Amicus Attorney Reviews

The efficiency. The program for billing is easy to operate. The management of client's files is essential to our practice. Being able to add all contacts to a file is a time saver when working with same.

Nothing I can recall at this moment. I so far have not had a bad experience with this program.

TIME & MATTER MANAGEMENT: Timers and time entries are pretty simple. Knowing all people involved in a matter all in one place; engineers, judges, etc. is a great feature. Adding emails to a file is a good idea but time-consuming. Having all the data for a client in one place is good.

BILLING: I like that the Billing and Attorney sides are separate. Billing and accepting payments works quite well. Amicus can do split billing which is important to us. The interface with Quickbooks is quirky but after 1.7 years of working with it we've figured out most of the issues and found workarounds. Reports can be downloaded to Excel which is vital to my managing the firm.

CONS:
The end-user learning curve is huge and not intuitive which has led to a lot of attorneys entering time and not using Amicus for anything else. Text onscreen is exceptionally small, and for most users, problematic. The interface is not intuitive and takes a lot of trial and error to find the best ways to find what you want or report on the issue. We were lead to believe that the document management interface would work for us, but upon trial found out it would not work with our setup. So we're still dealing with Microsoft Explorer for managing documents, which is problematic. Overall our approval level with Amicus is likely only around 50%. There are so many features that we liked in the concept that has been difficult to get attorneys to do because the interface is not user-friendly.

TIME & MATTER MANAGEMENT: Data for our conflict database did not translate well from our previous system so conflicts checks take too long. Adding emails or files to the matter is very clunky. Ticklers are quirky and hard to work in Outlook. Tickler Reports are too limited events with no date range, or date range but no file selection. Running tickers for only one matter is impossible. Need more filters.
BILLING: Reports downloaded to Excel are impossible to use due to all the merged fields and lack of use of tables. We have to download Reports to CSV and spend time figuring out what the column headers actually are. I use the selection tools to view onscreen matters or time entries by

It has a fairly intuitive interface for many users and the familiar look and feel can ease some into practice management system. It has a lot of features that it does well such as calendaring. Custom precedents are a must and we are having a difficult time replacing that feature. It email saving feature is also a nice touch however using email in the application and even searching for it is cumbersome. It billing features are for the most part excellent although there is room for improvement.

In my opinion the cons out weigh the pros. Their technical support has been severely lacking in my opinion. The biggest issue is the lack of features compared to other software offerings. Most of the integrations are clunky at best. The worst is this product has had a TON of bugs over the years and constantly having to restart the services on the server is an incredible pain to say the least. If i wasn't able to do this and create a script so other users the product would be unusable. It is also fairly slow.

The interface is well designed, it does a good job of maintaining data integrity. I feel that it does allow me to keep fairly organized, and it is helpful as far answering the phone and being able to get right on top of things, it is great. The sync with Outlook works most of the time, and it does a nice job with duplicates. The time keeping seems to catch almost everything, but needs improvement.

There are two possible setups, I think I chose the wrong one for my situation. If you have a "split" setup then unless you are on your network, you cannot do a lot of necessary things --such as generate documents, The handy tool that pulls up all your documents that you will need at trial, you guessed it. Finally, there are things that should be easier to do, such as copy complete tables of data.

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.

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.

The database features for entering client data (i.e. name, matters, conflict check) in criminal cases and ability to run the reports we need, as well as the calendar. Also, love being able to print labels from the database.

Too many features that our firm will never use. We are a small firm and don't need linked forms, exhibits, etc. Maybe Abacus should offer the product with the ability to customize the product with items the firm will actually use. I know of several law firms in the area, including my previous employer that stopped using abacus because of all the new add ons and changes. Everyone really loved the older version.

The ability to integrate your emails, calendar, reminders, and case load all in one is what sets amicus apart. Whenever I have had a problem the support team has acted promptly and efficiently. Very courteously as well.

Many of the features take to much time to set up. As a small firm, we do not have a separate IT department and simply cannot deploy amicus to its full potential. Also, I have seen staff become overwhelmed with the software. Training can be tedious.

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

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.

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

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.

The calendaring feature works as expected, and all members associated with that event are able to see the event on their calendar and make any changes or updates to it, as necessary. The telephone feature works, even if you don't have your phone system connected to your computer, as it allows you to make notes and keep track of your billable time. The time entry assistant is really nice, as it allows you to identify items in your day that you may have overlooked for billing purposes.

Does not integrate as seamlessly with WordPerfect as I had hoped, an does not lend itself to some email providers other than outlook.

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

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.

Amicus has been bought by Abacus.

Amicus Attorney has constant problems that never seem to be fixed. Now that Abacus has bought Amicus, and is running the show, I am sure it will get better because Abacus products/representatives are topnotch professionals who actually care about putting a great product out for their customers, and genuinely care about their customers, and always go the extra mile for them.

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

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

I like that we can store information on the Notepad section for each individual client. I also like that you can send "instant" messages to co-workers.

The software times out after awhile and I have to close the entire program and reboot it. Also, when I'm in the calendar and look at a date in the future if I reopen the calendar it does not default back to the current date.

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

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.

It can handle "project codes" for clients so that work on performed on various matters can be billed in a single file but the fees and costs can be subtotaled by that matter. This is a rare among the software or cloud based apps that exist currently. Once it was set up (for an additional fee), it has worked well for many, many years.

The software! It is outdated and unmanageable. Modules inexplicably stop working. Syncing with Outlook is painful, when it works.

Customer support (even though we have prepaid for it) is worthless. You only get return calls, days later. And the information is unhelpful. This required us to retain, at added cost. outside technical support.

It's easy to use when it works. Most users can be up and running in a day.

The program has a huge problem with the accounting link between Amicus and QuickBooks. The link breaks multiple times per week. Abacus, the cloud provider for the product, has no way to easily fix the problem. You may have to wait literally for days and sometimes as long as a week for the tech support department to fix the problem. During that waiting period, you lose all accounting functionality. This is completely unacceptable. I've notified Amicus and Abacus multiple times and it is clear at this point and after nearly two years of this disappointing performance that the companies(neither Amicus nor Abacus) have any intention of resolving the problem. We have nearly 30 licenses and a fully staffed accounting department. Amiucs sold us their accounting software package representing that it would work. It does not work because of the constant disruption of the link with QuickBooks. I've been an Amicus client for nearly 18 years. We have made the decision to replace the product.

I appreciate the flexibility of scheduling (red letter dates versus appointments).

Customer service was friendly and was able to fix our problem quickly (We got a "read only" error)

I am still new to the office/system but so far Amicus seems to be able to cover all the basics needed to run a law office.

The integration of the calendar, contacts, files, and billing is ideal for my practice. Once it is set up, it's very easy to use.

I wish certain things were customizable like the email templates.

Ability to have all coworkers on the same page with appointments, files, etc.

If we have a power outage, it takes quite a while for our IT team to get us back on line with Amicus. Not sure if it's more of an Amicus issue or an IT issue.

Every user has the ability to view calendars/schedules and maintain client files. File sharing is very easy.

Charges associated with mobile access are an additional maintenance cost. Features should be included in purchased versions.

It has great features when they can be used. Unfortunately, we've never been able to make use of some of those features.

Difficulties with integration, file information hasn't always transferred and help was often no help at all.

Oh it’s so easy to use. I usually have to figure out software for myself as there’s usually no one To show me This was pretty easy to figure out and great organizational tool. Once the database was created everything just flowed with the calendar and the client files together.

There’s not much that I can say that I don’t like about the software. The only thing I can think of is that it doesn’t work well with word documents. At least that has been my experience maybe I’m doing something wrong

I like how easy it is to go between attorney and billing. I like that I can get a lot of information regarding the billing and prepare a bill right from the file

The reports. I have a hard time getting the financial information I need from the reports. I had more options in Amicus Accounting that I no longer have.

I like that you are able to generate documents on amicus. I also love that customer service is quite helpful when I have a problem.

I don't like it when others are logged into a certain client's file I can't logged at the same time to make corrections or add additional information.