AbacusLaw Reviews

It's extremely easy to use, update and share.

I haven't had any problems using Abacus. It's easy to customize for our use and has been very helpful.

The ability to enter notes no matter how far in the future; the ease of finding names of attorneys and the cases we have worked with them on.

Setting up rules has always given me a bit of a problem.

IF... and only IF set up properly most pleadings can be pre drafted and auto filled IF and ONLY IF all case info is put in correctly.

A little slow for my own taste. Let's just say you need to set time aside to only dedicate yourself to using the software.

The legal billing and trust accounting functions are great. However, the rest of the accounting functionality really stinks.

I like how for billing, you can schedule a bill to e-mail or print and it automatically does it (e/m or print) when you finalize the bills.

I'm used to QuickBooks. I hate that I can't drill down to detail from reports. I hate that I can't type a vendor's name when I tab to the field when entering A/P (you have to open the search window and search for the vendor...there's no way to fully navigate through data entry without taking your hands off the keyboard).

Data between the "Law" program and the "Accounting" program becomes "out of sync" frequently. There's a script to run to attempt to fix it, but it takes hours to run.

Ease of use, power, there was so much it would do,

general accounting never did get the hang of that, billing worked and efficient

I like that this software helps to manage our caseload.

I prefer other case management softwares over this one. The interface and features are not comparable to others in the industry.

The customer support is excellent. As an IT professional, there was very little that I had to do for the setup process. We also had to do a disaster recovery and the support we had for that was excellent.

I did not run into anything I did not like personally.

Ease of use. Accessibility for all paralegals and attorneys for file information.

After we upgraded, AbacusLaw has been terrible! It changed the decade from "19" to "20" in all client birth years, which will have to be corrected manually. It now locks people out on a frequent basis, occasionally limits their access (will not let them edit notes they have already entered). I was told by an Abacus Support Tech and our company's IT person that Abacus is not meant to be opened and left open. We have been told we need to only open it to do what needs to be done, then close it back out. To leave it open (and we are not even talking about overnight), will cause it to lock up and refuse to allow anyone but the administrator (me to get into it.) I then have to contact our IT guy and spend time that I don't have to get it closed down and re-opened. It is so frustrating on the part of every one of us who uses it!! It is a pain to have to log into Abacus just to check an address, get a telephone number, etc., then log out, only to have to log back in a little later, and on and on.

I was first introduced to Abacus at my prior law firm. I was familiar with a different case management software from another law firm. I was happy to be able to convince my current employer to obtain this very useful tool for our firm. I use it daily and am nearly lost without it. The main function for our office is the calendaring system which is amazing and is easily customizable for our needs. I am aware that the software does 80% more; however, it is an excellent value just the way we utilize it.

The only negative thing I have to report is, years ago for some odd reason, the customizing I had done to the trial calendar disappeared. Customer service individual who was extremely patient and knowledgeable, was able to correct it and return it to my customized settings.

It is a comprehensive software product for a law office, with case management, document management and billing. Our firm has been using it for 12 years.

The original founder of Abacus had very high standards. Tech support was very good. You could always connect quickly with a knowledgeable tech support specialist. In addition, for the first 7 or 8 years we used it, it was virtually bullet proof. It rarely, if ever, had a crash or issue of any kind. In more recent versions, you started to see more crashes or technical problems. But, at least the support was good when needed. The founder sold the company a couple of years ago. They acquired Amicus, several other products and most recently HotDocs. The quality of their tech support has significantly deteriorated. For example, we had a crash using the billing component, with a window that popped up with an error code this morning at roughly 9:00 a.m. Called tech support, was on hold for ten minutes, then prompted to leave a message. Left message at 9:10 a.m. this morning. In fact, both I and the user of the workstation left messages. It is 3:15 p.m. and Abacus has not called back.

Strong database with a lot of features and the unique Outlook add-in to bill emails straight into the integrated accounting software. The add-in will make you very dependent really quickly if you bill for time reading and responding to emails.

Horrible support and inaccurate sales information. Each time there is an update, we had to end up calling in to fix the problem. If we were lucky, we got an experienced tech. Otherwise we ended up going through several until the problem was fixed. We would spend hours on the phone each time for days in a row and the problems would completely prevent us from working for a day or more. The down time was costing us too much money and client retention issues. Finally after 5 years we had enough and cancelled the program based upon the original salesman's representations that we paid for the program for 2 years, then after that we could pay for maintenance but we would have a usable stand alone program. We found out that is untrue when we cancelled. We were not given the opportunity to retrieve our information, billing or financials unless we paid for a month-to-month account and tech fee. In response, the company would not return our phone calls.

Our needs were minimal and this software met most of those minimal needs.

Screens are not customizable. We asked repeatedly for the ability to make custom buttons so that we could execute tasks on each Client without going through their rigorous protocols. After several years and release updates, custom buttons never made it. It seems they don't want users to alter the product so that it best fits the users needs. They are very rigid. At the term of our contract they began billing me at 4 times our agreed rate with no notice. Not once did they disclose the amount they were going to charge and it cannot be found anywhere in their emails, website, etc. For that matter, they could have charged me $1 million a month. In any event, when I told then I did not want do business with such a dishonest company and cancel any service agreement with them, they kept charging my bank card. I finally had to cancel my bank card to stop the charges. Worse than AOL and Comcast.

Abacuslaw is easy to use (even for lawyers), easy to setup and provides a central case management solution incorporating everything our practice needs from document generation and management, diary/calendar (rules-based features too to help with case workflow), email integration, etc. It is versatile enough to keep us on top of our litigation work (95%) of our practice, but we can also customize its features to handle our estates/real estate files. Keep up the good work.

I generally hate software that requires an ongoing subscription or nickels and dimes you for every added feature, but Abacuslaw is tolerable in that regard.

Abacus has everything we need for our daily functions and makes basic accounting easy. We can access our client's many different ways (i.e.: name, matter, ID). I love the way the top bar is set up. The icons are used daily. I can print out reports for the partner within seconds. Easy transfer of funds from one client to another.

Sometimes when updates are made, there are problems with the monthly billing and client payments. After inputting the time tickets, sometimes the program freezes up and we need to shut down the system a couple of times and even need to call customer services for help. Also, when printing the invoices, even though I put them in alpha order, when they print out, they print out numerically or even one time recently just printed out (255 bills) in no methodical way. The same thing happens when inputting client payments. Instead of allowing me to input what I want to input, if I mark an invoice or invoices.