Legal Practice Management Software Comparison
By Lloyd Park |
With several high-quality options to choose from, it can be hard to find the best legal practice management software for you. We've spent...Read More >
Best Legal Software 2021
Legal software is built to support the day-to-day operations of legal practices. While legal practices typically use several software tools, by far the most important is legal practice management software. Legal practice management software includes features used by front office staff, lawyers, and paralegals such as client intake, case management, contact management, scheduling, task management, document management, time and expense tracking, billing and invoicing, online payments, an online client portal, and reporting.
There are numerous reasons why legal practices purchase legal software. Practice management software helps streamline practice operations, which saves time and increases practice profitability. In addition, billing features help law firms get paid faster.
Research Led By:
Research Analyst
Legal Software Prices
Legal software prices range from $30 to $90 per user per month. Most small law firms pay around $100 to $1000 per month for legal software. Here are details that will help you compare prices for the most popular all-in-one legal software platforms.
| Software Vendor | Starting Monthly Price | Free Trial | Key Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clio Manage | $49 per user | Yes |
|
| PracticePanther | $49 per user | Yes |
|
| MyCase | $59 per user | Yes |
|
| CASEpeer | $65 per user | Yes |
|
| Amicus Attorney | $69.99 per user | No |
|
| AbacusLaw | $69.99 per user | No |
|
| CosmoLex | $89 per user | Yes |
|
| Amicus Cloud | $59 per user | No |
|
| Clio Grow | $49 per user | Yes |
|
| Bill4Time | $29 per user | Yes |
|
Legal Software FAQs
Legal software is used by law firms to automate tasks, optimize firm operations, and grow their businesses. There are different types of legal software including legal practice management software, legal CRM software, legal billing software, and online legal research software.
Legal software can be used by law firms in a variety of practice areas. Here are some of the practice areas that legal software is most commonly used in:
- Civil litigation
- Criminal defense
- Employment law
- Estate planning
- Family law
- Health law
- Immigration
- Intellectual property
- Labor law
- Personal injury law
- Real estate law
- Tax law
In general, legal software pricing ranges from $49 to $125 per user per month. Legal software pricing typically depends on the number of users accessing the platform and the types of features included in the solution.
The best legal software for you will depend on the type of solution you desire, your budget, and the size of your firm. In general, here is a breakdown of the best legal solutions available on the market today.
- Clio Manage is ideal for law firms that desire a cloud-based legal practice management solution
- AbacusLaw is ideal for law firms that desire an on-premise legal practice management solution
- Clio Grow is ideal for law firms that need a CRM solution to manage client intake and relationships
Clio Manage and PracticePanther are two of the most popular legal practice management solutions on the market today. These solutions have tens of thousands of customers each.
The most common legal software features are:
- Accounting
- Billing and invoicing
- Contact management
- Dashboard
- Document management
- File intake
- Integrations
- Online payments
- Reporting
- Rules-based calendar
- Task management
- Time and expense tracking
Legal Industry Research & Advice
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Why You Should Trust Our Recommendations
The team at SoftwarePundit has been testing software since 2017. We’ve hand-tested over 250 software products in that time, including 10 in the legal category. We applied the same rigorous process to each piece of legal software that we analyzed. The specifics of our legal category research process are outlined below.
Lloyd led our analysis of legal software. He has spent more than 300 hours evaluating leading legal software systems.
In addition, all research and content was overseen by Bruce Hogan, SoftwarePundit’s Co-founder & CEO. Bruce has more than a decade of experience researching, building, and reviewing the world’s best software products. His technology advice has been featured on a wide range of media sites such as AngelList, CMSWire, Dental Economics, iPhone Life, Reader’s Digest, Thrive Global, U.S. News, and the Zapier Blog.
How We Selected the Best Legal Software
We selected the best legal software based upon a number of criteria. The most important criteria were each software tool’s features, usability, price, and customer support. The details of our analyses are captured in the in-depth reviews we publish about each software tool.
There are a handful of critical features that you should look for in legal software. We prioritized the following features in our analysis:
- Accounting: Some legal solutions include built-in accounting tools. Other solutions allow you to sync with third-party systems
- Case Management: Legal software helps you organize and easily access case information.
- Contact Management: Legal software helps track and manage all client interactions with your law firm
- Document Management: You can store and organize legal documents in your legal platform
- Time and Expense Tracking: Legal software helps you track billable hours
How We Evaluated Legal Software
We used the same rigorous process to evaluate legal software as all other software categories. For the legal category, Lloyd invested several weeks researching, testing, and writing about the tools.
We interviewed the teams at the software companies listed above. Our conversations with the companies included questions about each company’s product, customer base, pricing, customer support, and business strength. After a general interview, Lloyd spent additional time participating in a product demo led by each company. This provided Lloyd with the opportunity to ask detailed questions about the features and functionality of the legal software.
Lloyd also obtained a free trial of each software tool listed above. He spent several hours testing the key user journeys in each software product. This allowed us to validate the features offered by each product, and to gain an understanding of the software’s usability. To better understand the implementation process and customer experience, Lloyd installed legal software on a test website that we host.
In addition to conducting conversations with the software companies and hand-testing every piece of software, Lloyd also spent dozens of hours interviewing real customers of the software tools listed above. Customers that provided insights that were included in our analysis and reviews were:
- Alex Freeburg: Alex Freeburg is the founder of The Barlow Law Firm.
- Evan Walker: Evan Walker is the founder of The Law Office of Evan W. Walker.
- Jonathan Barber: Jonathan Barber is a managing attorney of franchise.law.
- Justie Dee Nicol: Justie Dee Nicol is the founder and partner of Jesse Spencer works with Nicol Gersch Petterson.
- Maria Barlow: Maria Barlow is the founder of The Barlow Law Firm.
- Shira Kalfa: Shira Kalfa is the founder and partner of Kalfa Law .