Law Firm Software

Categories of Law Firm Software

Here at Uptime Legal, we spend considerable time helping law firms navigate the world of small law firm legal software.  A recurring theme is confusion around the different types of law firm software, and specifically which categories of software do what.  

Often we’ll hear that a law firm is disappointed because their newly-acquired law firm software product wasn’t meeting their needs or expectations… only to find out that they purchased the wrong category of software.

For instance, a law firm might be exploring Practice Management software and see Document Management listed as an included feature for a contender only to find out that the included “Document Management” is little more than built-in basic online storage.

Similarly, Practice Management products that purport to include “Accounting” may be limited to billing and a general operating account.

While this article will cover numerous categories of software for lawyers, it’s important to understand that the core of law firm software generally falls into one of three categories:

Practice Management, Document Management, Accounting

We call this the Three-Legged Stool of Law Firm Software.  The confusion comes in that each of these three discreet and differentiated categories of software do overlap with one another.

It’s important to understand the differences (and the overlap) in these three primary silos of law firm software.  Before spending time evaluating small law firm legal software, clearly identify which of these three categories of functionality your firm requires.

What Are the Different Types of Software for Lawyers?

As mentioned, most legal software falls under the categories of practice management, document management, and accounting.

These are vast categories that can be broken down into more specific tasks, which is where they overlap. For example, practice management and document management software may both have features that are intended to boost productivity.

While this may not be ideal for some, and it can seem misleading, it’s not without reason.

The software that claim to handle multiple tasks that would fall under more than one of the main categories we mentioned above tend to be limited in their functionality. But that may be ideal for a law firm that needs a full-featured practice management software with limited accounting features.

With this important distinction out of the way, let’s dig into the top law firm applications within each category of small law firm legal software.

Documents, Email, Collaboration

Productivity is the bedrock of law firm software.  Productivity software generally encompasses the tools your team will use day-to-day, and includes word processing, spreadsheets and presentation, email, and sometimes tools to keep these resources organized.

In addition to providing basic word processing, spreadsheet and email apps, some law firm productivity platforms serve as the working hub of your law firm.

Time Tracking, Expense Tracking, Invoicing

After productivity, the next law firm software a new firm tends to implement is time tracking and billing software.

Most, if not all Practice Management applications (which we’ll cover shortly) include time and billing.  However, some firms don’t want or need everything that comes with a full-fledged Practice Management suite, and instead want a stand-alone time & billing app.  For those firms, we’ll cover the top (mostly) pure time & billing products.

This is particularly true for law firms looking at small law firm legal software.

Time & Billing software  typically include the following functionality:

Clients, Contacts, Cases, Calendaring, Billing

Practice Management software lives at the center of many law firm’s technology toolbox. Practice Management software typically handles a law firms clients and contacts, case management, calendaring, document creation, time tracking, billing and accounting.

There are many applications to choose from today: Some focus more on “front-office” functionality (case management and calendaring), others focus more on “back-office” workflow (billing and accounting.)

There are well over 25 reputable Law Practice Management products in the market today.  We’ll cover the top 7 in our law firm software review, and will provide a link to the complete list at the end of this section.

Practice management software typically include the following functionality:

Explore More Practice Management Products

These represent our view of the top practice management products within the broader scope of law firm software.  To see even more small law firm legal software, specifically practice/case management, check out our list of all of the law practice management products.

Simple online storage for law firm documents

Next in our roundup of the best law firm software, we’ll explore cloud storage platforms.

These are online document storage systems that are simple, both in terms of ease of use and in terms of features.  If your law firm is looking for secure cloud storage, but needs a very light feature set, one of these products might be a good fit within your law firm software toolbox.

Cloud storage platforms typically include the following functionality:

Business Accounting, Trust Accounting, Financial Reporting

Next in our roundup of the best law firm software, we’ll cover legal accounting software.

These are applications that (in most cases) focus on the specific accounting needs of law firms (such as trust accounting), or general-purpose accounting software applications commonly used by law firms.

Accounting law firm software typically include the following functionality:

Full-Text Search, Version Management, Email Management

Next in our roundup of the best software for lawyers, we’ll cover legal document management software.

Document Management Systems (sometimes referred to as a DMS) is software that stores documents and provides more robust tools to manage them than you would otherwise see in basic cloud storage or practice management software.

Document management software can come in either an on-premise variety (installed on your own local servers) or can be cloud-based. The scope, features and capabilities of any given legal document management software varies from product to product; though broadly speaking, legal document management software performs the following functions:

Sales Pipeline Management, Intake Forms

Next in our roundup of the best law firm software, we’ll cover CRM & intake software.

A traditional CRM serves as a basic database of customers and prospective customers.  More importantly, most CRM’s provide sales pipeline functionality, where you can track incoming “leads” (prospective customers), and manage communications and outreach.

Law firm intake software provides functionality to automate portions of the intake process, and usually includes practice-area specific forms and questionnaires for clients.

CRM and Intake are two discreet functions, but go well together in a single piece of software.  Most law firm CRM & intake applications include:

Sales Pipeline Management, Intake Forms

Next in our roundup of the best law firm software, we’ll cover online payment processing solutions.

Getting paid is an important part of running a law firm, so having on online payment service is vital to growing and sustaining your law practice. Online payment services make paying your firm easy for your clients and automated for you.

Legal-centric online payment services, like the ones we explore below, will cater to the unique needs of law firms, including dealing with trust accounts and ABA billing codes. Online payment services are more than just cloud software for law firms, they are a service that provides payment clearing, authorization and other financial tools to help manage your practice.

Taking, Organizing & Searching Notes

Next in our roundup of the best law firm software, we’ll cover popular note-taking software.

Note-taking apps do more than just replace the old legal pad: they bring a new level of organization, functionality and note-taking on the go.

Features of note-taking applications often include the following functionality:

Law Firm Software – Conclusion

There you have it, our overview of the top law firm software.  This list of applications should be useful whether you’re starting a new firm and just building your legal tech stack, or are a mature law firm looking to modernize your law firm software.

What did we miss?  What categories would you like to see covered?  What favorite law firm software did we not cover?  Let us know in the comments below.

Onward and Upward!