Clio Reviews

Clio is repeatedly at the top of the charts for available features. Clio is constantly working to improve their service and adding new features and functionality. We have had no problems to speak of. Any issues that we have had have been related to finding a particular option or feature.

I wish that Clio would support more advanced document generation. At present, it just does mail-merge-type generation. Substituting fields in Clio with a field indicator in a Word doc. I would love to be able to get rid of HotDocs and use Clio instead, but it just can't match what HotDocs can do. The other feature that I wish it supported is the ability for external uses (clients) to fill out forms or data, which can then be stored in Clio.

The task assignment, and email reminders are a life saver.

I wish that there were a few less clicks on some things.

The best thing about Clio is its ability to stay organized and track cases throughout its lifetime. Other competing software can make it difficult to easily search and open case files.

The space where clio starts to lack is smaller quality of life issues. 3 way reconciliation is still not a thing, building custom documents or invoice templates is tedious and yields sub par results, you can do things like automated expense creation, and the client portal isn't always easy for clients to figure out.

It's too difficult to describe what is best, I could not manage my practice without this software. It is incredibly user friendly and easy to learn. I use pretty much all aspects of the software on a daily basis and have been using it for more than 10 years. My practice has grown from just one attorney, me, to now four along with paralegals and clerks. Clio has made the growth seamless.

I don't have any complaints whatsoever. The software has been essential to my practice in all ways.

The ease of entering notes, communicating with client through the portal, and billing clients are what I like most about Clio.

The Reports could be improved. Having more options of the reports that I need would be nice.

When my partner and I started our law firm, we immediately chose CLIO as our case management software. My partner had used it in the past and loved it. I came from a government-created system that had been clunky and hard to work with, that was not intuitive to learn or use. CLIO was easy to learn and worked great. The more I worked with CLIO and learned about its various features, the more impressed I became.Last fall, our firm was offered two very large contracts for legal work. It was what we had been striving for as a small firm for some time, and would give us a stable income that would permit us to grow as a company. However, at the same time we accepted these contracts, my law partner got some huge news - she received a "too good to refuse" opportunity and was leaving our firm at the end of the year. Soon, I found myself handling my cases, her cases, and the flood of cases coming in from the legal contracts - over a hundred new criminal defense files.This is where CLIO saved us. We had created templated task lists, templated forms, and text snippets that permitted us to quickly input new matters and make sure we didn't miss a trick with every new case. As a result of CLIO, every criminal case we inherited was opened in a matter of minutes, with a form letter to the client, discovery requests sent to the prosecutor's office, and next hearing dates on our schedules. Without CLIO, we'd have drowned from so many cases all at once, but instead, we got it done.

While any software can be improved (and I've made suggestions how to improve CLIO), what I like about CLIO and their team is that they actually take the time to listen to suggestions and are honest about whether its something they can implement. I made an offhand suggestion in a chat one day, and got an email from a CLIO rep within 24 hours asking me about it. 3-4 emails later, he informed me that his development team reported that my suggestion wouldn't work with the application right now, but he was going to hang onto it in case they find a way. That's seriously personal service, from a company that serves nearly 150,000 customers like me.

Our law firm has tried a few software companies to help us manage our clients and cases and this has been by far the bests. It is not perfect, but it is user friendly and easy for all to use (from lawyers, law clerks, paralegals, to even our admin and secretaries). We do not use the document feature. I use it to track open client matters, add notes to the case, assign tasks to support staff, calendar meetings, track time, hold contacts, and invoice. I really like that Clio constantly is updating to meet their customer's needs and is open to our suggestions on things that would make the software better. I would definitely recommend this software for law firms.

I do not like you cannot have two clients to a single matter - we have a lot of husband and wife contacts, so I wish we could connect two clients to a single matter. I use notes constantly and wish there was a way to format the notes like as a word document - highlight, make numbered outlines, add bullet points, change font size, etc.

I like the ability to quickly start and assign timers to track what I'm doing. I also like the Windows desktop integration to open and save files on my machine that live in the cloud.

Some clients have expressed difficulty navigating the portal. I also wish that user intake forms came with more dynamic options. The lawyer mobile app is also sometimes difficult to navigate to my client portals.

I've been using CLIO for more than 2 years. Our firm uses it to manage our cases and it syncs seamlessly with our intake software. My favorite update is the texting function because we KNOW people are more likely to respond to texts than to pick up the phone or listen to a voice message. I use the text function daily - often multiple times with various clients.

I have been unable to use the "portal function" but will ask support for assistance when I have time!

Clio is for the most part intuitive. If I have questions, I get prompt and solid options or answers from Clio Support. The onboarding was slick.

Additional template forms would be powerful. Ability to send bills from the app. The app is a bit clunky.

Clio has been a game changer for my practice. Before I would write my time on a sheet of paper (sometimes any paper within reach) and hope it got entered at some point before the end of the month. Now, I immediately enter my time either on my computer or iPhone. A phone call, client conversations, anytime I work on a file it immediately gets entered into Clio.
At the end of the month, Billing is a breeze. I am able to see all of my Billable Clients for the month and with a few clicks, they are all sent out by either email or Clio Connect. My clients can pay with their credit cards, and many times they have paid overnight before I even get to the office the next day. I remember when I first switched to Clio about 80% of my accounts receivable paid within the first week.
My clients also like the billing detail with separate time, attorneys, and expenses. I have been able to create custom invoices to comply with some of my government contracts, which require invoices to look a certain way.
We are also big fans on the integration with Office365. The software automatically creates a client folder on OneDrive when a new matter is opened. This has been a huge help in keeping everyone working on the same files and storing documents in the correct client folder. Also, the Outlook plugin has been great to keep all emails received and sent copied to the client's matter. I do not know how many times I have easily found an email related to a client matter.

I wish there was better integration with Infusionsoft (now Keap). There is a way to connect using third parties, but it would be nice to only enter client information once.

I love the functionality of Clio, and how we can manage time for each user on multiple devices. I not longer have to keep up with my start time for a task, my completion time, the calculation with what portion of an hour was teh time, or completing timesheets for a billing professional to then enter into a software to generate client invoices. Additionally, the billing process has been simplied and can be run from any computer. Further, the ability to keep up with each staff member's productivity is AWESOME! Clio has definitely changed my legal life!

Getting acclimated was sort of difficult because my rep was new at the time. The regular support team helped us with the remaining onboarding.

Clio software is comprehensive and covers everything that I need as a solo attorney to keep my practice running smoothly and efficiently. Clio Grow is a new feature that helps me track leads, lead sources, the intake process, etc. It is very comprehensive and is easily merged with Clio Manage. The Clio help desk is excellent. Answers are always spot on. If they cannot fix my problem, they will honestly tell me that Clio does not have the capability that I'm looking for and they will offer to submit a request for that capability to be considered in the future. Clio is always looking to address customer needs.

Does not have all of the capabilities that I need but has most of them. Sometimes the queue for the help desk/chat is rather long.

Functionality is nearly universal while specially and jusisdiction costomization is great.
Easy law firm branding and pre sale marketing is brilliant.
Support is outstanding and the Premium Support even better for speedy, live agent help.
Cost is reasonable and many available plans on their menu of options.
Clio grows nicely with solid feature burstsoften free to it's users.
Excellent and often updated/enlarged mobile App across all usual platforms: Appke, Android, Windows...
Superior online instant pay clientbinvoucing, and client trust account requests
The wide assortment of excellent and Rock solid 3rd party software affiliations is very impresdive.

I was fortunate to have free help migrating my existing, Timeslips database compiled over many years but it ain't quite so free today...Also, I'm still not a fan of the communications tools for clients and othes not subscribed to Clio.

The Clio platform was very easy to implement with our firm's daily usage. The onboarding process was smooth and the learning and transition for staff were easy. The software is meeting our firm's needs on a daily basis. I also appreciate that they listen to suggestions and continue to improve and add features throughout the year. Clio has allowed our monthly billing process to go from a day-long process to an hour process.

Some of the reporting features need to be fine-tuned or added to. My biggest pet peeve is the limit of 50 items to a page, so you update to 200 but it defaults back to 50 every time you move around between pages.

Our firm had used Timeslips for timekeeping and billing in the past before switching to Clio a few years ago. Timeslips was simply outdated and cumbersome, not to mention that we had no tech support. After having switched to using Clio, I was able to use the software to email clients directly and have the emails come from our firm email account via Clio without always having to involve the office manager for billing my invoices. If the clients have questions, they will know to direct their questions to the office manager, who is otherwise in charge of general accounting matters. Additionally, I love that I can always reach out to Clio's tech support for answers as to user issues or questions, and the services have always been pretty prompt and spot-on.

I remember there were some data migration issues when we transitioned from Timeslips to Clio. It has been a while, but I recall that at least some of the client data like their addresses didn't look quite right when it was pulled over, and I basically had to start over with entering the information in Clio.

Time entries can be imported by batch. Trust Requests and Bills can be emailed w/payment link directly from Clio. Past Due Bills can be "shared" with a coupled clicks versus printing out and mailing or using another app to email it.

1. When looking at a past due bill (and additional bills have been issued and remain unpaid for that same matter) the Outstanding Balance on the Statement of Account section will update and include the balance due for that matter as of the current date + any open Trust Replenishment requests instead of the balance due for that invoice + the balance due of all invoices issued previously to that one.
2. Evergreen Retainers - I keep getting calls from clients saying they can't view the "Shared" invoice when I have applied Trust funds that covered the whole balance. They can see the Trust Request to replenish funds used/applied to an invoice, but they can't see the actual invoice and review what was billed. I have to print the invoice to PDF and go to my email app and send from there.
3. I would like to see a report that shows that various billing rates per timekeeper for each client/matter.

Why I find a Clio essential Is as a sole proprietor of a small business, Clio operates as my check and balance. The small law firm I was at prior to going on my own used Clio and while I do not use all the features because I do mostly appointed work, the features I do use are essential on assuring me I am on top of my game 99.44% of the time.

As a very busy person, what I like least about Clio is it operates as a reminder to me that I could probably do a lot more if I ever took the day or two to get all the educated on how to do some of the things I do in a rather long handled manner. I am 60 years old and have been a lawyer for 33 years. I recommend Clio to many of the young lawyers I know just starting out or only a few years in the practice to help them ensure themselves they’re keeping track of their time, their appointments, their clients etc. I point out any problem I’ve ever had with Clio was quickly addressed and fixed and that I couldn’t be happier. I have to tell them that if I was them and had their computer skills and knowledge this thing would operate all necessary prompting for me I have to tell them that if I was them and had their computer skills and knowledge this thing would operate all necessary prompting for me.

I like the fact that there are different levels of cost for the need of your business. I started with one user on the lower tier, then moved up to include more options and added a user. I like the fact that not only does it provide billing and payment integration, but, at the time I upgraded, it included the monthly cost to use Law Pay (which I have also found helpful).

I feel there are some personal preferences I would like to use in my reports viewing and accounting. But there was a recent revamp rolled out a few months ago that did address some of my needs. Admittedly, although I have used the product for almost 4 years now, I have not watched all the tutorial videos or called with all of my specific questions, even though with the boutique package there is a dedicated help line.

I like Clio's simplicity and intuitiveness best. It really is the easiest time management program I have used. If you want to get up and running, like, literally, now, you can purchase Clio online with a push of a button and have open matters and clients/contact in minutes. I originally chose this product 5+ years ago for a small firm I manage, after looking at most of the online time management products on the market. I chose it specifically because it seemed the easiest in which to enter time. One of the attys I work with isn't great with a keyboard. Clio time entry required the least amount of effort, was the easiest to navigate and simplest to look at. But after using Clio, as well as, other online time management products (I manage a few small law firms), I really appreciate the easy of creating and EDITING invoices, which I do extensively at my firms. Lastly, I recently utilized Clio's FREE migration services to move from another online software, which I did not like. The migration took one hour on the phone, one day for them to migrate, and was pretty seamless! I've migrated data a few times (Prolaw and CosmoLex) and this was by FAR the easiest. The customer service is always great, even though I don't have to use it often because Clio is so simple to use.

Only 1. I haven't mastered LEDES ebililng on Clio yet. At one of my firms, we do only LEDES98 ebilling. If you don't know what this is, stop reading, you will not experience this minor Con. I am having trouble perfecting the LEDES98 txt files and uploading them. Granted, this is my first month of e-billing on Clio at this firm, so I'm sure customer service will correct it for me. It's just that a few other time management programs I have used had no LEDES glitches and uploaded perfectly the first time.

The price is also high for small firms. But all online billing programs are.

- Easy to use and learn
- Easy to show others to use
- Really easy billing features
- Great organization
- The Notes feature is fantastic and replaces any need for docketing and memos to file
- The "add time" feature makes it easy to keep track of billings and what's to go on the next invoice
- The linking of contacts to files is a time saver
- The Calendar is easy to use and does what you need it to
- The accounting that exists is great for keeping track of the movement of money directly connected with a file. It has helped keep my trust accounting immaculate. IT also helps me keep track of expenses associated with each file.

Clio is fantastic and the best solution I've been able to find, and I've done a lot of searching both before and after buying Clio. That said, Clio seems half finished in some areas and I'm hoping more work will come.

- The accounting is adequate, but should go a lot further than it does. I would love an integrated cheque writing program, for example.

- I don't know why you can't have more than one client per file. It's a small thing, but it bugs me. I put additional clients in the "contact" list associated with the file, and just pick one as a primary client to list. It doesn't matter, but again, it's a weird oversight.

- The firm metrics is a great idea, but it seems half finished. I don't know why, but it doesn't save stuff year to year and just dumps the information. There's also a dramatic lack of ability to customize things. This is frequent in some of Clio's features, such as how to list matters or client names. It's not a deal breaker, but it's a weird thing to not make more usable.

Overall, Clio is a fantastic program and I don't know how I'd run my practice without it. It's a lot better than everything else I've tried. I just wish the damn thing integrated with more programs and capabilities, and that they just expanded on it. I think the reason why it's frustrating is because it's so close to being sort of perfect, and they just don't go far enough. Hopefully they'll keep adding to it and raise it to that level!

It's definitely worth the buy.

It being cloud-based and the app for my phone

Clio Payments is very problematic. CLIO Payments has been holding client payments that the clients authorized to be deposited into an attorney trust account. When the bank that the deposits were directed to refused to received them - CLIO did not refund them. I requested that the refund the clients since the money cannot go into that trust account b/c of issues with the bank. CLIO Payments says that it cannot refund money deposited to a trust account despite the fact that they have never deposited those funds into any trust account. CLIO Payments has taken possession of the client funds and will not release them or refund them back to the clients. This is a HUGE professional ethics problem for an attorney. They are oblivious and do not care about the impossible situation they are perpetuating for my business. Maybe they are making money on that money while they are holding it where it cannot be accessed and used for the client's benefit. DO NOT USE CLIO Payments - use LAWPAY.

Clio has the features I needed. I was fooled by the initial trial into thinking it would be a good fit for my firm. What use is a feature that is so complicated to find, use, and enable that I have to call support or Google how to make it work.

Nothing is intuitive, at first it seems like everything is going to work. Clio has all the features I wanted, or at least it seemed like it did. Once I used it for more than just the trial period, using it to manage my trust account, client billing, client communication, it just does not work. After using it for any length of time, the navigation gets tiresome and then frustrating. At every turn I find myself having to Google how to make it work. Sharing a document with a client requires several steps including typing in the client's contact info; instead of just clicking a button for share. Now my client can't enter a partial payment. What the heck? Prior to becoming an attorney I was a software engineer; I would have been embarrassed to put my name on such a product.

Frankly, I don't trust the myriad of positive reviews for this product, they can't be true.

We got Clio specifically for its billing program. Its great that everyone can enter their own time into Clio. I like how Clio does “macros” [they call them “text snippets”]. They work without having to use a code key.

The software is easy to use – for someone like me who is not a bookkeeper and hasn’t done a lot of billing before, it takes a little while to learn how to use it correctly, but once you know how things work, it’s a breeze. The very best thing about Clio, though, is its support staff! They are all great – it doesn’t matter who I’ve talked to they are all quick at getting to the root of my problem and showing me how to fix it. I have called other companies asking questions about their software and sometimes you just don’t believe what they tell you. It has never been that way with Clio – every one of their support staff is very knowledgeable and can quickly set you straight!

Also, Clio is open to suggestions from us and when they get a certain amount of inquiries asking if “they could change this or that”, they will work on it. We have been using Clio for 2 years next month and there are a couple of things they have implemented that we had requested, which is really cool!

Spell checking in the billing software is not what it could be – it does have the little red underlines if it thinks something is misspelled [like Word], which apparently is easy for some people to ignore. It would be better if Clio had its own dictionary and didn’t depend on the one in the browser. In order to do spell checks, we have to: export the time to a CSV file, spread out the column for the description, run a spell check and remember not to correct the errors there, but go back and find each entry in Clio and correct them there. It’s a little time consuming, and depending on how many typos each person makes during the month, it can be very time consuming, but its much better than reading the draft invoices word for word and finding the errors that way. It would be great if Clio could add spell checking so that it can be run in Clio without having to export and go back and forth.

The only other “con” we have with Clio’s billing system is with discounting invoices. It is very easy to discount an invoice by percentage or a dollar amount, but Clio only applies discounts on the total amount of the invoice, including client expenses, not on time spent only, so we usually put in a dollar amount so the discount comes out to the amount we want it to be , although Clio still applies that amount to the entire invoice.

I absolutely love the software for the most part, even with all of the issues we experienced, it still is very intuitive and I've enjoyed seeing how Clio has grown and fixed some of these problems. My favorite part of the platform is the one-stop-shop idea where I can manage my pipeline, case management, invoicing, messaging clients, etc. from one place (well, two if you count both Clio Manage and Clio Grow environments).

There are some basic features that are surprisingly missing. Some of the initial features I noted have been added since I first subscribed to the service. Another issue I have is that not all integrations seem to work as well as others. For example, we have a problem with QuickBooks properly pulling data.