CRM for law firms: matters, deadlines, time, billing
The matter in email, deadlines in Google Calendar, time in Excel, the invoice in another tool. A law-firm CRM puts the client, the matter and billable hours in one place — with the permissions professional secrecy needs.
A law firm does not need “corporate sales funnels”. It needs: not to miss a deadline, to know how many hours went into a matter, documents in one place, and an invoice that is not assembled from three spreadsheets. A law-firm CRM is a matter file with a calendar, time recording and access only for people on the case.
What breaks when a firm grows on email
- A hearing or a court request lives in one lawyer’s private calendar.
- The junior does not know what was said on the last client call.
- Billable hours typed “from memory at month-end” — hours leak or get doubled.
- The client asks for a status and the answer means searching an 80-mail thread.
- GDPR and secrecy: an intern has access to every drive “because that is how it ended up”.
What law-firm software should do
- A matter: client, opposing party, court, reference, stage, responsible team.
- Procedural deadlines with an alert (not only “an event in Google”).
- Time recording: task, rate, whether it is billable.
- Documents and versions on the matter — not 15 folders on a drive.
- Billing: retainer, hourly, success fee, deposits, e-invoicing if needed.
- A client portal: status, document requests, invoices — without emailing the file.
A legal CRM package or a custom one?
Specialist products exist. We build custom when the process is unusual (volume debt collection, personal injury, a network of firms), when you want a client portal under your brand, or when the old programme will not survive a generation change. The usual start is matters + deadlines + time. Invoices and a portal — phase two.
Describe lawyer count, matter types and whether dates, time or the client hurt more. A quote with a permission scope, not a list of “500 CRM features”.
Frequently asked questions
- Will this replace court-form software?
- It does not have to. It can hold templates and versions. We add a generator when it really saves time — not as decoration.
- Where does the data live?
- On an EU server, with backups and limited access. A processing agreement if hosting is on our side.
- Does the client see the whole matter?
- Only what you open: status, tasks for them, selected files, invoices.
- How long to go live?
- Matter files and deadlines — weeks. Time and billing — the next iteration. Migrating old folders is quoted separately.
Describe your project