Actionstep in Richmond offers their flagship legal practice management software as an end-to-end solution, containing both matter management tools and business administration automation, with an internal billing and accounting system.
N/A
Clio
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Clio is web-based legal practice management software for solo practitioners and small firms. It is designed to replace multiple different systems (like document management, case management, and accounting software) to streamline the amount of technology that small firms need to manage.
$49
per user/per month
Pricing
Actionstep
Clio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
EasyStart
$49
per user/per month
Clio Grow
$59
per user/per month
Essentials
$89
per month per user
Advanced
$129
per month per user
Complete
$159
per month per user
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Actionstep
Clio
Free Trial
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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All pricing tiers have a 7-day free trial. Discount available for annual pricing.
ActionStep is a powerful CRM and matter management tool. It provides many other good benefits too. For example powerful accounting and billing, time tracking and document management. Only in highly specific areas, like multiple many to many contact relations has it fallen short. But even in this highly specialized area, so many other benefits are provided that it hardly matters.
Clio is a wonderful practice management solution for small firms that do billable work. The Clio manage software is excellent for tracking your time at different rates, tracking matter budgets, and tracking expenses. Clio is also great for firms that want to implement and use tech in their offices. If clients are at least somewhat tech-savvy (have and know how to use email), they will also benefit and enjoy the implementation of Clio.
ActionStep is difficult to setup. I suggest working with a consultant which increases cost.
Needs mobile app.
One of our practice areas, Property Law, request we have a many to many contact relation. ActionStep cannot accommodate this. However, no other software I have reviewed can do this either. ActionStep is the most robust that I have seen and comes closest to making this work.
The billing screen is serviceable but unwieldy. It is hard to get your bills to look the way that you want in many cases.
The document management process could stand some improvement. In order to manipulate a document, you have to download it, work on it, then re-upload the new version. I'd like a local client or a seamless way to edit and then automatically see the update taken into Clio.
The task entry is good but not great. I'd like to see a way to have it integrate into my iPhone's reminders list.
The quickbooks online sync has been a constant source of frustration for our bookkeeper, who has to monitor daily and hardly ever goes a day without an item failing to sync.
We have been able to streamline our task management and everyday office procedures by using Clio to its fullest potential. We have a hire client retention rate because we can easily keep track of leads and follow ups. Clio Draft is saving us time on drafting legal documents and correspondence espondence. Overall, we are able to save time and money on everything tasks
Clio is intuitive and easy to learn. Even new staff or attorneys with limited tech experience can quickly navigate through tasks, matters, billing, and calendars. This reduces training time and increases productivity, especially in a busy mid-sized law firm. Because it’s cloud-based, Clio can be accessed from any device, anywhere. Whether I am working in the office, at home, or in court, I have full access to my cases, documents, and time entries.
Rather than talk in generalities, I'll give two specific examples. First, after updating my OS, I got locked out of Clio. I was back in, up and running, with no loss of data, within an hour thanks to Clio customer support. Second, I made some specific recommendation for features that I thought would be useful. Those recommendations fell in a black hole, with the suggestion that I try a very buggy third party integration app. Clio is making lots of money from lawyers using its software. Why can't Clio create the integrations and test them if Clio is not willing to build them into its platform?
I have worked with a lot of software. Each one has a different focus. ActionStep is better at workflow and task automation that the items above, in my opinion. However, having gone through many different deployments, what really matters is identifying your key requirements and needs. Then evaluation software against those. Once you have your requirements and software, focus on using that software to fix issues in existing workflow. This, when compared with ongoing training, is what it means to invest in software. Simply purchasing ActionStep or any software without identifying needs, problems in workflow or an investment in training is not a good plan. Neither is comparing the vendors to one another without knowing all of your specific needs.
Clio offers integrations such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, QuickBooks, Zoom, Dropbox, and more. This allows me to customize my tech stack to fit my specific needs. Clio’s mobile app is more feature-rich, offering time tracking, document access, calendaring, and even billing on the go. It’s ideal for attorneys who work remotely or travel frequently.
I love the workflows that can be deployed for practice areas to ensure consistency. This has reduced new employee onboarding time and increased the speed at which we can complete matters.
Since ActionStep lives in the cloud, and we have O365 our firm is very mobile without spending lots of money in TS or other such infrastructure.
Creating the workflows is a bit complex, so this increases the overall cost and makes an ROI take longer. I suggest spending a bit more initially to get everything setup and working with a consultant to learn how to do this on your own during that initial setup.
It has improved our ability to capture billable activities.
It has increased our efficiency in regards to onboarding clients and getting retainers signed.
The integrations with QuickBooks and other software platforms such as Mailchimp has allowed us to improve our marketing efforts and overall operations.
