Firm Central Erfahrungen

A great system that may one day be magnificent.

Kommentare: Client/Matter management and organization. Document builder. Time/Expense billing and accounting.

Vorteile:

Potentially any firm could be run on Firm Central almost exclusively. It's designed to contain anything and everything a firm could administratively need, and succeeds on most levels in that regard. Customer service has been exceptional as well. Each member of the team that I have spoken to has been consistently helpful. In situations where they could not help me with my concerns, they took the information I provided back to their team to implement features on my recommendation - they even called me personally and excitedly announced the implementation of those features.

Nachteile:

Some of the features show great potential; however, they remain half-measures and are therefore left underutilized. For example, the platform offers a cloud drive functionality that automatically creates folders for each client and matter - but then nothing is actually saved in those folders automatically. The document builder only saves user input, not the document itself, and so the document must be downloaded and saved manually - and you're going to want to save them locally anyways, because anything saved in the Firm Central drive cannot be consistently accessed by other applications (e.g. e-filing service websites). There are many other ambitious features here that will remain underutilized, but I've seen improvements just in the few months that I've been working with the program. Time will tell if these features will be fully implemented and incorporated into Firm Central's functionality.

Excellent Case Management Software if integrated with Westlaw & Custom Forms etc.

Kommentare: Overall, our firm has had a great experience with Firm Central, but that is largely because of the additional add on products we integrated with Firm Central (Custom Form Builder, Company Investigator, Westlaw). If it was not for those seamlessly integrating with each matter it would not be worth the price.

Vorteile:

This is a great Case Management system if your willing to invest the money to purchase the add on's like Custom Forms, Westlaw, Company investigator and etc. It can get extremely expensive however, our Firm saw the financial benefits in several ways once we committed to using all its features. The biggest benefit was the ability to automate the Custom Form Builder from data out of Firm Central.

Nachteile:

The Firm Central Plug in for Outlook was terrible and unreliable. Firm Central should have put more focus on that aspect of the software because Lawyers and law firms live out of their email.

You'll never get away from it

Kommentare: Adding additional users is an excruciatingly long process. Imagine having new employees that you're paying almost $20 an hour, but they're just twiddling their thumbs for over a week while you wait for your Westlaw Sales rep to return from a vacation and get to your e-mail asking them to add the new employee as a user. When they get to the e-mail, it takes the Westlaw system at least three days to get the new user set up after you've signed yet another new Westlaw extension contract just so you can add the new user. It's like having to extend your cellphone service contract by a year everytime you get another phone. But cellphone service doesn't cost anything as much as this does. Our bill is over $1,700 a month for the Firm Central, Westlaw and all the other stuff they add onto it so you get a "discount" for multiple subscriptions. I would never recommend this program to my worst enemy, and regret the day I signed up for it. Had I gone with Amicus, at least I could have taken all my data and ported it over to Clio, MyCase, or any other practice management software years ago.

Vorteile:

When it was introduced, there was nothing else on the market like it except the then-clunky Amicus Attorney that was server-based only. This was the first cloud-based practice management solution. So the cloud-based aspect of it is what drew me in over 9 years ago.

Nachteile:

Unfortunately, it's like West has abandoned this program. They tied all access to it to your Westlaw subscription. So any time your firm grows and you need to add another user, it takes at least two to three business days just to add the additional user, because they have to contact your sales rep so they can write a new contract to extend your Westlaw contract to add the other user. In the meantime, we've been asking them to add additional features for years, but nothing new has been implemented that I can recall since it was first introduced. We've since changed to Clio, but -- while we could export our clients, contacts, and matters data, the actual documents in each matter cannot be exported. For this reason, we'll never be able to move completely from Firm Central since they effectively OWN YOUR CLIENTS' DOCUMENTS, and your firm's e-mails and documents forever. We've asked several times what happens with the data when we close the firm/retire/die, and no one has a good answer. Apparently it's not even as good as a Facebook account which can be archived and downloaded for eternal access if needed. Once you stop paying, thousands of documents, records, and gigabytes of data are simply gone. For this reason alone, I warn everyone to stay away from FirmCentral.

Project management team has been incredible and made our transition seamless.

Kommentare: Total firm management from one platform and scalable for a big firm with lots of cases. Project management team has been an absolute godsend for us!

Vorteile:

The platform is so intuitive and the customization is superb. The system is quick and we have everything we need at our fingertips to run our firm for the foreseeable future. I am blown away by how professional, prompt and helpful Project management team assigned to my account has been.I can't say enough good things about the team. they have gone above and beyond what I expected from Firm Central and stepped into the shoes of the tech assigned for my migration since he was away on vacation. Team helped us troubleshoot the migration process and we are up and running already with over 730 active lawsuits! AMAZING CUSTOMER SERVICE!

Nachteile:

I would love a "batch" time entry option for the cases in which one task has been performed/applies to all.

This program is easy to use because it is intuitive

Kommentare: It saves me a lot of time because it is much easier to use than other programs.

Vorteile:

Speaking from the perspective of a small firm, this software is ideal for time keeping and billing. It is easy to open a client and a matter, and to generate invoices. It is easy to access off-site. The ease of use and portability to different devices makes it more likely that you will capture your time because you can just do it on the spot (e.g., in court) I also like that my client information is kept on TR servers rather than in the Cloud.

Nachteile:

I would like more flexibility in terms of layout. For example, I would like to be able to make my calendar bigger on the home page, and I would like to have a bigger field for entering time from a Matter page (as opposed to from a time-sheet) so I do not have to scroll down to complete the entry

SAVE YOURSELF THE AGGRAVATION - DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT

Kommentare: Firm Central has been a complete disaster for my firm. I have a small (6 attorney) immigration law boutique practice and have been in business for 10 years. When we were considering changing our client database management system, we had a wish list of things we needed a new system to do that would be an improvement over our previous system. When presented multiple times to the sales person Thompson Reuters sent over to us, he assured us repeatedly that it could do what we needed it to. Turns out, after we signed the long term expensive contract, it was mostly lies. We got jobbed big time. After a while of using it, frustration mounting, costs rising, we got the IT guys on the phone to help us figure out what we were doing wrong. The sales person was so convincing, we kept thinking it must have been user error. We tried training, doing things different ways, etc., and nothing worked. When we connected with the IT guys, most of our conversation was met with responses of, "Nope, it can't do that. Never could, never will. What made you guys think it could?" It was crazy. So, realizing it was not going to work for us, and that we had been sold a bill of goods by the sales person, we confronted Thompson Reuters and requested that we be let out of the contract. Fat chance. They told us to shove it, not caring that we were lied to by the sales person. Apparently, that was his responsibility, it's on him and us for being suckers enough to believe what we were told. So here we are, stuck with paying tons of money for a product that is counterproductive to our business. Please don't get suckered like we did. Amusingly, we got a call from someone whose only job is to call people to find out why they are cancelling. The person actually admitted that to us. So many people cancel that they have people employed just to find out why. Don't buy it.

Vorteile:

Actually we had a very good experience, the only one, with the off boarding customer service folks. They were very nice and really helpful. Made it easy to get everything moved over from Firm Central to our new system that actually works.

Nachteile:

Everything about it. The sales people say anything to get the sale, and you will pay whether it works for you as sold or not.

firm central not as user friendly as I thought

Vorteile:

client portal for access to records so that you did not have to share the documents via email with client they could log in securely to see them

Nachteile:

we purchased the program a few years ago and integrated it with our office, after a very difficult integration the program did not integrate with MS Outlook in the "very near future" as we were told. so we discontinued after contract was up and changed to Clio

Excellent customer service and a great product.

Kommentare: This software saved us from a previous software that crashed.

Vorteile:

Outstanding Functionality & Features. The product is always improving and they take the time to review suggestions from their clients and implement these ideas into the product.

Nachteile:

A few hiccups here and there but nothing that could not be resolved in a reasonable amount of time. As with any product it could be user error by simply not understanding the full capacity of the product.

Time-Saving and Efficient

Kommentare: We are better able to keep track of overdue invoices and unbilled time and it's much faster-sending invoices to client's because so much information can be kept in one place. Also, the support I have received from the support team and their responsiveness to questions/concerns I have had are very much appreciated. They have helped to make our transition from Ebillity to Firm Central and enjoyable one.

Vorteile:

The way the software groups all matters together and shows the matter balance and unbilled time, which makes it easy to select client's that need to be billed.

Nachteile:

I wish the software had the ability to have a window pop up to quickly input time entry's for multiple clients like Ebillity does, but it is just something to get used to.

Not worth the cost

Vorteile:

Very little in terms of pros. You can use the calendar, task management, it is a secure portal and for billing and invoicing.

Nachteile:

You need to be a Westlaw customer for you to use this. It is at a high price and not worth the hassle of it. It does not provide the best way to use the system and nor is it client friendly.

Not overly pleased with the Thoms Reuters products

Vorteile:

It gets the job done and I do not have a lot to compare it to really. For the scope I use it, it is average in my opinion.

Nachteile:

It is slow and very glitchy. The customer service has not been helpful.

It sucks you in and won't let go except for a price

Kommentare: We've been using Firm Central for 16 months. The reason I know exactly how long we've been using it is because I had to sign a contract for 3 years. You see, West ties Firm Central to your WestlawNext and Doc & Form Building subscriptions, so each time you want to add a new employee as a user, you are required to renew your contract for all of the products you have from them. Therefore, your contract will never end so long as your firm keeps growing. If that employee leaves and you no longer need them to be a user on the system, they don't then shorten the contract back to its prior term, however.

Vorteile:

Easy to use and intuitive. The link to WestlawNext and Doc & Form Builder is very helpful, but it's not enough to make it worth the price. The Deadline Assistant integration is very helpful as well. But all of these programs can be used separate and apart from Firm Central, so don't feel like you have to buy Firm Central to get access to them.

Nachteile:

Yes, they advertise that it's only $40 per month per user. However, it requires a contractual commitment to get this system. Then, if you have any other West products tied to it, that means that if you ever need to add another user, they will renew your contract for everything tied to that user name and password that you needed for Firm Central. It's a complete racket, and when your bill is almost $1,600 per MONTH for what they provide, every month of extension of the contract is very expensive when your firm has one lawyer and one paralegal. On the technology: it doesn't work on Outlook running in Terminal Server (RDP), and it's wonky even on the desktop. The add-ins do not work with Outlook for Mac, and there is no way to "pack up" or export a matter onto a thumb drive or into the cloud so that you can take it with you to court. There's no way to export matters so that you can transfer them to an associate who is leaving the firm. You have to down load all of the documents, print out all notes, and otherwise go through a lot of hassle to move an associate from your firm to another one. Also, if you had ProDoc prior to Firm Central, it will import all of your data from all of the files you had previously opened in ProDoc. In my case, that was over 1,500 matters. Now I am finally down to 1,200 "open" matters in Firm Central, but there is no way to mass-close multiple matters at once. So it requires me to spend about 20 seconds per matter to close each one. Do the math.

Hate this product

Vorteile:

I can do legal research. Of course, I get a free research tool with my bar dues so that really isn't that great of a benefit.

Nachteile:

Trust and billing component not user friendly. No evergreen trust feature, client complain about bills. The program recently started deleting court dates from the calendar and deleting documents. I have contacted the company regarding terminating the contract as they are unable to fix their program. I had to call ten different times and was told that unless the issue occurs while we are on the phone with you, we can't help you. For years, they did not even have a "void bill" feature. If you make a mistake entering a check, you cannot edit it.

Inadequate billing software

Kommentare: I worked in multiple businesses and own my own business. Therefore, when I started working at my husband's law office, I was shocked to see the subpar billing system. During the first year of owning this software, I had to manually take a calculator to calculate the finance charge and then go into each invoice to manually type in the amount into the invoice. Then they decided to FINALLY add a finance charge option, however, it batches the finance charge assuming all open matters should have a finance charge applied. However, in a Michigan law office, you must have a fee agreement in place in order to assess finance charges. Therfore, I would have to go into the 1300 opened matters individually, to "de-select" the matter if they don't have a signed fee agreement in place. I have spent two years trying to understand why the development team feels it's not a priority to fix this. I have numerous emails and countless hours on the phone trying to work with them while they "fix the bugs".

Vorteile:

Attorneys and legal assistants can enter their time directly into the client's matter.

Nachteile:

Everything about the accounts receivable and finance charge aspect. Also, uploading pdfs into each matter is time-consuming.

Worst product ever

Kommentare: Customer service is horrible. I had to jump through hoops regarding the calendar issue and they were not able to fix the problem. Using this software was the worst mistake I ever made.

Vorteile:

There are no pros. This was the most difficult software to use and customer support was horrible. They were never able to fix their issues. Each time I would call for a problem with the product, I was told that they would have to have someone up the chain call me. 2-3 days later I might get a return call.

Nachteile:

The software would constantly delete the events on my calendar. The billing portion was difficult to use in that you had to transfer money by client and could not do a batch transfer.

Great all in one platform

Vorteile:

The integration with westlaw researching is great. Firm central documents display when conducting westlaw research so you essentially can look on your own system for information while searching westlaw. The customer support is great, but if it's after business hours the 24/7 support is farmed overseas, which is similar to no customer service at all.

Nachteile:

There are several small bugs in the software. You cannot drag and drop files from an email into firm central sometimes. the load time for larger files is unusually long despite a fast internet connection. Displaying the pages and moving from page to page is not instantaneous and takes too long

Good idea in theory, but still has bugs that need to be worked out.

Kommentare: Overall I would not recommend this product. Work disappears from the software, and in a lawfirm this is unacceptable. The software needs to be 100% reliable.

Vorteile:

I like that it is cloud based, perfect for small firms. It integrates with Outlook to schedule calendar items. You are able to work remotely becuase it is cloud based.

Nachteile:

There are many bugs. The desktop application is often just gone from the explorer menu, things you import disappear or never upload to begin with. I am still waiting for TR to figure out why my documents just disappear.

Buyer's Remorse

Kommentare: We especially liked the status feed. Customer service was fantastic. We just couldn't make operations run smoothly with most of our users on Macs. The WL integration was a big plus, but didn't outweigh the loss of other integrations.

Vorteile:

Very stable platform, no glitches or bugs. Love the customizable dashboard for matters and the "status" feed on each matter.

Nachteile:

While "usable" on a Mac, it caused us a lot of version control issues. Mac users must download, save locally, and re-upload. We thought this was manageable inconvenience, but found that because one often downloads the same document, one's local drive will rename the file by adding (1) to the end of the file name, for example. If you want to maintain version control, you have to delete any local copies to save the file using the same name before you download. Far to labor intensive. Also, even though we are using lots of Westlaw products, the integration with WL wasn't worth the loss of integration with all other platforms. And once you sign the contract, you are stuck with it. No month to month option.

A Good Start

Kommentare: It gave us a strong platform to work from

Vorteile:

I like the look and feel of the program. I like the stability. I love Deadline Assistant and I love the West Support

Nachteile:

I really dislike the program because it has no email integration. Given that this is Firm Central, not having an email integration is not very "CENTRAL". I need a color-coded calendar, I also need an app that I actually can use on my smartphone. The current semi app really is not a good fit.

Not what we expected.

Kommentare: I would not recommend it.

Vorteile:

The sales presentation was good. The software itself has not performed well.

Nachteile:

It is not fully integrated with outlook - so every update to FC also has to be updated to outlook. Rule updates come late - our state revised its rule and gave 7 months notice of the rule change, FC is still making rule changes 3 months after implementation of the new rules. Service requests are poorly handled and we often get bumped from one person to another who just want to talk about the experience. We still experience mistakes in calendaring (sometimes extra days are added for no apparent reason) and we end up having to double check everything which defeats the purpose of getting this software.

My 2 1/2 Year Experience With Firm Central

Kommentare: Overall, I have been pleased with the features offered by Firm Central. I like the ease of saving and retrieving files stored in matters, and it is fairly easy to open new client files and matters.

Vorteile:

Creating client files and sub-files. It is pretty intuitive, and I can find just about everything that I have saved. The Technical Support is great, and I usually have a very short wait to get in to talk with them. They have always been helpful.

Nachteile:

I can't rename emails that I have saved in Firm Central, so searching for an email I saved 6 months ago is pretty time consuming and hit or miss. I can rename any Word or Excel file I want, but I can't change a name or date on an Outlook email. That makes no sense to me.

Excellent sales support and amazing tech training.

Kommentare: Simply being better organized.

Vorteile:

Its intuitiveness, flexibility and ease of use. We used ProLaw some 10+ years ago and I recall that invoicing, pre-billing and matter creation were fairly tough. Firm Central is a breeze to use and even the moderately difficult stuff is easily retained after simps explanations.

Nachteile:

As a very small firm, the predictable grumble is that I would like to prove to be lower. I would love to have e-mail reminders that say "send out your billings, you distracted money-hater". or even better, re-billings that are auto printed for all open time-accrued matters by the Nth day of each month.

Great product.

Kommentare: As a start up firm, we were looking for one product that would handle everything for us -- document management, time and billing and calendar. After working 25 years at a very large law firm I knew there had to be a program available that would do everything in one package. Firm Central was the only product I found that could do it all, eliminating the need for multiple subscriptions from multiple software companies. The software package was loaded remotely and after viewing a short tutorial, I was able to immediately begin setting up client files and adding documents. I found all facets of the program easy to navigate, the tutorials are great, the ongoing technical support is always one click or one phone call away. I have been very impressed with everything about Firm Central, the software, the tutorials and the knowledge of all the support people I have spoken with by phone or corresponded with by email. I highly recommend Firm Central to anyone looking for one comprehensive software package to handle document management, calendars and time and billing.

Vorteile:

One program does everything we need.

Nachteile:

Would like time entry to have a repeat last client/matter function so that I could enter multiple time entries on same day for same client.

Not entirely user-friendly, but good bang for your buck

Vorteile:

The calendaring feature is great! Most of the people we have asked for help with the program have been extremely responsive and helpful.

Nachteile:

There are so many options in the Deadline Assistant, that it is often difficult to find what I am looking for. For events like "Court Holidays" or "Attorney Out of Office" I have to create a fake client matter and calendar it for that just so the entire office can see it. I wish there was a way to make an event, viewable to the entire office, without having to attach a matter to it. Integration has not been as swift as we though it would be. It's laborious and extremely time consuming to move all our clients' documents from our current platform to Firm Central.

Firm Central Case Mangement Review

Vorteile:

I like how it is very user freindly. It is easy to navigate, and customer support is excellent.

Nachteile:

I would recomend that Frim Cen tral/Westlaw allow their customers to have trial access to their addins before commiting to a subcristion agreemnt (or an increase in their subcription agrrement). There are many futures that I think could be benifial to our firm. However, I want to test the product before commiting to it.