ProLaw

ProLaw

Vorteile:

The ease and ability to pull documents and calendars into one program.

Nachteile:

It's a little bit confusing and rather hard to learn.

Great vision for a converged legal platform, but clearly under-resourced

Kommentare: We need a unified platform for all data entry and consumption that understands the legal business. ProLaw does that well. It allows us to maintain a high standard of data integrity, provide a large degree of automation, and develop solutions on top of a central "hub" that everyone understands. The vision is great, the implementation is not so great. The people are great, the company is not so great.
If you have good IT support, It's great. If not, well...

Vorteile:

Centralized data management is very powerful. No other solution provides CMS, DMS, Document Assembly, Calendaring, Routing, Cost Management, Accounting, Billing/Collections, and Groupware Integration all in one platform. ProLaw allows us to have all front office and back office work in one system. Reducing the need for duplication of effort, and reducing the possible errors caused by that effort. ProLaw is that it gives us the choice to remain on-premises (or in private cloud) meaning we maintain 100% control over our clients data. Are not held hostage by all the problems inherent with software-as-a-service solutions. Importantly, ProLaw leverages a modern and accessible technology stack. That is very important for customization and integration. I can do what I need, When I need it, and I am not stuck relying on a proprietary support structure to get results. Importantly, ProLaw leverages a modern and accessible technology stack. That is very important for customization and integration. I can do what I need, When I need it, and I am not stuck relying on a proprietary support structure to get results. The Staff at ProLaw is friendly and helpful. They share an enthusiasm for the vision and work hard to deliver the best product possible. They always go out of their way to help achieve customer goals.

Nachteile:

ProLaw is clearly under-resourced, Implementation is buggy and upgrades are a nightmare. While individual Customer service is fantastic, there is a lack of modern support such as self service installers, 64-bit applications, and proper quality assurance. ProLaw can be slow, clunky, and just feels out of date. Controls have no real business validation, As one attorney said, "It looks like something we worked on in collage", referring to the events tree and the clunky custom tabs. There is a real problem with policy over practice at ProLaw. Any deviation from Standard Operating Procedure is a nightmare. this causes almost every interaction to begin on the wrong foot, and long complicated interactions to be a nightmare for all parties involved. There is clearly problem with leadership which causes a strict adherence to an ineffective set of policies. Off-shore outsourcing of Professional Services.

Prolaw onsite review

Kommentare: it took a long time to get everything running properly and our reports created to our satisfaction, but the lack of a cloud solution during the pandemic had us looking elsewhere

Vorteile:

customizability of reports and ability to look at database directly

Nachteile:

data for allocations gets overwritten/deleted prolaw protal was completely different from prolaw desktop onsite software

Stability over feature rich!

Vorteile:

What features they do implement work great!

Nachteile:

Seem to be behind when it comes to new and exciting features compared to others.

Old school but simple

Vorteile:

I like that Prolaw is straightforward and easy to use. It makes organization of a litigation file easy and things are easy to find quickly.

Nachteile:

It is very old school looking- looks like it was made in 2004. It is buggy at times and gets hung up on certain routine tasks.

An Upgrade that Went Way Back.

Kommentare: I would not recommend this for use in any law firm.

Vorteile:

There's not anything I can think of that I have a positive comment to provide on Prolaw.

Nachteile:

Everything is technologically backwards from the older version we had previously. There's far more data input on the user, which is time consuming, the software doesn't open consistently from the toolbar shortcut, it doesn't consistently use tab or enter for saving, it's varies depending on what you are doing. It's an "upgrade" that went back to technology from the late 1990s. Very poor product.

All in one gets the job done

Kommentare: We remain with ProLaw because it is highly customizable and offers the best value for a firm our size. We continue to exploit every feature it offers, sometimes even beyond that for which it was designed.

Vorteile:

The best feature of ProLaw is only having to learn one program. We use it for our document management, case management and deadline management. That translates into a time savings and shorter learning curve for new hires since we are only training on one piece of software.

Nachteile:

It is buggy, you have to live with the bugs for years until you can determine that the newest release of the product has been thoroughly vetted before adopting it to solve old issues. When updates come out there are invariably new bugs introduced.

Prolaw does what it needs to do, but boy does it look like it's from the year 1998

Kommentare: The legal firm I worked with migrated out of another database software to ProLaw.
ProLaw looks and feels like a Windows 98 computer. It's also like Evernote, which means that if whoever set it up did it poorly, then the whole system breaks down.

Vorteile:

It organizes all of our legal documents, and the data is solid. No data issues so far. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to find clients and the files you saved in there.

Nachteile:

It's so stupidly clunky. To create a matter, it requires multiple steps upon multiple steps. To upload a file, you then have a assortment of options to choose from, which all do the same thing. ProLaw could use a UX designer to modernize things.

Very expensive product for larger law firms

Vorteile:

It allows a larger firm to management documents effectively and efficiently. The platform is also very easy to use

Nachteile:

The expense of this product makes one search for other solutions. It is on the verge of unaffordable regardless of how much the firm produces

prolaw

Vorteile:

-I like that it syncs and imports well with outlook, word, excel, dictation software. - It generates documents and auto populates, which saves me a significant amount of time - The document can be used by the entire firm and everyone can have access to the documents at the same time - billing is easy to use and is build into the program

Nachteile:

- it is very slow and can sometimes freeze. This happens when I have too many cases open, which is understandable, but it can get annoying -the ability to make personalized documents can be frustrating because it often takes too long -I find that I sometimes get locked out of the billing feature when I don't use it for a long time. -billing descriptors are limited so you have to generalize to find what fits

Amazing Feature, but difficult and time consuming execution

Kommentare: I did not like using ProLaw at all. I waisted way to much time on admin work managing the files in ProLaw.

Vorteile:

The features of ProLaw were great, the docketing and deadline calculator options are far better then any other software I have used.

Nachteile:

Profiling items to the case is time consuming. You are limited on how to set up your folders. If you practice more than one area of law, the lack of customization is very restricting.

Opinions on Prolaw

Kommentare: Overall its been pretty solid. We can get the job done and we manage to get through the issues when they come up.

Vorteile:

Overall Prolaw is a nice piece of software. There are very few packages out there that integrate front office and back office. Particularly for accounting. Its a one-stop shop for us.

Nachteile:

There are two overwhelming issues that have been a thorn in our side throughout the years we have owned the software. The first issue being the lack of quality customer service and second, a clunky soviet era interface that never seems to have evolved. I say this with the understanding that there have been substantial improvements on the backend over the years. I can appreciate this as a systems guy, however, a lawyer could care less. The user interface needs to meet the needs of a modern practice like ours. Regarding the customer service issue, we have noticed real improvements over the last 6-9 months. The quality of care and the talent has changed remarkably. We are very grateful for that. We ask that [Sensitive content hidden] continue to make sure there are always enough technicians and resources for their technicians to make sure the client always gets a speedy resolution when possible and always feels like they are good hands and not forgotten about throughout the lifecycle of a more challenging trouble call. On the second issue with the interface, we can only hope that [Sensitive content hidden] is fired up about making significant modernizing improvements to the front-end interface and building out the web and mobile apps to offer as much functionality as possible. I would recommend that [Sensitive content hidden] spends some time reaching our to their customers on a more regular basis, particularly their long term customers to get feedback on how the product is working. The users should drive the direction of the product

No software is perfect, but there are a few things with ProLaw that should be addressed more quickly

Vorteile:

1) Easy to use and understand the flow of data (but see con #1) 2) General customer support has good turn around times (but see con #4) 3) Ability to write your own MSSRS reports (if you know SQL programming language! NOT easy to learn)

Nachteile:

I should pre-phrase this by saying that we are on an older version of ProLaw. 1) Regularly has hiccups where we have to shut it down and reopen it to make it work properly - for simple things like invoice postings. (May be fixed on newer version) 2) Has problems that can't be fixed so we have to come up with some workaround such as comparison reports and then from those results making manual journal entries. (May be fixed on newer version) 3) Background tables get out of sync more often than we'd like requiring contact with Customer Support to fix (I'm told is fixed on a newer version) 4) Simple changes to reports are now "billable services" so it can get expensive. (Unlikely to be different on the newer versions) 4) Font size is too small for some users and is unchangeable (No changes on newer version) 5) Customer Support sometimes doesn't know how to fix problem, so it's a try this, try that scenario which is time consuming and annoying. Sometimes it fixes the problem, sometimes it doesn't.

I've used Prolaw since '99

Kommentare: I have used Prolaw for over 20 years. In the beginning (pre-West), it was the most amazing product on the market with the most amazing customer service, for small to mid-sized firms. West ruined that. I have nothing against West generally. I just have over 20 years of first-hand knowledge of how West negatively affecting this otherwise amazing product.

Vorteile:

Everything. Prolaw does it all. The accounting function is the best I have seen, better than QBs, CosmoLex, etc. The front office functionality is so robust I wouldn't even know where to start. You own it the software license which is a huge advantage to monthly subscriptions. You don't have to upgrade if you don't want to, no monthly fees, I stopped paying the annual fee after a few years because it wasn't worth it. Just pay the upgrade fee if and when you ever need to upgrade.

Nachteile:

Since purchased by West a while ago, the customer service has become non-existent, in all honesty it is a detraction. Your IT people will have to train West's IT people. They will likely sell you the wrong version initially, etc. If you are a new user, a migrating user, just expect to have lots of headaches in the beginning. But once you master the software, it is worth it!

Best Value

Kommentare: Overall, using ProLaw is a much better option than just a document management software like Worldox or iManage. We essentially have digital files that we can access at any time from anywhere.

Vorteile:

After 5 plus years, I still believe ProLaw is the best practice management software out there. Using ProLaw has allowed our firm to become as paperless as a law firm can be.

Nachteile:

I wish there was more flexibility in the fields and format and the reporting feature still needs work.

ProLaw 2017.1

Kommentare: ProLaw is all you'll need for your legal practice. Easy to use and functionality is superb. The interface is easy to read, making it easy to use. I was able to navigate the application pretty easily with limited training. Having an all in one system, allows the firm to have access to front and back office information with a few clicks.

Vorteile:

I have the capability to run a report for client information at your fingertips is what I like most. This allows the firm to keep up with their clients and allows you to follow-up with running a simple report

Nachteile:

Profiling documents seem to have gone backwards. The process to profile a document takes longer than the old platform. It's easier to just open the matter you'd like to save to and drag and drop. Also, report writing is such a process, it forces you to have ProLaw complete most of the report writing tasks.

ProLaw is the best comprehensive legal management software I have used.

Kommentare: It has been excellent and greatly simplified numerous aspects of our practice

Vorteile:

The integration of document management, billing and back office financial management.

Nachteile:

It takes time to become familiar with all the features and uses.

Less Paper - Law Firm

Kommentare: As the title says - - - less paper!

Vorteile:

Our firm uses this product as a true practice management tool. We use front and back office modules. ProLaw has allowed us to be an almost paperless law firm. Everything goes into ProLaw and we have true digital files/matters. We recently went through an audit with one of our clients and were able to provide limited access to the client. They loved ProLaw! I spent 15 - 20 training them on how to access documents and they had no problems going forward.

Nachteile:

There are some features that need some work, but in comparison to other programs it is still the best practice/document/billing management program going for law firms.

2017 Downgrade is apalling

Kommentare: Very poor system for tracking address/contact changes over time. The ease of data entry sometimes makes it too easy to inadvertently overtype. Bizarre Contacts display system of First Middle Last, without an option for Last, First Middle, even as Matters display only by Last, First Middle. Building search queries requires significant technical knowledge and cannot be done by even seasoned users. Interface is not intuitive. Some symbols are used for multiple functions.

Vorteile:

Documents can be displayed in a number of organizational ways as fits the user's preference/needs.

Nachteile:

Getting those documents tagged and into Prolaw is a nightmare. Previous "Profiling" function allowed for filing an email attachment only. That's gone. Now you either have to separate the attachment from the email or click through the email to get to the attachment once it is in Prolaw. Previous "Profiling" function allowed user to easily switch and mix between keyboard and mouse driven-commands. (Such as clicking on a data field and then easily typing "pl + tab" for a Pleading rather than using the drop-down menu with the mouse.) Now the user is forced to use the drop down menu. The size of the "Profiling" work box cannot be adjusted or customized as it previously could be. So when Prolaw displays a useless column between to helpful columns, the user must scroll to get to the helpful information. They also added a pagination system which makes scrolling very tedious.

Easy to use and practical.

Vorteile:

It's search capabilities, the multiple things that can be managed in one software. The auto spell complete feature.

Nachteile:

We might have an older version - but I think the look appearance overall should be more modern. Maybe easier accessibility from feature to feature instead of having to go to the main page each time - maybe you can always have a quick menu option no matter what you are currently working on. For example if I'm entering time summaries why do I have to minimize each window to get to the main dialog box with the main menu as opposed to having the option to go to contacts right on the toolbar that I have while working on time summaries. Even having a tab feature such as web browsers do - to make multi tasking easier.

Last update GIANT step BACKWARD

Kommentare: In prior version, when saving an email, for example, if the client/matter number was referenced in the subject, saving the email automatically populated the client/matter number and the email was recognized as such. After the most current update, ALL fields on EVERY document must be entered in order to save or create a new document. This means users are required to enter several times MORE keystrokes than in prior version to accomplish the same tasks. HUGE step backward. VERY time-consuming and frustratingly inefficient. Lord, strike me with a nasty case of pimples if I EVER complain about I-Manage again!

Vorteile:

Drag and drop email saving - except the latest update defaults to attached doc/attached doc class/event.

Nachteile:

Last update completely reversed the ease and efficiency of prior version. ALL document saving requires that ALL information be entered on EVERY document saved. Client/matter numbers are required, as are ALL info fields for each doc saved. Some of this was auto-populated in prior version. Current version takes users TWICE as long to save docs.

Stay Current

Kommentare: Very happy during the initial decade.......now on the verge of discontinuing our use and changing vendors. Will decide in the next 6 months if we're leaving ProLaw.

Vorteile:

Ease of use for most features. Front office much better than back office.

Nachteile:

ProLaw is not staying current with programming for electronic billing. Larger institutions are migrating to LEDES format and ProLaw is way behind in its programming for same. Users should not have to subscribe to eBilling to accommodate these invoicing requirements. Very disappointed and on the cusp of changing software providers. Please get up to speed!

all encompassing - server based Prolaw - purchased in 2003 for $10,000

Kommentare: I loved it - it is difficult to use - but it is highly data driven and every penny of the accounting is at your fingertips. No QB needed.

Vorteile:

this is the only system with full accounting at the time it was purchased circa 2003, at the time - that was a big deal. The system was purchased out right and lived on the server.

Nachteile:

it was server based - so nobody could login remotely without VPN- that is a silly inconvenience at this point in 2020

A Solid Software to kee track of your cases

Kommentare: I used Pro Law for years at my law firm. I have to say that during the time I used it one of the best things was that we were able to install it on the computers. The new softwares I see now are mostly online only like Rocket Matters. Online only vs on desktop is really what you have to ask yourself. Online you can get access on any computer you use but programs like Pro law I remember were faster and never offline. The down part is that you have to be on your destop.
I would suggest getting pro law if you have 1 office and not very many staff members. Otherwise you might want to go with something that is better online if you are always changing offices.

Vorteile:

I like how fast and reliable it is for your computer. I like being able to have different users. It does everything you need a software to use for managing your firm.

Nachteile:

You can not access it over a browser at least not the years I used it. You needed the software installed. The them was not very bright but that might have just been my default settings. I assume most people keep their default setting and not change them to make sure they dont mess anything up.

Timekeeping not user friendly

Kommentare: The timekeeping system should be more structured to ensure consistency among attorneys entering time.

Vorteile:

The case management system does uploads into our Outlook calendars. I have never used any other case management system.

Nachteile:

The timekeeping should be integrated with our Outlook calendars to automatically incorporate meetings, deadlines and court appearances. There should be a timekeeping tracking in real time as the attorney is working on a motion. Figuring out how to generate reports is very complicated and I still don't know how to print reports with a narrative. The help index is not helpful.