Actionstep vs. SimpleLegal

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.

SimpleLegal is easy to use and easy to understand for everyone in the legal department. Their customer service is typically quick to respond and solve any issues that may arise on the customer side as well as the vendor side (CounselGo). There has been a bit of customer dissatisfaction since being acquired by Onit but the enhancements and roadmap continue to look promising.

Incentivized

• The workflows are great to automate simple tasks like notifying people when an engagement letter is signed.
• Mobility. Because it's in the cloud it's easy to access from anywhere.
• The scratch pad is a good way to take quick notes.
• ActionStep lets you create custom fields so you can make sure the data you need is collected.

• SimpleLegal does a great job tracking expenses.
• SimpleLegal does a great job at creating, tracking and analyzing matters.
• SimpleLegal does a good job with reporting and analytics.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Budget tracking.
• Admin independence (being able to make system improvements/enhancements/changes without needing a SL rep).

Incentivized

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.

SimpleLegal was much easier to use and train users on than Time Matters. SimpleLegal had all of the functionality but not as many customizable features as Time Matters.

Incentivized

• 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.

• Able to track in real-time legal spend against budgets to hold outside counsel responsible while meeting our fiscal demands--rather than wait on Finance report monthly/quarterly/etc.

Incentivized