Time is money. With many lawyers logging more than 40 hours per week, knowing where and how you spend your time is essential to growing your law firm, and calendar software can help you stay on top of it all.
You may already be accustomed to using legal practice management software or other tools for law firms. Still, as a busy attorney, you can't afford to let even one deadline or case issue slip through the cracks. That's why legal calendaring software keeps you on track and ensures you deliver the same great experience to all clients.
In this guide, you'll discover what to think about before buying calendaring software and a few of the best options on the market to maximize your billable hours.
Why Use Legal Calendar Software?
Managing your deadlines, court dates, and upcoming meetings can be challenging for any lawyer. Too many attorneys are buried with incoming and outgoing communication and the need to jump from one case to another frequently. This greatly increases the chances of making a mistake or leaving a bad taste in a client's mouth because you appeared unprofessional. How many malpractice claims go unresolved because someone missed key due dates?
Beyond that, most lawyers work in various jurisdictions and court systems, each of which has their own filing deadlines and requests (such as filing in person or electronically.) Keeping all of this information in one unified calendar is crucial for staying organized.
Legal calendar software makes this simple, so you never miss a beat and can provide prompt updates to your clients on their cases, too. With the right calendar program at your side, you'll always know what's ahead of you and what you need to work on next.
Choosing the Right Legal Calendaring Software
Like choosing the perfect law practice management software for your law firm, you need to know the features that will make the biggest impact on your scheduling.
Some of the most important aspects of legal calendaring software include features like:
- Rules-based calendaring systems — these help you calculate all deadlines for a case based on individual court calendars, statutory deadlines, and other jurisdiction-specific calendar rules. These likewise automatically recalculate deadlines if important dates change.
- Deadline notifications associated with upcoming events, appointments, and filing requirements.
- Collaboration tools to help team members add updates and information from anywhere so everyone's on the same page.
- Cloud-based access so you can log in anywhere
- Automated due dates associated with calendar events
Beyond the features noted in any tool you select, you need to verify it will play nice with any other software you already use. Whether that's a legal case management software or an external calendar system, tools that integrate well make your life easier and automate things.
Navigating the Best Legal Calendar Software for Efficient Case Management
Thankfully, there are plenty of great options on the market for lawyers to use, and plenty of them integrate with existing tools you might already have in place. Here are five of the best options for legal calendar software.
1. Clio: Streamlining Legal Calendars for Optimal Case Management
Clio is a full-suite solution for most law firms, which makes it easy to turn to if you also need help with billing, document management, and practice management software. However, if you already have solutions in place, like for those aspects of running a law firm, you'd have to consider whether Clio Manage is worth the cost or if you want to jump through the hoops of moving over to Clio.
Key Features
Here are some of the best features of the calendar aspect of Clio:
- Simple to integrate with tasks and cases for comprehensive scheduling
- Time tracking for precise billing and a regular productivity analysis
- Syncs with all your calendars, including Google and Office365
- Track court deadlines with court rules
- Include firm-specific events and client tasks in one place
- See upcoming tasks
2. MyCase: Advanced Scheduling and Court Calendaring for Legal Professionals
MyCase is a strong competitor to Clio since it's also a law firm's case management program. You likely don't need both Clio and MyCase, so if you need comprehensive practice management software, choose one or the other.
Key Features
Some of the most important calendar functions with MyCase include:
- A user-friendly interface for appointment scheduling and case linkage
- Automated court calendaring to prevent missed deadlines.
- Collaboration tools for team scheduling and client communication
- Ability to match various court rules and limitations dates to assign deadlines for you
3. PracticePanther: Simplifying Legal Scheduling with Smart Calendar Solutions
PracticePanther is another popular software that includes multiple features beyond just calendaring. It's very highly reviewed because it's easy to learn and train your entire team on and has many of the same features offered in other tools.
Key Features
Some of their features include:
- Rule-based calendaring features for automatic deadline tracking
- Integration with Google Calendar and Outlook for centralized scheduling
- Delegate and reassign tasks to others to clear up your calendar
- Build workflows from your client meetings to ensure tasks transfer over
4. Microsoft Outlook with LawToolBox: A Powerful Duo for Legal Deadline Management
If you don't need a new plan for law practice management software, you might not want to overwhelm yourself or your team by taking on that learning curve. Instead, you may be able to use Microsoft Outlook with LawToolBox to keep track of deadlines.
Key Features
Some of the best features available with this combination include:
- View and download reports
- Add, update, or delete case-specific deadlines
- Calculate custom deadlines with rule sets or use general matters
- Update other staff member calendars as users or deadlines change
- Track the history of changes
- Auto-docket deadlines as each PACER email arrives
If you're already using Outlook, this is a power-up that works well for streamlining and keeping track of workloads.
Some users note that it malfunctioned more often than expected, leaving for a frustrating experience that didn't actually save time.
5. Legal Files: Comprehensive Calendaring for Law Firms and Legal Departments
LegalFiles is another tool on the market that might work for keeping track of deadlines.
Key Features
Some of the best features include:
- File organization
- Create efficient workflows for similar projects
- Integrates easily with Outlook and Gmail
- Ability to see calendars by user, matter, department, practice area, or event
This could be a good solution for you, but be aware that users report that it's not Mac-compatible.
How Much Does Legal Calendaring Software Cost?
Legal calendaring software like the ones we've mentioned above generally starts at around $40 per month per user. However, higher-tiered plans may make sense for you, depending on the size of your firm and how many people need access.
Best Practices in Legal Calendaring
The tool is just the beginning: you also need a plan for your entire team to get on the same page about why you're using the tool and how best to do that. To get the most out of whatever tool you use, follow these tips:
- Offer training to the whole team, so everyone uses it the same way
- Assign roles, so everyone understands their own tasks.
- Connect automation software immediately to reduce the chance of human error
- Double-check every so often that the program is working
- Build in workflows to reduce repetitive work
- Look at reports to ensure everyone is using the tool properly and saving time
Making an Informed Decision
To take on more cases and grow your firm without fear of missing client communication or key deadlines, you need a legal calendar tool. Make an informed decision by first considering whether you need a full suite program that offers other things like document automation or case management, or whether you just need something that connects easily to Google or Outlook calendars.
Take into account your firm size, specific needs, and willingness/ability of your team to learn something new. Don't forget to read reviews, as this can be telling about how it worked for other firms and their experience with customer service. You might have to invest time upfront to get a lot out of legal calendaring down the road, but it will be well worth it.