TrialWorks

TrialWorks enables us to organize and manage our cases in a systematic fashion, while also customizing each case's layout as needed. We love using this program.

My firm consists of two lawyers and two paralegals. We primarily handle 80 percent personal injury and 20 percent family law. I have used Trialworks for approximately 7 years along with PCLaw for accounting purposes. Before that, we used Amicus which was good; however, it didn't have the capabilities that Trialworks had at that time. In the beginning of using Trialworks, we were using Trialworks primarily as a hub for all case information including pleadings, correspondence, etc and we finally began using it to maximize efficiency approximately five years ago with its abilities to create forms using templates and automatically generating workflow. It is very good for litigation purposes, but for pre-litigation purposes, it falters. It is very difficult to manipulate the intake screen and if you handle several different types of personal injury or other types of litigation, you will need do several work arounds. The workflow works well; however, if you want any triggering events, you will need to make sure that your staff is well trained, or you will begin to see events falling through the cracks. The customer service is okay; however, recently every time we try to call we are placed on hold for approximately 20 minutes only to leave a message waiting for technical support to call back who generally calls back within 24 hours. We have suggested many changes, and some of them have taken as much as two years to take effect when Trialworks is promising that they will arrive sooner. If you use PCLaw or Quickbooks for accounting purposes, Trialworks meshes well with both and you can send billable time to both. Regarding templates, it is somewhat difficult to learn how to create templates using the bookmark features, but once you have created a good template, you can use it to build other templates. If you are looking for a good out of the box solution that is server based, Trialworks is definitely a contender. If you are looking for something with more customization, I would suggest that you look at other companies. Good luck!

i have been a user of Trialworks for over 10 years and overall i am pleased, but feel that there is room for improvement, initially i was introduced to this company at an ATLA convention where i also viewed the products of other companies. The company is well run with people who generally are available to timely respond to issues.
Overall the product is robust and has a lot of features. However, one of my concerns with this company, is that on top of purchasing the product and paying an annual fee, we were never fully trained in the various features of the program. As I recall, we were offered an opportunity to have someone train us, but there was a substantial additional charge for this training. As a result, i do not feel that we are using all of the features that we might benefit from. That being said, if we ask a specific question, we are usually provided with a timely response.
The program is geared to law firms who have a substantial personal injury practice. That being said, i was surprised that there was no way to file photographs in a case file. When i raised this question recently, i was informed that a "button" could be reprogrammed to file photographs. However, the process is not smooth, and involves way to many steps. This needs to be improved - it should be as easy to file a photograph as it is to file an email.

We have been primarily been using the program to file all emails, pleadings and correspondence as well as notes for each case. the program works well for these functions. However, it is not geared for time and billing hourly cases. There is a billing function, which we also recently discovered, but since we were not trained in its use, we have found it difficult to use, and in fact, it appears that having turned an "auto function" on, instead of it only applying to hourly cases, it has been turned on for all cases, which is very annoying. i am not sure if there is a way to turn it off. Certainly there is no intuitive way to tailor it to the appropriate cases. However, i have not tried to see if the company can help with this - so perhaps it can be tailored.

we also have, on occasion, had issues with the interface of the program and the underlying outlook/word issues. we used to use their IT person to do our IT work, which resolved the issue, since they were responsible for both their program and IT issues and there was no finger pointing. Recently we are having problems they say are not their problem.

Since initially implementing the TrialWorks software in my PI practice, I have literally saved myself hundreds if not thousands of hours in paperwork and organization, and thousands of dollars in time and staff. FIrst of all, the support is stellar. You simply call and/or go through the online portal, and in minutes you have someone on the computer who is fixing the problem or addressing your question. Everyone who responds to your inquiry is qualified and knowledgeable in the software and I have never had a situation where they were NOT able to resolve my issue or question within minutes. Seriously....it's that good. Since the software is primarily geared toward a personal injury practice, and with the constant tweaking of the interface based upon user feedback, it pretty much covers most of everything I need in my practice. Scanning of documents into the interface is easy and organized. Moving emails and documents into files is a breeze. The integration with Outlook, Quickbooks, MS Office, MedQuest, and others makes the program incredibly useful in that you barely need to use any other interface during your entire day. Everything can be accessed through TrialWorks. After decades of using the product, I could NEVER go back to simply using desktop folders and Windows for file management. TrialWOrks has made my office practically paperless, and I am very close to being completely paperless. The good news is that you can be as paperless, or papered, as you deem necessary. TrialWorks is light years ahead of the basic organization capabilities of a desktop manager, and with their Cloud-based option, it is now feasible for ANY size firm or budget. I highly recommend it.

Our firm began using TrialWorks just over seven years ago. We had never utilized a case management system before, so this was a big change for our office. Our transition to a paperless environment was slow at first, but TrialWorks gave us the flexibility to use as little or as much of its functionality as we wanted. What was great about the program was that we were able to move our entire practice'really, everything we do on a daily basis'to this new software at our own pace and still feel like it was instantly a good investment.

TW integrates completely with Outlook. So we end up keeping our TrialWorks 'Docket' and still maintain a master calendar on Outlook, along with our own personal calendars.

We begin everything for a case in TW: email, pleadings, correspondence, you name it. We have templates for everything through TW. So my form discovery is all in TW and when I need to pull it together, I just hit 'Create New' and it populates it with the defendants' names, etc. We keep all of our contacts in TW and can even attach CVs to a contact entry.

TW integrates with QuickBooks, so we can see exactly how much money we have in a case or all of our cases. There are negotiation and settlement calculators as well.

All of our depos are stored in TW. There is a screen for liens, so we can keep track of the liens in a case also.

Another great feature is the reporting ability. We can assign statuses to our cases and run a million different reports.

We also manage all of our new case intake in TW.

And while the software itself is powerful, flexible and intuitive, the support of the TrialWorks team is what gives us the utmost confidence that this was the right choice for us. They consistently help us learn new ways to utilize the software, they are constantly upgrading the program'often times with changes that we or other attorneys have suggested'and they are always there to answer even the most mundane questions. Simply put, they listen to their clients and respond to their clients' needs.

With the app I can pull up any document, email, contact, etc. on my iPhone or iPad. There is an Android app as well.

TW also offers a hosted solution: everything is in the cloud. With that option they provide you with Office 2013, QuickBooks, and other software you might use in your practice. They basically take care of all of you networking.