Actionstep in Richmond offers their flagship legal practice management software as an end-to-end solution, containing both matter management tools and business administration automation, with an internal billing and accounting system.
N/A
8am™ MyCase
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
8am MyCase provides web-based practice management software designed for solo and small firm legal professionals. MyCase aims to offer a secure, all-in-one legal practice management solution to alleviate the burden of high caseloads, poor client communication, and practice management operations. The product aims to help users spend less time managing their firm and more time practicing law. MyCase can be accessed from any device or computer so users can manage documents and…
ActionStep is a powerful CRM and matter management tool. It provides many other good benefits too. For example powerful accounting and billing, time tracking and document management. Only in highly specific areas, like multiple many to many contact relations has it fallen short. But even in this highly specialized area, so many other benefits are provided that it hardly matters.
It is great for taking credit card payments, managing calendars, sharing and accepting document uploads and maintaining digital files. The app is better than nothing, however is vastly inferior to the web version. The time entries should show on the first screen whether they are marked as billable or non-billable without having to enter each specific time entry
Trust accounting. This is an area of great concern as little mistakes can lead to serious consequences.
Client management. By posting all client documents we have significantly reduced postage and rather than getting a phone call, the clients can see what is happening in their case.
Scheduling. This is a great way to keep on top of calendars and a better way to avoid missing deadlines.
ActionStep is difficult to setup. I suggest working with a consultant which increases cost.
Needs mobile app.
One of our practice areas, Property Law, request we have a many to many contact relation. ActionStep cannot accommodate this. However, no other software I have reviewed can do this either. ActionStep is the most robust that I have seen and comes closest to making this work.
Use of AI (should not be integrated into MyCase, especially with legal services that require a high-level of confidentiality which AI cannot guarantee)
Payment Reconciliation (sometimes invoices don't show up, nothing in Help Center about how to remedy)
Billing (doesn't consider that billing contacts for a case may change based on who can pay)
It is so easy to use. We've had multiple people join our team and they don't have any issues using it right away. It's also easy to use new features as they're developed. I think everyone should have and use a simple case management platform, and MyCase is my usual recommendation.
One of the things we liked most about Tabs3 when we used that system was its support. PracticePanther was step behind in support when we switched to it, but when we switched to MyCase, it actually seems to be a step ahead of Tabs3. The chat support feature has saved me hours on dealing with issues both internally with users and externally with clients trying to navigate the client portal.
I have worked with a lot of software. Each one has a different focus. ActionStep is better at workflow and task automation that the items above, in my opinion. However, having gone through many different deployments, what really matters is identifying your key requirements and needs. Then evaluation software against those. Once you have your requirements and software, focus on using that software to fix issues in existing workflow. This, when compared with ongoing training, is what it means to invest in software. Simply purchasing ActionStep or any software without identifying needs, problems in workflow or an investment in training is not a good plan. Neither is comparing the vendors to one another without knowing all of your specific needs.
Prior to using MyCase, my firm relied on AbacusLaw for its CRM program. I have also used Amicus Attorney prior to that. AbacusLaw and Amicus Attorney were local area network programs using an onsite computer server. I started using MyCase so that I would have an entire cloud-based legal CRM program. At the time its best competitive feature was that the program was entirely cloud-based and that online retrieval of documents and client contact information was easily retrievable. The best contribution of these features is not just improving team collaboration, but improving efficient communication with clients by allowing them online access to their case file and secure communication with the client portal. Our Intake staff uses Clio Grow as a CMS (Contact Management System) despite some intake features being added my MyCase in the past year. Clio Grow has a Kanban board interface to manage incoming leads and improve intake team collaboration. MyCase's intake feature is new and less robust and intuitive to use compared to Clio Grow (formerly Lexicata). From the beginning, G Suite has always been an integral tool for email and calendar management. MyCase offers email and calendar support but G Suite is easiest to use on multiple platforms and hardware devices compared to MyCase.
I love the workflows that can be deployed for practice areas to ensure consistency. This has reduced new employee onboarding time and increased the speed at which we can complete matters.
Since ActionStep lives in the cloud, and we have O365 our firm is very mobile without spending lots of money in TS or other such infrastructure.
Creating the workflows is a bit complex, so this increases the overall cost and makes an ROI take longer. I suggest spending a bit more initially to get everything setup and working with a consultant to learn how to do this on your own during that initial setup.
Organization: I know where to go for my case details
Efficiency: I just leave a window open on one screen logged into mycase and I can instantly modify/update matter details
Billing: integrated credit card payments/invoice updating is nice. Invoicing is a lot easier than prior platforms I used given you can email the invoice out directly from the platform, and see when it has been viewed.
