Actionstep vs. SurePoint Legal Management System (LMS)

ActionStep is a powerful CRM and matter management tool. It provides many other good benefits too. For example powerful accounting and billing, time tracking and document management. Only in highly specific areas, like multiple many to many contact relations has it fallen short. But even in this highly specialized area, so many other benefits are provided that it hardly matters.

It is really well suited to medium to large sized attorney firms and practices. For small firms with one or two attorneys, it can be a bit of an overkill with its many features and components. On the other hand, smaller firms could pick and choose which features or components could be used without needing to utilize the entire package.

Incentivized

• The workflows are great to automate simple tasks like notifying people when an engagement letter is signed.
• Mobility. Because it's in the cloud it's easy to access from anywhere.
• The scratch pad is a good way to take quick notes.
• ActionStep lets you create custom fields so you can make sure the data you need is collected.

• The interface is fairly well designed, making it fairly easy to enter data or to create information visualizations.
• The software supports a robust set of features that can all be accessed through a single portal or site.
• There are analysis functions that help show patterns or trends based on time sensitive information.

Incentivized

• ActionStep is difficult to setup. I suggest working with a consultant which increases cost.
• Needs mobile app.
• One of our practice areas, Property Law, request we have a many to many contact relation. ActionStep cannot accommodate this. However, no other software I have reviewed can do this either. ActionStep is the most robust that I have seen and comes closest to making this work.

• No case management system to speak of.
• No able to create multiple cost rates for attorneys to use in profitability analysis
• Accounting system does not integrate well with e-billing vendors

Incentivized

I have worked with a lot of software. Each one has a different focus. ActionStep is better at workflow and task automation that the items above, in my opinion. However, having gone through many different deployments, what really matters is identifying your key requirements and needs. Then evaluation software against those. Once you have your requirements and software, focus on using that software to fix issues in existing workflow. This, when compared with ongoing training, is what it means to invest in software. Simply purchasing ActionStep or any software without identifying needs, problems in workflow or an investment in training is not a good plan. Neither is comparing the vendors to one another without knowing all of your specific needs.

For small to midsize firms, SurePoint [Legal Management System (LMS)] is 100% better than Prolaw. I have not used the latest version of Prolaw, but I have seen it and it still does not compare to ease of use and features.

Incentivized

• I love the workflows that can be deployed for practice areas to ensure consistency. This has reduced new employee onboarding time and increased the speed at which we can complete matters.
• Since ActionStep lives in the cloud, and we have O365 our firm is very mobile without spending lots of money in TS or other such infrastructure.
• Creating the workflows is a bit complex, so this increases the overall cost and makes an ROI take longer. I suggest spending a bit more initially to get everything setup and working with a consultant to learn how to do this on your own during that initial setup.

• It easy to use to respond to questions relating to time entry, billing and collections

Incentivized