PracticePanther Legal Software Reviews

Pros

My team and I really enjoy this tool and use it every day. At the moment we only tap into a fraction of its capabilities but that's exactly what suits our needs right now. I'm excited that as our business expands we'll be able to add automation and other advanced features.

Cons

For a small startup of one to three people I found the cost higher than I wanted and the credit card processing fees, while in line with other providers, still feel like a downside for this product.

Pros

The pricing structure works well for me, with a clear option of $59 per month or $49 per month when paid annually and online billing fees that are easy to understand. I appreciate the flexible workflows, customizable task flows, activity logs, on-the-fly contact creation, intake forms, great time tracking, strong email syncing and the client portal, all of which fit the way I work.

Cons

The main thing that ultimately made me leave this tool was its lack of true future billing automation the way MyCase offers. There is a workaround if I keep a client's Visa or debit card on file but many clients feel uncomfortable giving me their card number up front. In my criminal defense work, clients often need to make monthly or scheduled payments against a retainer and MyCase lets me set up future billing dates where the client is emailed a bill and can just tap a button to pay online, that convenience is what pushed me to MyCase. If that billing feature hadn't been a dealbreaker, I probably would have stayed with this product or chosen Smokeball instead. Speaking of Smokeball, its interface for sending emails from either Outlook or Gmail is the slickest I've used, a small window at the bottom makes it easy to connect an email to a matter. Smokeball also made syncing a Word document with a client/matter really easy which I appreciated.

Pros

Over the past five years my team and I evaluated dozens of business management apps and this platform finally replaced the need for multiple tools. I still switch to QuickBooks for certain tasks but that setup works fine for me.

Cons

So far I haven't explored every feature yet and I'm hoping for a few basic customization options, like tweaking the fonts, colors and overall look just a bit. It's a minor problem though, nothing major.

Pros

From my experience the software feels both simple and comprehensive, covering everything I need in one place.

Cons

In the CRM I'd really like an easier, more simple interface that lets me queue or schedule emails and text messages to clients and leads automatically, triggered by activities logged within their matters.

Pros

At this point we've found that the automation features and the web-based portal offered by this tool suit our firm's needs better than anything else.

Cons

I've found a few billing settings to be pretty confusing to navigate.

Pros

Deployment was incredibly fast for me and the simple features meant I needed almost no training to get started.

Cons

One major frustration I found is that the system forces you to treat every client as a single person, even when they belong to a company. To unlock all the functionality I have to pick out and assign an individual as the client which is awkward. As a result, invoices sent by email, credit card payment processing and email tracking often fail or behave poorly when I try to register a company without listing a specific person's contact information and that complicates working with business accounts.

Pros

Running a small two-attorney office, my team and I find the program simple without being overly complicated. The document templates save me a lot of time and I would readily recommend it to other small firms.

Cons

Okay so.... I feel the billing and accounting parts could use a bit of tweaking.

Pros

Not much positive to mention here. I find billing pretty easy to manage but there's almost no automation. User access works okay but from my admin perspective this product is riddled with design issues and while I can set up workflows quickly they nearly always fail.

Cons

They have awful customer support, nobody ever calls us back and the app is full of glitches. Syncing breaks frequently and the calendar won't retain entries. Because setup is tied to an owner account, the admin options aren't scalable. We tell everyone not to buy this, our law firm regrets buying it almost every day.

Pros

Personally the calendar feature is the one I use most frequently. I appreciate being able to pull up any teammate's schedule and see each person's events in distinct colors tied to them. That visual system has been incredibly helpful since I'm always arranging performance reviews and various other meetings with different employees.

Cons

Sometimes the calendars get visually overwhelming when I open five or more at once. Still there don't seem to be many ways to fix that because the problem feels more like a personal habit. I tend to pull up five-plus calendars which during peak periods especially clutters my view and makes scanning everyone's schedules harder than it needs to be.

Pros

Overall this product feels simple to me, very affordable and well-rounded for daily use.

Cons

I haven't found any drawbacks.

Pros

Keeping my firm organized has become much easier for me with this tool, especially given our high case volume. I rely heavily on its task tracking, client information storage and payment plans which have noticeably improved my collections and freed up my time to focus on casework.

Cons

Not a con but I began my practice solo and then hired additional staff as the firm grew. Like most firms, we went through the typical growing pains and I was initially concerned about getting new team members comfortable with this platform. Fortunately, those worries faded quickly and the team has been able to adopt and use the software without difficulty.

Pros

One thing I really appreciate about this software is how easy it is to use and how easily I can edit any entry whenever necessary.

Cons

I don't like that you have to schedule an appointment for training or support, you can't just call anytime and reach a real person to get an immediate answer.

Pros

They boost our efficiency greatly. When a tool genuinely enhances how quickly and smoothly we can operate it becomes an indispensable part of getting things done.

Cons

Nothing to report here from me but setup is lengthy yet ultimately worthwhile.

Pros

Being able to use eSign the client portal and templates is something I truly value, especially alongside how smoothly the system connects with other programs my office depends on.

Cons

The calendar and email integrations could be more feature-full, I get frustrated because event updates made in Panther don't automatically push to Outlook guests I've invited which forces me to do additional manual steps.

Pros

From the very start, the platform felt simple to me making the transition from our previous system smooth. I appreciate the responsive support, helpful tutorials and the fact that the developers listen to feedback and implement meaningful improvements.

Cons

Conflict checks feel a bit awkward although they do search names across the whole system. I found the reporting features tricky to use at first but I'm confident there are tutorials that would help. It stood out to me that the company was willing to create custom report templates for anything we need that isn't already part of the product.

Pros

Using this application has been enjoyable for me and my coworkers feel the same way. My team relies on it mainly for billing and time tracking and after using it since around 2018, I'm generally very pleased with how it performs.

Cons

Customer support has been extremely disappointing. I've run into a persistent problem when trying to upload billing entries and expenses to invoices from my iPad. The system seems to only allow that action from a desktop or laptop because when I open an invoice to edit and click the link that reads "add unbilled time, expenses and flat fees," nothing happens and the items never attach to the invoice. That is especially frustrating since I can do almost everything else from my iPad so it's inconvenient to be forced to switch devices. I reported the bug more than a year ago, granted technician access probably over ten different times, spent countless minutes on calls with support over months and exchanged dozens of emails with several different reps, yet no fix. eventually they stopped responding and the issue was left unresolved. I still don't have a working solution, the problem remains UNReSOLVeD after well over a year. Although I like the software overall, this level of customer service is unacceptable and has negatively affected my business operations because I can't add billing entries directly when I'm using the software on my iPad. This wastes time and creates billing delays that affect cash flow and client communication with my clients.

Pros

Before adopting this tool my work lacked a centralized way to track real-time performance which caused small but important gains to slip through. Having modern, transparent reporting now allows me to make timely adjustments and manage efficiency much more effectively, especially with remote teams.

Cons

The part that caused us the most stress was formatting and importing all of our data so it would play nicely with the system. Once we got everything loaded and the system was running, it eliminated a massive amount of manual work. There is some upfront pain, it takes time and patience to map fields and clean data but that's true of any solution like this. After it's configured and operating smoothly, you genuinely wonder how you managed without it.

Pros

Setting up an intake template was easy for me and the process required very little effort.

Cons

The automation tools and workflow setup weren't aligned with what my company needed so they fell short for our use case.

Pros

Switching from our old case management system felt smooth to me and since then the software has been both easy and enjoyable to use. A more simple, user-friendly solution is hard for me to imagine.

Cons

Only drawback I've noticed is that I can't add multiple cases to a single calendar event which has been frustrating at times but the developers of this tool have assured me they're going to investigate and address this capability.

Pros

Smooth payment processing, reliable e-signatures and a clean interface stand out to me as some of the strongest aspects of this platform.

Cons

I think the UI for cloud-saved documents could use some improvements.