Inside District Court LegalTech
Clio Case Management System: A Review
John J. Cord
system that can compile all relevant information about a case into one place. Also, I’m a firm believer in the paperless office, which is almost impossible without a case management system. I researched various systems for almost six months, depending in the meantime on a comprehensive Excel spreadsheet, uber- structured Windows folders, Gmail and Google Calendar. My “system” works to a point, but it involves a lot of unnecessary work and bouncing around between applications.
H Pricing Te gateway concern for solos and small firms is pricing.
Frankly, Clio probably isn’t for larger firms who have a little bit of money to spend. I have experience with two products from MAJ sponsors: Time Matters(Lexis-Nexis) and Needles. My preference is Time Matters, probably because I trained on it and used it for most of my legal career, but the price tag of $950 for one user for the first-year and $350 for each following year was more than I am prepared to handle. 1
Needles, which has
a rampant following of its own, lists a total one-user price of $4,110,2
so that was out of the question, too. Part of the allure of Clio3 is the monthly cost. Tere is
no contract, which is smart—once a law firm starts plugging information into it, they will be reluctant to leave and start over with another company. Pricing is simple: $49 per month for attorneys, and $25 per month for support staff. Maryland State
1
http://pm.lexisnexis.com/store/product/?pid=659 2
http://www.needles.com/product/pricing 3
www.goclio.com
aving recently gone solo, one of my immediate software concerns was getting a case management system. Efficiency in a law firm setting demands one
Bar Association (MSBA) members get a lifetime 10% discount off of these prices ($44.10 for attorneys, and $22.50 for staff). Tere is no functional difference between the attorney and support staff licenses. Tere is a thirty-day free trial (which, needing more time for my evaluation, was graciously extended by Clio’s excellent customer service to about 45 days).
The Cloud Clio is 100% cloud-based, something to be embraced and
not feared. Tis is particularly good for the solo who is starting out without a server. Tere is no software installation required, and no tech support is necessary. Tat will save on technology maintenance costs over time. Te downside is, of course, that an internet connection is required to access the system. But in today’s age of broadband devices and MiFi devices, it is rare to be without internet connectivity. Te only problem will be for solos who rely exclusively on broadband or MiFi devices and have limited data plans from their internet providers. Te majority of data will be used uploading and downloading documents. During my trial period, there was only one notice of system It was set for the beginning of a weekend, late at
downtime.
night, and lasting only two hours for system maintenance. Clio gave plenty of advance notice, so it wasn’t a problem.
Contacts Te Contacts tab needs some work. Te major problem
with Clio’s Contacts is that there are no fields for birthdays, social security numbers or tax ID numbers—all important numbers in the world of personal injury and law firm marketing. Tis becomes problematic for firms who want a case management system for automatic creation of form documents (see Documents, below). Users will probably put that information in separate Notes for each contact, which can be inconvenient to access. Another concern is that inputting new contacts is always If adding a new client from a
at least a two-step process.
new case (“matter”), the basic case information can be entered Trial Reporter / Summer 2012 51
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