Clio is web-based legal practice management software for solo practitioners and small firms. It is designed to replace multiple different systems (like document management, case management, and accounting software) to streamline the amount of technology that small firms need to manage.
$49
per user/per month
Sage Timeslips
Score 9.5 out of 10
N/A
Sage offers Timeslips, an installed billing and time tracking application featuring automated tracking, prepopulated account entry and voice to text data capture.
Timeslips has won the day due to its consistency, reliability, and ease of use. The others are cloud-based - a feature I'd like, but the learning curve has proven to be too time-consuming to justify the switch.
Clio is a wonderful practice management solution for small firms that do billable work. The Clio manage software is excellent for tracking your time at different rates, tracking matter budgets, and tracking expenses. Clio is also great for firms that want to implement and use tech in their offices. If clients are at least somewhat tech-savvy (have and know how to use email), they will also benefit and enjoy the implementation of Clio.
If your organization needs to report to clients or other departments on a regular basis, then Sage Timeslips will help you create those reports. It contains all the client data you want it to, time spent for that client and every invoice ever created for that client. You can easily open a new client, close or suspend that client, and then open it again if necessary just with one click.
Provides an interface with NextChapter Bankruptcy.
Provides an interface with the forms on our website and landing pages to allow for easy transmission of potential clients into our Clio system from these sources with little human intervention.
Its billing, invoicing and payment integration makes the billing cycle for clients easier.
Document management. It's still far easier for me to create Word templates and just use Word.
Centralized filing of client files. Like I said, I use Word. I work on a Mac and use Mac's tag structure. Clio should find a way to gather all files that have a certain tag and allow me to access them through Clio. Instead, I use Hazel and DropBox.
Case planning and budgeting. I use OmniFocus for project management, a self-created Excel spreadsheet for project budgeting and a cloud-based service for Gantt charts. How hard would it be to add robust project management tools to Clio?
Search feature for stored documents and information. Evernote has Clio beat hands-down, but I don't put client-sensitive information (only caselaw) on Evernote.
Case notes. This feature may be useful for high-volume practices, but I never use it.
I would like to see web access so that I am not limited to access only via my primary computer.
I would like the program to be more intuitive with self-correcting verbiage.
When inputting multiple data for one client, I'd like the program to be more intuitive by self filling or having the option to self fill the biller's name, the service and the client fields.
You really have to get creative to make Clio work well. Support suggested tonight that I use other products instead since Clio can't even do simple things it promises like notify clients of their court dates. Insane.
Rather than talk in generalities, I'll give two specific examples. First, after updating my OS, I got locked out of Clio. I was back in, up and running, with no loss of data, within an hour thanks to Clio customer support. Second, I made some specific recommendation for features that I thought would be useful. Those recommendations fell in a black hole, with the suggestion that I try a very buggy third party integration app. Clio is making lots of money from lawyers using its software. Why can't Clio create the integrations and test them if Clio is not willing to build them into its platform?
I have not had to use Timeslips support, but I know our Office Manager has had to use them from time to time. She reports that they are quite helpful, but are always suggesting we purchase an upgrade to our current program.
CLIO Grow is custom-tailored for law firms to use off the shelf with some advanced customization options. CLIO Grow has some superior API integration options that integrate with answering services, online chatbot, website contact forms to capture new leads and automatically include them in the intake pipeline. As mentioned previously it integrates with HelloSign for no additional costs. CLIO Grow also offers API integrations with Mailchimp to add prospects to email drip campaigns in addition to built-in automated email campaigns within its own software. These features make it far more user friendly, automated, and robust compared with MyCase's CRM feature, and Pipedrive (a non-legal specific CRM).
A law firm I previously worked at used ProLaw to enter our firm's billing, sending out bills and doing reports. I only entered time using ProLaw, so I cannot go into much detail about it. However, Sage Timeslips can do a lot more than ProLaw, and it is a lot easier to enter new cases, enter time and expenses and run reports compared to ProLaw.
