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.