PracticePanther Legal Software Reviews

Pros

Before PracticePanther we had started an Excel spreadsheet to log our contacts for conflicts checks. We created a joint email account with Gmail so our email would be centralized and that also gave us a central calendar that we all had access to in order to set appointments, record deadlines, etc. We also created a Dropbox account for file storage.

While everything was low cost or free, all the parts felt scattered. PracticePanther pulls it all together in one beautiful, user-friendly interface. Now, instead of having to pull up 5 or 6 different apps/websites, we are able to pull up just one site and have everything right there. All of the components of PracticePanther are really easy to use. The entire program is designed for efficiency and ease of use. Color-coding allows you to see and understand your financial details in mere seconds. Tasks, events, and timekeeping are easy.

Cons

I would like to see the software integrate with more programs. Quickbooks is great, but my brain works better with Wave Accounting; LawPay is great, but being able to integrate with PayPal also, would be even better. However, these are minor things and not worth seeking a different program I like as much as Practice Panther. I had shopped around quite a bit before choosing Practice Panther; I doubt I would find anything I like as much.

Hands down, our favorite thing about PracticePanther is the superior support staff. If you have a problem and leave a message after hours in the chat box, you get a response generally within the hour. There is also training videos and a help center that will help you find the help that you need.

Pros

I love how seamless this software makes my practice. It is so user-friendly. The client portal is wonderful, and I love how the accounting features are organized. Customer service is amazing. The templates feature saves me countless hours. The tasks feature really keeps me on track. I love how you can link relationships, create emails that sync automatically with the matter, and create events that send text notifications to clients. The support is quick and always friendly and helpful. The e-signature feature is also really cool.

Cons

(1) the phone app should be able to have multiple timers up at once, so you can go back and forth between working on different projects, like the desktop version.
(2) The "history" section at the bottom of matters should include time entry descriptions. I cannot stress that enough. I do not use the "history" section at all as it is currently operating, but it would be invaluable if that one change was made! If time entry descriptions were included, the "history" section would actually tell me the history of the work that's been done on the matter.
(3) We need a better text integration that's part of Practice Panther, so that clients can text us through the software, or something like how we can create a new email that links with the matter, but for texting.
(4) Company contacts - love the idea, but when you link a subordinate member of a company contact to a matter, the only email address you can actually auto-populate is the number one contact of the company contact. It's very annoying. I've had to create separate individual contacts for all the members of a company contact. Like for court services, I would like to be able to have all the employees of court services under the Court Services company contact, and then be able to link the particular officer assigned to supervise my particular client. But right now I have to link the court services company contact AND the individual contact to be able to send emails to the correct officer.

Alternatives Considered

Clio

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

I felt like Practice Panther was just as good as Clio, but more cost appropriate for my smaller firm. Also, I liked that I always have the option to figure things out myself, or with a virtual helper, instead of having to call support. The same was true with the purchasing experience. I didn't get bombarded with phone calls, but I knew someone would be available to speak with me if I wanted to have a conversation. I felt that spoke volumes to the kind of company you are and the understanding and respect you have for your customers' time.

Pros

It's easy to learn the basics. The calendar is good, it's helpful that they show tasks there. Searching is great. It's totally adequate if all you do is bill for time and integrate with Quickbooks.

Cons

Panther has no report on Items (e.g. how much of your revenue is from Document Drafting vs Litigation). To get such a report, you MUST integrate with Quickbooks. But the biggest problem is that Fixed Price billing (what they call "Flat Fee") is worthless.

Fixed Price billing was clearly an afterthought, and their implementation has not changed at all since the early days when I started using it: 1) It does not let you assign an Item as you can with time entries, so you can't easily tell Quickbooks that a Fixed Price invoice was for a trademark application, not doc review; 2) You can't assign a lawyer to a Fixed Price billing, so you cannot get a report to help you pay everyone proportionally to their Fixed Price billings; 3) Fixed Price matters become immediately billable even if no work has been done, so you must manually keep track of when it's time to invoice for a Fixed Price matter, and there's no report on billable Fixed Price matters; 4) When entering time on a Fixed Price matter, there's way no way to check whether you are about to exceed the budget, and no way anywhere to compare budgeted vs actual.

If you're a modern firm moving to fixed price as much as possible, you'll spend a LOT of time looking for work-arounds, and you'll find that implementing your work-arounds will chew up any time saving you might have gotten from using the rest of the software.

I can't wait to change to software that does Fixed Price right.

Pros

I like that all of the information on a particular file is saved in one place for all employees to access and that I can access the information remotely.

Cons

I think that the billing aspect could use some improvement. The current billing is confusing for clients and not ideal for cases that are completed yet still have an outstanding balance.

Pros

I've been a PracticePanther user for four years now. The most important factor in my selecting PracticePanther was the ease of use. With my prior software, I had to hire independent contractors and pay for "maintenance agreements" just to have access to the help desk. With PracticePanther, their support team can assist. More important, they have videos that will walk you through the process of setting up the various systems and integrations. Finally, I love the integrations. PracticePanther integrates with Microsoft Office, Box, Dropbox and Quickbooks. Your information stays in it's original locate with seamless access from PracticePanther.

Cons

Initially, there was a big push to produce new features. I'm not seeing new features coming out as frequently. However, I would note the quality of the new features, e.g., workflows with conditional logic and e-signatures.

Pros

I like being able to bill, take credit/debit card payments, and tell clients their balance with the app while in court. There are simple reports and a great dashboard to see how much is outstanding, to be billed, and the amount in my trust account. Practice panther has cut down on the time it takes for billing and made my office more efficient.

Cons

I print checks directly from practice panther, which takes several steps, but it makes it easy to add the cost to the client's billing. I would like the software to allow a report of vendors/payees' payments over various time periods as it does with tags and categories.

Alternatives Considered

Clio

Reasons for Choosing PracticePanther Legal Software

I used to use quick books for billing, but it is not as geared to attorneys as practice panther. Contingency cases were especially difficult. Practice panther even has a feature for evergreen retainers.

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

quick books was overly cumbersome with numerous unnecessary features. Practice panther has needed features for a law firm that are not available in quick books. It is much easier to use than quick books.

Pros

I like the intuitive interface, clean look, and the ability to customize my own workflows.

Cons

I would like to see a private server capability added in instead of having to rely on Box. One that we can access via VPN would be helpful. I wish we could add in a bit more automation customization. For example, I would like to be able to send my clients a customized email with attachments and helpful info before specific events, rather than the generic reminder email. I would also like the ability to create conditional logic in certain events.

Alternatives Considered

Clio

Reasons for Choosing PracticePanther Legal Software

There was much more functionality and customization available with PP than Abacus.

Switched From

Abacus Private Cloud

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

The main reason I initially chose it was price and interface look. Now I wouldn't change for anything because it is constantly evolving with my firm's growth and provides all the support we need.

Pros

They add features on a regular basis and have loads of training. The support staff is super helpful and if they don't know the answer they will try to find it. I understand that every system is different and every one has it's pros and cons. I really think once we utilize every single feature this program has we will be a much better law firm.

Cons

The email integrations phase in and out on working. It may simply be the plugin I have for Gmail but that can be a struggle.

Alternatives Considered

CosmoLex and Clio

Reasons for Choosing PracticePanther Legal Software

Leap was far too expensive for what they provided.

Switched From

LEAP

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

The pricing and some of the features. I think Cosmolex may have the accounting side better locked down but I liked the ease of PracticePanther.

Pros

PracticePanther has helped keep my firm organized. We handle a large number of cases and we needed software that could help us manage them all, stay on top of tasks, and store information efficiently. PracticePanther has also been key in allowing for rapid growth in my practice.

My favorite feature is the payment plans through PantherPayments. My collections are significantly higher than some of my colleagues and it helped simplify this process. We can easily set up payment plans that automatically pull funds from a credit card or bank account which means I don't have to spend a ton of time chasing clients for money that I could be spending on their case.

Cons

I started out practicing solo and quickly grew to more staff. Every firm has growing pains, so I was initially worried about acclimating new staff to PracticePanther. Thankfully, those hesitations were put at bay and we've been able to use the platform with ease.

Alternatives Considered

Clio

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

I researched several different software options, such as Clio, before making my final decision. I found that PracticePanther provides all of the same features as Clio and more, but at half the price. No other software in PracticePanther’s price range is anywhere near as robust.

Pros

Helps me manage my solo practice all by myself. My clients are satisfied with their client portal and ability to send me messages.

Cons

I would like to be able to make payment plan invoices for my clients, so I do not have to remind them to pay every month. Most clients would not want to set up automatic payments, so with payment plan invoices, it would help alot and relieve the burden of reminding clients every month, that a payment needs to be made.

Alternatives Considered

MyCase and Clio

Reasons for Choosing PracticePanther Legal Software

Product deleted some of my info and there was no one to help.

Switched From

Volody Case Manager

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

The many possible integrations and ease of use.

Pros

Practice Panther has a fairly intuitive interface for daily billing entries, templates for monthly billing and accounting for your trust and operating accounts for your clients. The learning curve was minimal in comparison to other systems I tried and the program was more responsive over other programs I tried over the internet. Tech Support and help files are easily available on every page. I found daily entries both fast and easy and the online billing system linked with LawPay is magnificent and has worked flawlessly for me. I was very skeptical of "secure" cloud-based billing and accounting but after more than a year it would take a lot to pull me away from Practice Panther.

Cons

There are two cons to this software to be aware of. First, there is no single backup system to backup and restore all your files with just a few clicks. While complete backup is available, it requires you to go through far too many steps to make sure you back up everything. I have not yet had to restore anything to Practice Panther but I am wary that a system that requires multiple steps could have glitches in trying to restore from their backups. It is more than possible that if a restoration were required it might involve more "downtime" for a practitioner than he or she would like in order to get back up and running. This is where I think they need to most work. Secondarily, their billing review system has an issue that will throw practitioners off. If you create a bill several months ago and you go back to look at the bill to see what the retainer balance was at the time of that bill, the historical bill actually pulls up the retainer that exists now. That should not occur on a historical bill. Once a bill has been saved, the bill should not change unless you intentionally change other things in your billing. An old bill should never show the current balance of the retainer. It should show the remaining balance of the retainer at the time the specific bill is generated.

Pros

The software sure does “look” nice. But it really missed the boat on some of the more nuanced features of a law practice. For example, when applying a discount to an invoice, the discount must be applied to the total invoice (fees AND costs). Discounts cannot be applied to just the fees. Why in the world would any attorney want to apply a discount to client costs advanced on behalf of the client??? When I inquired about this, their answer was “just put in a discounted custom rate for the matter”. This response is completely unacceptable since I may only want to apply a discount to one invoice rather than all work done on the matter! This is just one small example of the half hearted attempt of this company to make a legal management software. This is just one of several problems with the “features” of the software. The timers are always so buggy. The software is just not refined at all. None of the features were well thought out. It’s like the programmers decided “Hey! This is a cool feature to add!” But never really fined tuned any of them to a fully functioning feature that could work well. They all sort of work to only about 50-60 percent functionality. It should not come as any surprise, though, since neither the founders nor anyone else on the management team has any experience in the legal industry. The company would be well served to hire some actual attorneys to advise them on how to fine tune their software to make it a truly great legal software.

Cons

The lack of any real understanding of the nuances of a legal practice by the founders and creators of the company and software.

Pros

I love the IT help, the invoicing system and the templates feature. I had a lot of questions and needed a lot of help in the beginning. Being able to schedule times to discuss my issues with the IT guys at PracticePanther was great. The fact that they can take over your computer remotely so they can see what you see in real time is even better. Their response time to non-scheduled issues is pretty fast. I have also found their FAQs and how to videos to be extremely helpful but having a live person to speak with who can access your computer is just as good as having someone standing next to me while I work.

The invoicing system is phenomenal. It keeps track of all of my client banking accounts. I can see at any time how much is in my IOLTA account, how much is in my operating account, how much a client owes, how much a client has paid and how much I have billed a client but not yet invoiced. I can do this client by client, matter by matter or as an overall total. LawPay is free if you sign up through PracticePanther which is awesome because it handles my credit card transactions and when a client pays, it automatically updates my invoicing and accounts. PracticePanther also knows how to deduct things from a client's retainer when sending out an invoice so you don't have to worry about that either. Their timing device feeds right into the system. It is awesome.

Pros

never any data corruption issues like Timeslips. Time consuming backups not necessary, can have users tracking time while billing is being run.
Web Based and can enter time tracking from anywhere on any computer or on your phone.

Cons

Some report features not available but over the past two years greater functionality has continued to be added

Alternatives Considered

Clio

Reasons for Choosing PracticePanther Legal Software

pricing and customer support

Switched From

Sage Timeslips

Reasons for Switching to PracticePanther Legal Software

ease of use, recommendations and price

Pros

It's very intuitive which makes it easy to use.
It integrates well with Law Pay.

Cons

It gets hung up a lot.
The program is down for long stretches during the workday.

Pros

There are too many to list. On the top - great customer service. I'll say that again - great customer service! Ability to have Panther open in two or more screens to perform various tasks at the same time. Ease of use. Being able to create work flows. Customizable (not sure if that's a word, but it is true.) Multiple time entry screen. Being able to export time and expense entries into an Excel spreadsheet. Mobile app for on the go. Tasks and deadline reminders to my cell phone. Oh - and a great price! Plus the Practice Panther team is always updating and improving the software. Tutorials? Super helpful.

Cons

Probably the most annoying thing is that when I come in to work the dashboard is not updated to reflect the new day. I have to refresh. There are a few fields that don't let me edit them (because I messed them up and now want to clean them up). Um.... maybe when I lose my time entries because the computer goes down, but I'm not sure I attribute that to Panther. Perhaps an auto save in the background?

Pros

This is a really easy to use program, that covers everything from client information, billing, document management, time tracking, and reports that are actually used a lot and simple to both run and understand. It comprehensively runs our entire office and makes our jobs A LOT easier. Plus, it's accessible from any phone, tablet or computer wherever you are.

Cons

E-mails pose a little difficulty in responding back and forth, because you have to start a new e-mail each time, although it may be because we don't have ours set up right. But it's still workable, and when they are saved into the program, it's as clean and easy to use as the rest of the program.

Pros

We are just getting started with the software and have been implementing only for a few weeks. I will update my experience again in about one month.
Although we were efficient, we were not hyper-efficient before Practice Panther. Also, although we are a very systematic firm with set processes, our significant growth made it impossible for us to sustain the systems without a practice management software. From what I have seen, Practice Panther allows us to become hyper efficient because of the following:
1. We are now able to input data one time rather than several times allowing our staff to work on more things and learn more substantive tasks.
2. Inputting information then populates forms and sets up matters.
3. We are able to task and monitor the tasks without relying on memory, sticky notes, pads of paper and task lists.
4. All of the information is now in one place without the need of navigating through various portions of our database.
5. Our clients are happy with the immediate availability and access to their documents without having to request it via email and the ability to communicate through the portal.
6. I believe that the system will allow us to increase capacity and scale our practice.Our model is simple. We try to make the experience for our clients seamless and effortless through the use of portals and constant access to the resources of our firm. The technology will allow us to compete against larger firms.

Pros

The product is very intuitive -- making it easy to use from the start. We had no problem transitioning our staff from the old system. We did not import our old data, so I cannot speak to that process. The other thing that I like about Practice Panther is the responsiveness of the customer service team, the availability of tutorials and other resources, and the willingness of Practice Panther to take suggestions for improvement and actually implement them.

Cons

Conflicts checks are a little clunky, but they do run names through the entire system. Reports were difficult to navigate for me, but I'm sure there are tutorials for that. I was impressed by the fact that the company offered to prepare report forms for whatever we need that isn't already included.

Pros

So many features and components of administering a law practice are included with PracticePanther that make the daily operation of the business more efficient. I used to use separate billing software, calendaring software - including court calendars for assorted federal and state courts, and task management software. PracticePanther replaced all of them and combines them in an easy to use format. Plus with the credit card payment feature, I now get paid faster (more than 14 days quicker on average) than I have ever been before. It is like having a part-time office administrator on staff.

Cons

I love PracticePanther's suite of features, but I wish it interfaced with my factual and legal research software so that engaging in online research could be automatically timed and the results saved in a way that is accessible through the PracticePanther website. For example, I use CaseText and if PracticePanther had an interface with CaseText, whenever I logged in to do research, I could enter the matter code and the time I researched was automatically billed to that matter and any cases I downloaded were linked to the matter in PracticePanther, I would be even more effective and efficient in getting work done and getting paid for it.

Pros

This software is great right out of the box, so to speak; there is no box. But as I have needed something extra I have made suggestions and the company actually improves the program. New additions come up as other users make suggestions as well. The program is very intuitive and therefore easy to learn and use when you are a new user. But with time I have learned that it can do so much more than I realized at first. The customer support is great at teaching users how to do some new task and the You Tube training videos is a great way to learn how to make your practice more efficient using options that you might not otherwise know are available. Overall, this is the best law office management software I have used over the last 15 years.

Cons

Rarely, there have been times when I wanted to create a report that the program was not able to generate and I would need to export a current report to excel and then modify or add data to get the report that I needed.

Pros

The dashboard allows me to see, at a glance, my productivity and earnings for the month. I can add important calendar dates and reminders to the page quickly and get a high-level view of everything that I am working on at the time.

Practice Panther also integrates with Google calendar, mail, and apps which is great. It allows me to assign emails to certain folders in gmail and then see the communication string within the program. I can put a calendar entry on my phone while away and it will sync into the app.

It is a great tool to help track and grow my practice.

Cons

As I mentioned above, Practice Panther is newer than the others. There are some features that are coming down the pipeline, but not implemented yet. For instance, the trust accounting process is a little buggy. Some features take some getting used to, but all of this is countered by the fact that they are friendly, nice, and excited to make the program the best it can be.

Overall, well done Practice Panther!

Pros

Easy to integrate from previous case management system, and a dream to use since doing so. Couldn't ask for a better, more user friendly product.

Cons

Only thing we haven't liked is the ability to calendar multiple cases on one event, but PracticePanther software developers have promised to look into this feature.

Pros

There is absolutely nothing about this platform that I like. Simple features like searching the calendar aren't intuitive and barely work. When you contact the support with issues you get the standard refrain: We don't have that problem when we use the software.

Cons

This program was launched long before it was ever ready for primetime. Simple features like searching the calendar are things they're "working on." This software is buggy, requires the user to frequently log in-and-out, shutting down browsers, restarting etc. Absolute garbage.