Robert Ambrogi Blog
Lawmatics, a legal technology platform for client intake, CRM and marketing automation, is rolling out a comprehensive redesign of its user interface aimed at making its increasingly complex feature set more accessible and intuitive for law firms of all sizes.
The update, which is going live this week, represents the first phase of what founder and CEO Matt Spiegel describes as a “massive change” in the product’s design that will unfold over the coming months.
The redesign shifts the platform’s primary navigation from a horizontal to a vertical layout and reorganizes key features to make them more intuitively accessible to users. The navigation menu is collapsible, allowing users to maximize screen real estate once they become familiar with the platform’s layout or find the feature they need.
Enhancing Ease of Use
During a preview last week, Spiegel told me that the changes reflect lessons learned over seven years of of developing the platform and analyzing user behavior. Spiegel founded Lawmatics in 2018 after originally founding and selling the law practice management platform MyCase.
“We’ve built so much over the last seven years. Sometimes when you do that, and you want to add another piece to the puzzle, well, sometimes that piece doesn’t fit exactly how it’s supposed to,” Spiegel said. “We experienced that where we’ve added so much functionality that some of it got kind of crammed into areas that maybe it shouldn’t necessarily be, and oftentimes what can happen in that situation is you can lose a little bit of that ease of use.”
The new interface moves frequently accessed features such as matters and pipeline management to prominent positions in the navigation menu, rather than having them nested under broader categories such as CRM. The platform’s automation features, previously located under the marketing section, now have their own dedicated section that encompasses workflows, reminders, forms, documents, and appointment management.
A key improvement highlighted by Spiegel is the consolidation of reminder functionality. In the prior version, users would have to navigate to different sections of the platform – some of which were not necessarily intuitive – to set up reminders for different types of activities, such as document signatures or appointments. The new interface brings all reminder-related functions into a single, accessible location.
The redesign also introduces a permanent search bar, replacing the former click-to-open search function. “Now, search is just always here for you,” Spiegel said.
According to Spiegel, the interface changes are part of a broader initiative to make Lawmatics more accessible to smaller law firms and those with lower lead volumes. While the platform has established itself as a comprehensive practice management platform that can replace multiple point solutions – including calendar management, form building, e-signature, email marketing, and CRM tools – the complexity of its feature set had created barriers to adoption for some users, he said.
“We want to provide a solution for these solo and small firms or firms that don’t have as much lead volume as some of our more active firms,” Spiegel explained. “We want to give them a solution where they can put in their email address and sign up and within two weeks or less, by themselves, they are fully functioning with this incredible growth platform, automating their sales process, their intake process, their marketing, all of that.”
Rolling Out Today
The company is rolling out the new interface to all users simultaneously, rather than offering an opt-in period. While support documentation and training videos will be available, Spiegel expressed confidence that the new UI is sufficiently intuitive that new users will be able to simple sign up and get started, without extensive training.
In the months ahead, Lawmatics plans several additional updates, Spiegel said. These include a unified email management system that will consolidate email functionality currently spread across different parts of the platform, and a complete overhaul of the automation engine’s user experience, expected within the next six to eight weeks.
The decision to undertake the redesign was driven by analysis of usage metrics rather than direct customer feedback. “I don’t think customers are ever going to ask for a new user interface,” Spiegel noted. “I think what you have to listen for are the symptoms of a need for one.”
These symptoms included patterns showing certain customer segments struggling with specific features or decreasing their use of certain platform capabilities over time.
No features or functionality were removed as part of the update, Spiegel said, noting that all major sections of the platform see heavy usage. The platform’s time and billing features, which were introduced in 2022, will continue to be available as an add-on. That feature is primarily used by firms that bill for consultations during the intake process.
The company recently brought on a new CTO, Krijn van der Raadt, who Spiegel credited with ensuring a methodical approach to the rollout. While the initial release is going live this week, subsequent updates will continue throughout the first half of 2025, with the automation engine redesign being a particular focus for the company.