"I am so glad I found Legalmaster!" Ray Meiers, Meiers Law Office, Holland, Ohio
"Love Legalmaster and the support. The support is never condescending. I am also impressed with the timeliness of the support. Client for life!" Caron Gorelli, Burton, Schmal & DiBenedetto, LLP, Santa Cruz, California
"I will strongly recommend Legalmaster to contacts at other law firms." DeAnn Gorena, Weiss Martin, Salinas & Hearst, Fresno
"Not only did Phil do a great job highlighting the many features and uses of Legalmaster, he really helped shed light on how to make them work for me and our firm." Mika Sugiyama, Hersh Family Law Practice, San Francisco
"Wonderful, so many daily use examples. Learned numerous new tricks." Leann Bigsby, Gilkey & Stephenson, Albuquerque, New Mexico
"Love Legalmaster. It can do anything I want it to do. On the rare occasions support is needed, it is excellent, too!" Marcy Payne, Pryor, Robertson & Barry, Fort Smith, Arkansas
"Very informative and useful [regarding a training class]" Darren Liu, Nielsen Merksamer, Sacramento
"This system is very user friendly." Joe Ann Pettiford, Thorndal, Armstrong, Delk, Balkenbush & Essinger, Las Vegas
"Excellent! Kept the class moving along and made it interesting, giving lots of examples and situations to apply to." Susan Burwell, Botto Law Group, San Francisco
"Very informative!" Kay Erdner, Kennedy, Berkley, Yarnevich & Williamson, Salina, Kansas
"Why work slower when you can work faster with Legalmaster." Mark Halili, Watson & Lanctot, San Francisco
"Attending the class gave me enough knowledge to save time and I learned many tips and tricks." Diane Hirashima, Freeland, Cooper & Foreman, San Francisco
"Thank you! I was very happy with the class and instructor." Terri Borchardt, Fishman, Larsen & Goldring, Fresno, California
"Well worth the time." Diane Weis, Williams, Wester & Hall, Petaluma, California
"Enjoyable! Got secret tips." Jean Hui, San Francisco
"The class was very informative and helped a novice to the system such as myself have a much clearer understanding of the program's capabilities." Donna Bridges, McArthur, Thames, Slay & Dews, Hattiesburg, Mississippi
"Always delightful! And, of course, I always learn many new things whether I want to or not." Lora L. Burris, Phillips, Goldman & Spence, Wilmington, Delaware
"Legalmaster is extremely comprehensive benefiting by over 25 years of experience and enhancements suggested by clients." Jim Calder, Durbin, Larimore & Bialik, Oklahoma City
"Best software I've seen in 30 years. You really can teach an old dog new tricks. Thanks." Judy Dunn, Durbin, Larimore & Bialik, Oklahoma City
"We have found that Tabs is not nearly as flexible as Legalmaster and the Legalmaster report writer is far superior." Jim Calder, Administrator, Durbin, Larimore & Bialick, Oklahoma City
"I discovered many features that will make my work much easier." Lisa Rowland, Gerrish & McCreary, Memphis, Tennessee
"A very powerful, versatile billing program that should make the most demanding lawyer happy." Deidre A. Maciel, Engle & Bride, Ventura, California
"Very Informative and useful. Legalmaster is a very powerful program." Tom Robertson, Pryor, Robertson & Barry, Fort Smith, Arkansas
"Class was exciting!" Mark Schmitz, Trucker Huss, San Francisco, California
The following is the text of an e-mail that we received from one of our clients in January of 2008.
I switched from Prolaw to Legalmaster and couldn't be happier.
Our firm is mid-sized, 20 attorneys in two offices. We had been using Prolaw for over fifteen years and were confronted by their demand that we upgrade or lose our support. So we started shopping. I spoke to some other administrators and heard favorable things about Legalmaster. We checked it out and installed it about a year ago.
Features
We do quite a bit of split billing, that is, the sharing of a matter among more than one client. Legalmaster handles this requirement better than anything else I’ve ever looked at, certainly much better than Prolaw ever did. What I used to have to spend days doing manually and with spreadsheets, Legalmaster does in one fifth to one tenth the time. Legalmaster even handles split bills at different billing rates!
Our clients frequently demand the reprinting of old bills. Because our insurance defense matters often are transferred from one claims adjuster to another, Prolaw’s printing of an image of the original bill resulted in an incorrect address. Legalmaster, on the other hand, handles that situation beautifully.
I was able to figure out how to use Legalmaster’s report writer with very little assistance, plus it has more options than did Prolaw’s. As a matter of fact, neither I nor any other of our staff have ever attended any Legalmaster training since we began using it.
I’ve never seen simpler and more intuitive data entry screens and menus. I have had occasion to use their help screens and have often been able to find what I was looking for.
Support
While Prolaw’s support was adequate, I typically get my Legalmaster questions answered within 10 minutes; often I’m able to reach someone immediately. We’re treated with respect, and we pay less than 25% of what we paid Prolaw.
When we report what we think is a bug, they don’t deny it; rather, they attempt to reproduce it almost immediately and, if it turns out to be their problem, they fix it usually within a day or two. If it turns out to be our mistake or caused by software other than theirs, they still spend time trying to help track it down.
Enhancements
The Legalmaster people are more than receptive to suggestions. They have added custom requests for us very quickly and usually include our ideas for no additional charge in their subsequent updates, an experience we never had with Prolaw.
Data Conversion
Legalmaster’s import utilities made it fairly easy for us to convert our Prolaw data without having to re-enter everything. We were able to do it ourselves without having to hire a consultant.
Cost
The cost of Legalmaster’s software was less than one fifth of what Prolaw wanted just for their most recent upgrade. Plus, Legalmaster does not threaten to cut off support if we don’t buy their upgrades as did Prolaw; I understand there are even some DOS Legalmaster users whom they still support.
R.S., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
We received this e-mail from a client in April of 2008. It's quite a rant.
We used Legalmaster from 1990 into 2003. At that point a salesperson for TABS 3 convinced us to switch, telling us that TABS did everything Legalmaster did. We have struggled with TABS ever since and have learned to our chagrin that we were deceived. Legalmaster is easier to use, has much better reporting capabilities, addresses our split billing requirements, at which TABS is miserable, and is more compatible with electronic billing. Legalmaster's support is infinitely better and, unlike the TABS people, the Legalmaster people are more than willing to make modifications. (TABS so-called "Wish List" is a black hole.)
Under Legalmaster I got my bills out in one to two days; with TABS it takes a week and a half. TABS has ruined my taste for billing.
One of the arguments TABS proffered was their integrated general accounting, accounts payable and general ledger. It may be integrated, but it's far inferior to even low-end general accounting systems such as Quickbooks. It's more cumbersome and lacks features that we consider elementary. So, while we continued to bear with TABS billing for years, we switched to Quickbooks for check writing and G/L within a few months.
TABS has lost us lots of money. Clients have threatened to fire us because we couldn't meet their billing needs. As far as I am concerned TABS is "The program from Hell."
We are in the process of switching back to Legalmaster and I, for one, can hardly wait.
R.D., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania