PracticePanther Legal Software Reviews

Pros

Can't really recommend it I think there isn't much to praise here. The tools they offer are quite basic and lack depth.

Cons

In my experience this software feels like it was put together by people who have no real grasp of how law firms handle practice management or billing. Support is even more frustrating, they'll tell you someone will assist and then leave you waiting for hours with no follow-up. When you finally figure out a workaround on your own, they pop back up and say, 'Oh, I see you fixed it, is there anything else I can help with?' It's infuriating to be ignored while they get to take credit for nothing.

Pros

I find this product very easy to use and I can easily log time or move between tasks.

Cons

Support for billing templates is a major pain point for me. Several of my clients place the law firm id and customer id in different columns but the templates here are fixed and not interchangeable so they won't match. I reached out to customer support because there is a feature that lets you copy a template and I hoped they'd show me how to swap those two columns but the rep said it couldn't be done and that he would escalate it to the developer. I don't believe that was followed up on since I never got a reply. The practical upshot is that every month I have to open the ledes file and manually reverse the numbers in those two columns which is extremely time-consuming and completely impractical if more than one client uses ledes billing. On top of that, reporting is awful because I am unable to build my own custom reports.

Pros

Right from the start the software performed extremely well for me, there really isn't a bulky setup to deal with. Whenever I've needed something extra, I've made suggestions and the company has actually enhanced the program in response. New features often appear after other users propose ideas too. The interface is very simple so it was simple to pick up and use when I first started. Over time I discovered it can handle far more than I initially realized which has been a pleasant surprise. Customer support has been excellent at walking me through how to accomplish new tasks and the YouTube training videos are a handy way to learn tricks that make my practice run more efficiently, things I might not have discovered on my own. All in all, this is the best law office management software I've used in my fifteen years working in the field.

Cons

Occasionally I've run into a situation where I needed a very specific report that the program couldn't generate directly and in those cases I had to export an existing report to excel and then manually modify or append data to produce the exact output I needed. It's a workable workaround but it can be time-consuming and a bit frustrating when I'm trying to get a custom report quickly.

Pros

Okay so.... I use this software primarily for billing and plan to begin using its reporting features soon. Overall the interface is easy and whenever I need help with producing invoices or organizing my bookkeeping, the support team is quick to respond and easy to reach.

Cons

For me the price feels high considering that billing is the only feature I actually use.

Pros

I appreciate that I can learn it bit by bit while actually using it from day one. We began simply by logging time, tracking expenses and sending invoices and over time I've expanded into using the additional integrations.

Cons

We've noticed the support team is slow to respond though when they do they're actually helpful. The chat is frequently unattended and often warns that replies could take hours. While the app offers a huge range of functionality, it still lacks some simple, essential tools. For example, there's no easy reimburse feature for attorney costs, things like court parking or over-the-counter filing fees after a hearing which we had in another very basic matter-management system.

Pros

For my needs, this is a cost-effective alternative that gives me many features you'd expect from higher-end platforms.

Cons

When I found a critical bug where the system wouldn't let a client make a partial payment on an invoice, I reported it to tech support. During a chat session, the technician confirmed the problem and later told me that it wasn't isolated to our firm but a system-wide issue which was frustrating.

Pros

I find the software's layout, its entry screens and the overall program very user-friendly which makes it simple for me to operate and easy to train new employees on how to use it.

Cons

Back when I first bought this software the company was fairly new and they were extremely communicative and helpful every step of the way. As they've scaled though, I've felt their customer service slip somewhat. They've recently introduced updates that clearly improve their bottom line but from my perspective those changes aren't as centered on customers' needs as the company used to be.

Pros

For me payments and A/R are super easy to monitor, they show up right on my dashboard the moment I log in and I find it incredibly easy to follow and keep everything organized.

Cons

Honestly I can't come up with anything I dislike about this program, I think it's exceptionally simple, very user-friendly and I picked it up quickly without any real struggle getting used to it.

Pros

My clients really like the interface and I find it convenient that it auto-posts LawPay transactions while correctly separating trust account activity from other payments with ease.

Cons

Monthly billing is honestly a nightmare for me. When I need to review or edit bills, I'm forced to open each invoice in its own window which slows everything down. There isn't a "next" button to flip through invoices like virtually every other billing system I've used and when I asked about adding one, PP's reply was just that they'd check with the development team. It feels clear to me their developers never actually tried reviewing or editing invoices for more than a couple of clients at once. That makes this workflow impractical if you handle more than five clients. On top of that, task management is unreliable: tagged people don't always get notified and if I assign tasks but I'm not the person responsible for doing them, I can't follow progress easily. Because of that gap we ended up adopting Asana too so now I'm stuck juggling two platforms instead of one integrated solution.

Pros

I'm really fond of how easy this software is. It makes monitoring billable hours so easy.

Cons

What bothers me is that there are so many options for everything, I simply don't understand how to use all the features so I'm aware I'm not using it to its full potential.

Pros

What I appreciate most about this software is how simple it feels to use and the clear help videos that walk you through features. It comes loaded with a broad set of capabilities, including time recording and invoicing, receipting alongside a payments system, contact and client matter management, template tools and automation, plus a calendar that handles tasks and events and many other useful functions. I also found it simple to sync contacts and files with Google or Box, the deployment was easy and adding users is easy.

Cons

No software is flawless and I can think of a few areas that could be improved to make this even better. For example, I'd love the template editor to support PDF templates rather than being restricted to only DOCX files.

Pros

I've found this tool's interface to be pretty user-friendly for everyday billing entries and it also offers great templates for monthly invoicing plus clear handling of client trust and operating accounts. Compared with other systems I tested, the learning curve was much shorter and the software felt snappier than the other web-based programs I tried. Tech support and the help documentation are easy to get to from any page which I appreciate. entering daily items is both quick and easy in my experience and the online billing integration with LawPay has been outstanding and completely reliable for me. Initially I was very hesitant about putting my billing and accounting into a "secure" cloud setup but after using it for more than a year, it would take a lot to convince me to leave it.

Cons

I see two main drawbacks to the software that I think others should be aware of. First, there isn't a single, simple backup-and-restore function that lets you save and recover all files in just a few clicks, while you can perform a complete backup, the process forces you to follow many separate steps to ensure everything gets backed up. I haven't needed to restore data yet but that complexity makes me nervous because a multi-step restoration process is more likely to face glitches. If I ever did have to restore, I worry it could lead to more downtime than I'd be comfortable with as a practitioner trying to get operations back online. To me, this is the area they most need to improve. Second, their billing review behaves in a way that can be very confusing. If I go back to a bill I created months ago to check what the retainer balance was at that time, the historical invoice pulls in the retainer balance that exists now instead of showing the balance as it was when the bill was generated. That shouldn't happen: once I save a bill it should remain static unless I deliberately change billing details. Old bills should never display the current retainer balance, they should reflect the remaining retainer amount as of the date the specific bill was created.

Pros

Being a small practice, we looked into multiple legal practice management systems to help our attorneys stay efficient in how they run their work. After comparing several options, we chose this platform because it provided great functionality at a more affordable price. The switch has proven to be a real success for our team.

Cons

We haven't been able to find any drawbacks so far, it fits perfectly for small firm administration and handles our needs well.

Pros

For me everything is centralized and the platform offers a fantastic way to gather client details through a personalized portal that feels professional, looks polished and is easy for clients to navigate and use.

Cons

Not a con but I discovered the hard way that intake forms don't automatically save as drafts, I lost an entire intake form I had filled out while collecting information for wills because there was no auto-save feature.

Pros

everything about it feels simple and I rely on this program for virtually everything: notes, contacts, calendar, billing, tasks, deadlines and drafting documents.

Cons

Okay so.... I'd love for this tool to add a document repository and offer customizable field packages to simplify generating documents.

Pros

It helps me run my solo practice entirely by myself. My clients really like their client portal and the way they can message me directly.

Cons

I'd like the ability to generate payment-plan invoices for my clients so I wouldn't have to chase them each month to collect fees. Since many of my clients are reluctant to set up automatic payments, offering payment-plan invoices as an option would make a big difference, easing the recurring task of sending monthly reminders and taking that nagging responsibility off my plate.

Pros

What I liked was how it simplified my time tracking and billing tasks

Cons

Great to work with but I ran into so many software glitches that they ended up creating major problems with my pricing and billing

Pros

Using it, I've found it's very easy to learn and to use, most of the features are easy to get the hang of and quick to master.

Cons

I sometimes have difficulty reaching a live representative because I'm usually directed to online tutorials instead and while those guides are consistently helpful and resolve most issues, it hasn't really been a problem for me overall. I do believe that live support would be available if I ever needed it.

Pros

Hands down this is the simplest billing software I've ever used. After watching two tutorial videos I spent some time experimenting with the interface and honestly I was surprised at how simplely everything worked, it's incredibly easy to get things done.

Cons

Honestly I can't think of any complaints about this product at the moment.

Pros

Across our whole office from attorneys and paralegals to the support staff and office administrator, everyone has remarked on how user-friendly and easy the software is to operate. There's no question that our lawyers and paralegals are now more efficient thanks to this program. The A/R reports, billable time by user and several other reporting features deliver great value. We're a newly formed firm and this will be both our first and only billing solution.

Cons

If I had to pick a single shortcoming it would be the Law Tool Box add-on we bought for court rules. When we rolled it out, nearly all of the Nevada rules (where our practice is located) were incorrect or irrelevant to the type of civil litigation work we handle. even after we supplied Law Tool Box with comprehensive, accurate local rule information over a month ago, they still haven't implemented the fixes. Because of that, we can't depend on it or make use of it in our workflow. The idea is strong but in practice it's nonfunctional and essentially worthless.