A good law office management software product or program is capable of providing significant cost reduction benefits to any law office.


One of the principal concerns of most attorneys is the potential always for a malpractice or professional negligence law suit against the law firm.

Lawyers are faced with a huge range of tasks in preventing this-tasks such as calendaring, scheduling, legal research, organising staff, dealing with difficult clients, organising court appearances, drafting pleadings, paying the regular overheads that occur and so forth. For any small business owner this is an onerous obligation but for the lawyer who has to deal with professional regulatory bodies and other law specific obligations the potential for a disastrous and expensive malpractice suit is worrying. (Check out law office billing software and lawyer software also)

Any piece of software which lessens the risk of this happening and leads to a better functioning attorney office is to be welcomed and a slew of law practice management software products has come to the legal market. Amicus Attorney is one such program but how can it help your law office?

Amicus Attorney claims to provide better organization of your law practice through

• Better organization of case notes, pleadings, attendance notes
• Great tracking of time spent and billable hours on each file
• Mobile working and synchronization of data between the office computer and iPhones,iPads, Blackberries and other PDA devices
• Better scheduling and planning of meetings and consultations
• Simplification of legal research and generally
• Better practice management.

Amicus Attorney provides a Premium version of it’s popular software together with a small firm version.

Amicus Attorney Small Firm

This version of the software is aimed at the solo practitioner or small law office. It features a

• File management module
• Schedule management
• Task organiser
• Contacts management
• Calendaring and docketing
• Time tracking
• Document management and assembly
• Corel WordPerfect integration

The pretty basic practice management tools outlined above are aimed at solo practitioners and small law offices but you may need to also purchase Amicus Small Firm Accounting..

There is another Amicus Attorney product which is aimed at small law firms called Amicus Small firm  Accounting and which is necessary if you wish to do time tracking and billing as well as accounting.

Amicus Attorney Premium

The Premium version will allow you to do the same tasks as the Small Firm version but in additon it has a library module which allows you to organise all of your legal research, opinions, memoranda etc. in one place.

In addition to the features of the Amicus Attorney small firm version it also allows

• Log in from any workstation
• Internet connection
• Remote access
• Security restrictions
• Unlimited addresses and phone numbers
• Scheduled backups
• End user reports

Amicus Mobile is an add on program which allow  easy synching with cell phones and PDAs which means you are always in touch with your client’s file even when you are away from the office.

Both Amicus Attorney law office management software products integrate with Microsoft OUtlook and Word but there is a limit on the number of users for the small firm edition of 10 while the premium edition allows unlimited users. The Amicus Accounting software allows up to 100 users.

Do bear in mind that if you need full accounting, check writing, bill generations, receivables and payables management you will need Amicus Small Firm Accounting or Amicus Premium Billing.

Maintenance and support are extras with Amicus Attorney software and the Amicus Premium starts at around $999 with maintenance costing from $350 and online training costing $300-400.

Amicus Small Firm costs $499 and with additional support, maintenance and online training these products are not cheap, particularly if you are a small solo practice trying to get off the ground and build a client base. However you do have the option of a free trial and Amicus Attorney are a Microsoft Gold Certified partner.