as streamline client intake.
Your clients can easily see relevant information with one-click links to the IP offices and application documents. Likewise, it eliminates back and forth communication between you and your clients since you can just send them a link to the customized intake software where they can submit their details and files.
You and your client can get regular updates on application status or changes through email reminders, generate reports, and add key dates to calendars and schedules. Alt Legal provides free data migration to new users and unlimited support to its system subscribers. Pricing is quote-based and depends on specific client requirements.
LexRex is an intelligent and secure online legal case management software built to help modern law firms get the most out of their business using current technologies. It supports all key processes to enable legal professionals to efficiently manage their clients and cases, from quickly recording client details, comprehensive case management and billing, to accepting online payments. The platform simplifies managing clients and cases by allowing you to deploy and operate LexRex through IT devices of your choice—smartphone, tablet, or laptop.
You get the flexibility to customize client and case files, sync documents and calendars and access the system from anywhere anytime. You can manage all business side aspects of law practice including organizing files and documents, scheduling tasks and appointments, generating professional invoices, and accepting payments online.
The software also lets you monitor case activity progress through a timeline; record the time spent on casework; store client communications such as emails, letters, invoices, and phone calls; and customize case files according to the parameters you set such as practice area, structure, working environment, etc. You can capture and view the time spent on work-related activities, and activities that are ongoing or have been accomplished.
Furthermore, it allows your law firm to handle different billing schemes and generate detailed invoices that carry branding elements. MerusCase is a cloud-based legal practice management system that intuitively adapts to fit your practice, streamlining document automation, time tracking, billing, scheduling, email, case management, and more. All its tools and features are integrated into one easy-to-use platform that you can access anywhere at any time from any device.
MerusCase automates your day-to-day tasks through advanced technology that can be used by law firms of different sizes and sectors. The system is ideal for law firms that want to cut costs, save time, and focus more on serving clients instead of being bogged down by routine tasks.
MerusCase brings with it features and capabilities for efficient document automation and management, time and billing tracking, training, and secure data storage. And because it has team collaboration tools, you can take advantage of the rising trend and importance of collaborative teamwork in Its prediction algorithms provide you relevant results based on different filters as well as Global Search that combs through the content of each document fitting your criteria.
You can also easily auto-populate entire documents, merge case info, and smoothly export information in PDF or Word document. MerusCase offers an advanced accounting system that eliminates the need for an external accounting system, letting you invoice billable time, track payments, and handle balance-forwards, among others.
Data security and storage are taken care of via an end-to-end SSL-encryption and unlimited cloud storage. MerusCase pricing is quote-based, which means you have to contact the vendor with your specific needs. Workshare is a document management platform created for legal practitioners, allowing them to manage and monitor data loss risks while complying with professional regulations and guidelines. As a way around this, Workshare sees to it that all documents shared through email and other applications are devoid of sensitive metadata.
It provides secure and structured workspaces for your legal deals, ideal for working on large volumes of vital documents as it provides the quickest way to compare them. The software allows you to collaborate and share documents with other people. You can access the platform anytime, anywhere as it can be run on desktops, laptops, and other devices.
Again, document contents are kept secure with metadata completely stripped off them. Files that have been modified present no problem.
The automatic change notifications in Outlook lets you do one-click finds when files come back with changes. It loads the original and runs your comparison quickly. You can categorize your views by materiality or group changes by type to focus on what matters most.
When you need to compare two documents, you can see precisely what has been changed and get to the final version much faster. LegalTrek is a legal case management software for mid-sized law firms or legal departments aiming to make their business grow and become profitable.
It utilizes an all-in-one approach in organizing, billing, and managing clients, documents, and other critical business processes. With LegalTrek, you can quickly search for the information you need since document and client data are securely stored in one centralized location. You can monitor tasks and the people assigned to them, schedule appointments, and calendar deadlines and milestones. Likewise, you can have accurate time tracking and timely billing with sophisticated tools so you can charge your clients precisely with the work hours and service you rendered.
The software integrates with Gmail and Outlook and is available as a starter package or a custom enterprise plan. HoudiniEsq was developed for small firms to assist them in business-related functions such as organizing documents, setting schedules and appointments, marking calendars for hearings, and more. The software can run on the cloud or on-premise, and offers an extensive set of features and capabilities such as time and expense tracking, billing and invoicing, case management, and client management, and others.
The solution handles everything on the business side of legal practice, enabling you and your law team to concentrate on providing the best legal service to your clients. HoudiniEsq centralizes communication and information processes for a more simplified and intuitive business management of your law office including managing clients, cases, leads, contracts, dockets, client contact, and client communication through emails and certified mails.
Practicing law and managing a law firm are entirely different activities and HoudiniEsq will ably help you in the latter.
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