Avaliações do Amicus Attorney

Comentários: Overall, AA Online is a terrific product, great value, great customer support (which is rarely needed). As long as you know that it is a starter or limited to solo/small firm practices, it's hard to find a better product for the money.

Vantagens: Right out of the gate, the client portal is the feature that sets apart AA from every, other legal case management software. There are only one or two other programs out there that offer this feature. If you have a practice that requires client updates or have clients who use email for case communications, the Portal can dramatically reduce that in box volume as well as provide needed security. It's also a great marketing tool. Very few firms offer this to their clients. Flexibility is number two. There are few, other programs out there that allow the user so much control over the data fields and how they want to use the program. If you are happy with the spreadsheet style software that costs a fortune to modify or customize, AA is not for you. You can do as much or little work on it as you like. Connected and all inclusive solution. AA syncs up well with MS office products like Outlook and Word and plays nicely overall. You can use the AA calendar and email if you like, but if you're used to Outlook, no problem. AA gives you everything you need to run your practice with the case management, billing, reporting, email, and document generation. For a modest amount you can add the accounting to it. Easy to use. I have tried other programs but haven't found anything that is as easy and intuitive. There are certainly more powerful programs out there and the Amicus Online edition we use definitely has its limitations when it comes to a web browser based system.

Desvantagens: It's not meant for more than 3 or 4 attorneys. If you need something more robust go with the hosted environment where AA runs on their servers in a dedicated environment. AA Online is a great solo/small practice, starter software. WARNING: Bear in mind that much of what you set up in AA Online will NOT transfer over to Amicus Premium in the hosted environment. If you are thinking of ever switching over to the full version of AA rather than the web version, do not spend a lot of time/effort with templates and workflows as very little of that will carry over.

Comentários: I have a small 5 attorney firm. with a large support staff. At any given time, we handle about 1,000 active files. Our practice is very paper intensive. We've tried to go paperless, but it doesn't quite work with out type of practice, so we still do things the old fashioned way ... with file folders and legal pads. I've been an Amicus Attorney user for over 10 years. Prior to that, I tried and use several other "name brand" case management systems. Until about a year ago, we used the Amicus Small Firm program and it worked great. We switched to the Premier edition when we upgraded our server and all of our workstations. The premier edition was more adaptable to our practice. First of all, it was faster, second, we liked the better document management and third, for a rather small increase in cost, we got more bells and whistles. There are at least a half dozen firms in my area that are now using Amicus because of my recommendation. The links with other programs like Outlook are seamless. One calendar entry in Amicus updates Outlook and my laptop and my phone. I have not seen another case management program that has a document assembly system for letters, pleadings, emails, faxes anywhere as sophisticated as Amicus Attorney's. Also, check out their "Do" button and their "precedent" processes.

Vantagens: Their support is fantastic. Very little wait time. The support people are courteous, knowledgeable. and patient.

Desvantagens: In many ways, the program is overwhelming for some of our staff. It takes a lot of time to train new staff members on the program. Also, there are many things that the program does that I haven't been able to use because it takes a lot of time to set up those things. This is probably more of a problem with smaller firms that don't have staff who just handle equipment use. In addition, we're WordPerfect users. I feel that the program works slightly better with MS Word.

Comentários: The practice of law at any level is a business. As such the bottom line must always be considered. Amicus has saved money for the firm and has also made money for my practice. It has saved money by being so efficient that I have reduced staff. I no longer need a file clerk or an assistant to take time to organize my time, calendar, and tasks. Amicus does all those things automatically. Amicus has made money for the firm by automatically and efficiently creating time records and bills.

Vantagens: Amicus has allowed my firm to be at the forefront of our industry by enabling us to be completely paperless and meet the Federal and State efiling requirements. The automated document control features saves time by allowing us to skip the scan, save, move, paste, and name, routine of saving documents to locations where they can be found. Amicus does all those steps automatically, and in addition, has the capability of allowing you to preview documents in the Amicus file without even having to open them! The customization features allow you to make Amicus look and do the way you want tasks done. You do not have to conform to it, Amicus will conform to you. The creation of timeslips and billing will shock you in its ability to capture all your time. Reviewing and editing time entries is fast and easy. The publishing them to a bill is seamless and fast. The ability to preview and edit bills is efficient as well. And of course, you can customize your billing templates to make your bills look the way you want. The Client Portal is another firm saving feature. It allows you to give access to Clients to view documents, events, messages, that you select. I view it as a malpractice insurance feature! All communication is open to the Client. They can view their documents, their appointments, and can message you. It totally eliminates the complaint that, "I can't reach my lawyer." Everything is there for them to see. And again, only what you allow.

Desvantagens: Amicus is a really great product. Little issues such as the Client Portal is a little finicky can be improved. It is a new feature and needs to allow Clients the ability to reset their password and to log on easier.

Comentários: Even despite the update issues, I think this is a great program and is extremely helpful in managing client files.

Vantagens: The best feature of this program is that it links all information to the client file. You click on the client's file and you can look up all timesheets, communications, appointments, events, tasks, deadlines, etc. This is an invaluable tool in the legal field!

Desvantagens: The main complaint I have about this software is that it requires periodic updates which is fine in and of itself, but it is a huge process to update. Customer service gave me an instruction sheet on how to update the software and stated they do not help with the update. When I reviewed the instructions, they were only something an IT person could do. We are a small firm and I'm the one who does the computer work. I would say I'm fairly knowledgeable when it comes to computers, but the upgrades are extremely technical and definitely require IT. They did eventually do the updates for us after we called and complained and asked how they thought regular office people (not IT) could get through the instructions. This was my biggest issue with them.

Comentários: Overall, Amicus is a solid case management software, but given their choice to switch to a model that does not truly have their customer's best interests in mind, it was simply not a software we could continue to use or support.

Vantagens: I have used this software for over two years at the law firm I work for. Ultimately, the software does everything we need it to do and them some: track case development, client information, time spent, etc. The software served its purpose well and has kept our firm organized and up to speed with all our cases.

Desvantagens: While we have a large database of clients and still depend upon Amicus day-to-day for our older cases, we ultimately made the switch for other case management software a year ago, for one sole reason. Price. While Abacus decided to go the route of so many other similar products and only offer a subscription-based model, this was not something that ultimately suited our needs, and we had to cut ties.

Comentários: Overall we are satisfied with Amicus Attorney. It delivers what we expect. We use it to manage the calendar, maintain contact information for client files, make notes to client files, and for billing. We are satisfied with the product. I believe the product actually offers more than what we use it for, I would appreciate a better understanding of how to use the product. It would be great if Amicus reached out more to educate me as a user.

Vantagens: I appreciate that the calendaring, client management, and billing are on the same platform. There is good accessibility to functions such as inputting time and accessing bills from the same windows as the viewing of matters.

Desvantagens: The software is probably much more functional than what we use it for. Our office has not been able to complete any training or improve the way we use the software because of time constraints. I wish there were short tips provided on an ongoing basis. Something like an email that was sent out with a time saving tip. Just 1 quick tip for improving how we use the software. For example, an email that explained, Did you know that you can edit time entries after the entry has been posted? Followed by how to edit time entries.
I would like to have better understanding of how to efficiently and effectively use the software, if possible, learning the software in short ongoing tips would make it convenient.

Comentários: Amicus Attorney is capable of being a one stop shop when it comes to case management, but your users have to be trainable properly and they actually have to use the program accordingly for this to be true.

Vantagens: Amicus Attorney is a very robust case management program with tons of beneficial features. It has the ability to streamline repetitive tasks and entries.

Desvantagens: We deployed Amicus Attorney almost twenty (20) years ago. A lot has change over the years, some good, some bad. The decline in tech support has been the most unfavorable change.

Comentários: In 1996 I introduced Amicus Attorney software to my small law firm, and I still use it today as a sole practitioner. I consider Amicus to be "mission critical" software for my practice, allowing me to keep my files and clients and contacts organized with the seamless link to Microsoft Exchange and Outlook, my time under control and properly recorded and synced to my PCLaw accounting software, and my documents at my finger tips with the Amicus link to Dropbox. Amicus Attorney allows me, as a solo practitioner to stay on top of practice and to compete on a business level with lawyers having much more extensive back office support personnel.

Vantagens: The best thing about Amicus Attorney is that everything about my practice is in one place: my contacts, my files, my calendar, my time, my emails and my documents - and I can access it all in my office, in my car, or half way around the world, as I did last March while in Australia (and the customer support is awesome!)

Desvantagens: Frankly, there is nothing I am unhappy about with Amicus.

Comentários: We first purchased Amicus Attorney in 2007. Installed on our network server and five workstations. Entered all of our client data, easily uploaded our documents, and it has been a breeze to work with since. Wouldn't trade this program for the world!

Vantagens: Calendaring events is easy, which negates the risk of failure to timely file lawsuits, responses to motions and requests for admission, etc. We sleep much better knowing our risk in these areas is so low.

Desvantagens: Had a bit of difficulty getting used to emailing from Amicus rather than Outlook as we had in the past, but it was a low learning curve. Entering time through Amicus also took a bit of getting used to, but once we got used to the process it has gone smoothly.

Comentários: I have used various versions of Amicus continuously since 1999. When it works it is very good. The program kind of reminds me of the General Motors cars that my parents used to buy. Every car had it issues. GM always promised that next year's care would be trouble free and better than ever. But it never happened. I keep Amicus because there is to my knowledge nothing better in marketplace and because the cost of replacement is probably not justified. However the Amicus program that I use is still very flawed.

Vantagens: I like it because it organizes me. It is easy to use (when it works) and very logical.

Desvantagens: I am unhappy with the many flaws and quirks of the system. If you buy it you will have to become best friends with a really smart computer geek who will be able to sort out the many idiosyncrasies of the system. It crashes routinely. I am happy that I pay my computer technician a fixed monthly fee because otherwise I would be in financial trouble.

Comentários: Our firm has used Amicus since its early days and it has been a valuable addition to our practice, saving lawyers' time by making it easy to keep track of contacts, time, billing information, and for document generation. From an administrator perspective, it is easy to maintain and upgrade with good developer support and admin tools.

Vantagens: The core functionalities of Amicus are so ingrained in our firm's work process and so easy to use that most users take it for granted. Features added in recent years, such as Amicus Anywhere, give us confidence that Amicus is changing in the same direction as our firm while maintaining the core functionalities that we rely on.

Desvantagens: Our worst problems with Amicus have always been caused by integration with third-party programs such as PCLaw and especially Outlook/Exchange. Integration is a huge part of what makes Amicus useful, however.

Comentários: I like amicus however I don't use a lot of its features. I have been a user for 20 years and still need dropbox as I could never figure out where or how to store documents within the Amicus files. I like the ability to track court dates and the notes that occurred in court.

Vantagens: The ability to put in the notes that allow me to recall the details of a case years later.

Desvantagens: It isn't apple compatible without the Cloud. I tried to transfer to the cloud years ago and I had too many files and your staff was unable to complete the transfer. Gavel and Gown upgraded me to the server edition and I have been using it with a parallel program that is very slow. Also sometimes Amicus becomes disconnected from the server. Now Amicus wants to charge me a 300% increase to upgrade to the personal server. The cost is prohibitive for a small firm like mine.

Comentários: The system bogs down, freezes and is horribly slow. Customer support seems non-existent these days (and I was a user of the programme from back in the '90s, and it seemed to work great then and we had more users at that firm).

Vantagens: The calendar and linking of ALL information for each file, including contacts and bring forward dates that automatically calculate out from a date certain, etc., is so incredibly beneficial in our world of litigation.

Desvantagens: Over the years support for the programme has eroded. Customer service is terrible. The programme has changed a great deal and is now VERY slow in its operation, often freezing. It has become cumbersome to use yet it is still the most comprehensive programme out there, to our knowledge, for managing complex (and not so complex), litigation matters.

Comentários: We are able to exchange all information for a client between PCLaw and Amicus. Cuts down on the double re-entries. I can attach files to the contact for quick reference. Clients are able to have their copies of pleadings and correspondence, cuts down on mailing expense.

Vantagens: The calendar. Ease of creating an event and tagging files to the event.

Desvantagens: When setting a new appointment I can not go to new contact and fill in that information and tag it to the Soderstrom New Client File and then when the new client hires us and I open a new file in PCLaw and do the exchange, Amicus creates a new contact and now I have two contacts for the same person. It would be nice if there was some way to merge the contacts into one and then I would only have to enter the information once.

Comentários: I selected Amicus Attorney as my practice management software the day I opened my solo practice almost 17 years ago., and have never been disappointed. I had researched competing software, and realized that the Amicus interface was far superior. Although I occasionally look at alternatives, my initial assessment remains the same, and I would choose Amicus Attorney if starting anew.

Vantagens: Ease of use for daily functions; time-keeping and seamless integration with PCLaw; calendar and to do features.

Desvantagens: 1) that a full featured cloud version is not yet available; and 2) that it does integrate fully with Worldox as a document manager, rather than the rather unhelpful document links within Amicus.

Comentários: We are pleased to have the software. It simplifies our schedules and provides all the client information that allows the office to streamline our work.

Vantagens: The software is very easy to learn and use. It helps arrange all of our cases in an organized manner. Calendar features provide our office with a day to day schedule. The software allows the office staff to leave case notes and memos without the use of extra paper.

Desvantagens: The required updates. It has been difficult trying to updated abacus changes through our server. Once the changes have been made, it appears that software enables our staff to keep track of client files efficiently.

Comentários: My biggest daily problem is that it is too easy to turn off the platform. When I click the red x to close the window I am in, the entire program closes, throwing the other users offline. Then they have to shut down Amicus and I have to restart it from my station and they have to restart on theirs. A simple pop up that says "are you sure you want to close?" would be great.
I also would LOVE to have an Amicus app, so that when I am in court I can check my calendar instantly. I have to ask for a recess so that I can call my office and see if I am available instead of knowing by the click of my phone.

Vantagens: The calendar and the conflicts check. The calendar is the easiest calendar I have used.

Desvantagens: That there is no app for my mobile phone.

Comentários: Love the software. Having the client contact information, the team's calendars, file events, ToDo's, and the individual team members timesheets at my fingertips is invaluable when working the the clients' files.

Vantagens: For me, the most used feature is, of course, the calendar, followed very closely by the phone message/communications feature.

Desvantagens: It would be easier if the reports feature, used to print timesheets and phone messages, printed in a better format. Currently, the format used is one that has to be then modified and/or edited for easier readability before printing.

Comentários: Abacus must be in real financial trouble because now they are employing callers who threaten old Amicus customers with risk of data loss or hacking if you continue to use the old Amicus Small Firm Edition. Thank goodness the old program still works great. These callers are really obnoxious and unprofessional. I will never buy anything from Abacus software. I really miss the Canadians with the old Amicus company.

Vantagens: The old Amicus Small Firm edition was THE BEST database system for small law firms until Abacus bought the Canadian company that created Amicus. The old program was easy to learn and use. All of your data remained your data on your computer. No cloud requirement. It interfaced with e-mail and Time Slips. The pricing was good... everything was really great for the small firm law office. Customer support was the best; nice Canadians answered all of your questions. I really, really miss the Canadian company.

Desvantagens: When Abacus bought the company they eliminated the Small Firm Edition. They tried to force everyone onto their platform. They went to monthly billing for maintenance and they could terminate your data if you failed to remain with their captive service. I refuse to use a "Cloud" based services because of the risk of hacking. In addition, Abacus almost doubled the price of the old Amicus maintenance plan. I will never do business with Abacus.

Comentários: I have just had to tweak the program to my preference. I was able to do this very easily with the assistance of technical support. The technical support team has been very helpful.

Vantagens: The transition from the old Amicus program to Amicus Platinum was very easy and non-stressful.

Desvantagens: Some features are a challenge. For example the size of the font for emails needs to be automatically saved to the users preference.
You cannot change the time for email synchronization.
You cannot cut and paste into an email prior to integration

Comentários: Amicus Attorney is my life -- everything is on Amicus Attorney.

Vantagens: The most important aspect of this program is that information only needs to be put in ONE time and it is available throughout the program.

Desvantagens: My most recent reinstall to a new machine which had the brand new version of Windows 10 was very difficult and took a substantial amount of time -- but Tech Support (often more than one agent and at one point we had FIVE) was with us constantly and helped with the communication with Windows.

Comentários: Some frustrations here and there, but benefits greatly outweighed the issues. The best thing is that I can sleep at night without waking up wondering about this or that case. Really has improved my professional life and hugely improved my personal life, because the software really ties up the loose ends.

Vantagens: Handles all aspects of a law practice: (1) contact management (2) file management (3) document management (4) communication management. I love having everything at my fingertips.

Desvantagens: Nothing comes to mind. Works pretty well.

Comentários: As I mentioned to CSR - entering calendar dates and client information the program is great.

Vantagens: calendar entries are quick. setting up contact information and new files is wonderful.

Desvantagens: I don't use hot docs other than for check requests and setting up new files.
I find that receiving a document such as a pleading from an attorney who used hot docs sometimes is not friendly with word. I usually will take the contents from a hot doc document and use my own pleading formatted documents.

Comentários: I have been using the Amicus cloud edition for over a year. It has assisted me greatly in creating and sustaining a successful business model and structure.

Vantagens: Ease of use, functionality, tracking, billing and invoicing could not be any easier. Automatic email tracking, billing and document management is remarkable.

Desvantagens: Additional reporting options as well as a little more customizable features would be nice. However, Amicus is always open to feedback from customers.

Comentários: I am a 9 year veteran of Amicus. I'v e had a couple of opportunities to switch to other platforms but have opted to stick with Amicus. It is a bit more expensive than other programs but I have found that its ease of use and integration make it worth it.

Vantagens: This software is easy to use and fully integrated with my office (electronic client files, documents, email, etc).

Desvantagens: Some of the applications (which I have chosen not to use) are complicated and do not play well with outlook or Microsoft office.