Managing a law firm is no easy feat, as it involves juggling clients, casework, and your fellow lawyers — all at the same time.
Sure, case management solutions may help you run your firm like a well-oiled machine, but are they cost-effective?
Unfortunately, most law firms overpay for bloated case management software, whose clunky interfaces and needlessly complicated features only create more work.
Luckily, there are other options.
In this article, we’ll show you a viable alternative to paying thousands of dollars for case management tools each year.
Table of Contents
What is case management software?
Lawyers use case management tools to organize information about a case.
With the right law firm case management software, you can neatly centralize important data, including:
- Case documents,
- Notes,
- Time stamps,
- Calendar entries, and
- Invoices.
Consequently, you’ll be able to access relevant information quickly — allowing you to complete case-related tasks on time and with fewer errors.
Is a case management system useful?
Case management tools can be useful in busy law firms, with many complex cases requiring frequent collaboration.
Even if your law firm is well-organized, case communication can easily become unmanageable, with long email chains where specific information is hard to find.
Furthermore, co-counselors often need to share private client information without revealing it to other colleagues or third parties.
Case management tools help by keeping relevant information in one place. With a newer cloud-based solution, you can even securely access case files from your phone or tablet.
Besides document management, these software solutions may provide features related to:
- Billing and accounting,
- Scheduling,
- Time tracking,
- Client communication, and
- Task management.
Thus, quality case management programs reduce a lot of redundant legwork.
But the real question isn’t whether case management systems are useful — it’s whether their software is worth the price.
💡 CLOCKIFY PRO TIP:
Want to get better at creating invoices for your clients? Check out our guide to professional invoicing:
How much does case management software cost?
While useful, case management software for attorneys is far from affordable.
Pricing varies between providers, but most charge a hefty monthly subscription per user — not exactly small fees for a tiny firm that’s still finding its sea legs.
Let’s take Clio as an example, as it’s one of the most popular case management systems.
Clio’s basic monthly subscription costs $49 per user, even though it only includes time tracking, billing, and document management features. For 3 lawyers, you’d have to pay almost $150 per month.
The next tier, which includes client communication and scheduling options, would set you back $89 per user each month.
Sure, larger firms can get a custom quote and a discount if they pay for the whole year upfront — but it’s still a substantial expense for a small law firm.
The same is true for popular Clio alternatives. For instance, MyCase also charges a monthly subscription of $49 per user for its basic features.
Is there an affordable alternative to case management software?
If your small law firm doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a case management system each month, the good news is — you probably don’t have to.
Most of the features found in case management software for attorneys are geared toward larger firms anyway.
However, you can find most of the necessary functions in a simple, affordable time tracking app.
Time trackers: a budget-friendly alternative for managing legal workload
A time tracker like Clockify provides time tracking, task management, scheduling, and billing features — for a fraction of the cost.
Our tool helps you and your colleagues track billable and non-billable hours spent on each client.
With that information, you can automatically generate invoices and share them with clients via email — without leaving the platform.
Besides billing, you can use Clockify to schedule tasks and reassign them if necessary — ensuring everyone shares a fair load of casework.
The Projects tab within this feature provides an easy overview of casework for different clients, where each one is represented by a color-coded timeline.
You can use this view to:
- Schedule individual tasks for all clients,
- See who’s working too many hours,
- Assign and reassign lawyers to cases in real-time, and
- Share the updated schedule with the whole firm.
While you and other lawyers track time at work, Clockify automatically generates visual reports.
Among other crucial information, these reports show the profitability of each client based on billable vs. non-billable hours.
As a result, you’ll always know which cases require more attention and manpower — allowing you to assign staff accordingly.
💡 CLOCKIFY PRO TIP:
Want to manage your team’s schedule more efficiently? Check out our guide to effective team time management:
How much does Clockify cost?
Clockify’s pricing is perfect for small law firms that don’t want to invest in expensive case management solutions with tons of unnecessary features.
At $9.99 per user, the Pro monthly subscription costs almost 4 times less than the average case management tool. It also provides all the task management, scheduling, and billing features your firm needs.
While Clockify doesn’t include a file management system, the CAKE.com bundle offers additional tools — Pumble for team communication and Plaky for project management.
You can easily utilize these tools to manage and share case-related files within the firm.
Organize your time and casework with Clockify
With Clockify, your law firm will run like clockwork even without costly case management software.
You can use Clockify to:
- Track your lawyers’ work hours,
- Organize casework efficiently,
- Approve and manage PTO,
- Monitor client profitability, and
- Generate invoices automatically.
Unlike expensive law firm software, implementing Clockify literally takes minutes.
Thanks to its clean, user-friendly interface, you don’t need any experience with law practice software or other productivity tools. You’ll be able to use Clockify to improve your firm’s workflow right away.
Don’t waste money on expensive case management software you don’t need.
