Robert Ambrogi Blog
Lawmatics, a company whose product provides client relationship management (CRM), client intake and marketing automation for attorneys, is now adding timekeeping and billing tools, with the goal of offering law firms a comprehensive platform with everything they need to manage their administrative sides.
The company also is adding new electronic payment capabilities through a partnership with Gravity Legal, a credit card and bank transfer acceptance platform specifically designed for law firms.
The expanded feature set, which Lawmatics is rolling out to customers beginning this week, includes time and expense tracking, a built-in timer, invoicing, batch invoicing, online payments and trust accounting. The time-and-billing feature set will be offered to customers as an add-on to their subscriptions at an additional cost.
The new feature set does not include customization of invoice templates or integration with QuickBooks, both of which will be added at a later date.
‘Attorney-Client Relationship Management’
This expansion of Lawmatics’ platform follows on the heels of the company’s $10 million Series A funding round, which it announced on Dec. 15, 2021.
“By adding time and billing, we become the first end-to-end, lifecycle CRM platform for legal,” said Matt Spiegel, Lawmatics founder and CEO. “Think ACRM, your Attorney-Client Relationship Management platform.”
The new features fit naturally with those Lawmatics already offers, Spiegel said, including client intake, document automation and management, a client portal, and robust calendaring.
Adding a time entry in Lawmatics.
“Time and billing is part of the attorney-client relationship, as is intake, document management, calendaring, and post-case follow up – all of which allow law firms to save time, deliver an exceptional client experience, and directly increase their revenue,” Spiegel said.
Through the partnership with Gravity Legal, Lawmatics is enabling its customers to accept operating or trust payments electronically.
“What Matt and his team are building perfectly aligns with the Gravity Legal vision for integrated financial services for law firms,” said Dan Lear, head of marketing and partnerships at Gravity Legal. “What’s more, the Lawmatics team has tremendous experience building the technology that legal professionals need and want in the rapidly changing legal market.”
A View into Your Firm’s Relationships
Spiegel said the company was motivated to add time and billing by customers who requested the feature. A number of Lawmatics’ customers do not use a separate practice management platform and wanted time and billing capabilities within Lawmatics.
He said that the industry is beginning to recognize that practice management encompasses much more than just case management, and that a CRM platform can be a critical tool in managing a practice.
An invoice created in Lawmatics.
“Your practice is getting new clients and getting referral business and managing your intake process and managing your relationships with not only your customers, but also leads and referral sources and opposing counsel,” Spiegel said.
“So a CRM is a view into your engagement and your relationship with a particular person in the context of your law firm. To me, CRM is everything that you need for your practice. So to us, time and billing is just another piece to the client relationship. It’s not something that is outside the purview of a CRM. It’s very much right in conjunction with being a CRM.”
Spiegel is a former lawyer who was the original founder in 2009 of law practice management platform MyCase. He and CTO Roey Chasman, who first worked with Spiegel as a software engineer at MyCase, cofounded Lawmatics in 2017.