Investing in a server-based system might have made sense to your law firm years ago. But have you checked the hidden fees you might not have thought about when you signed the contract? Firstly, a server-based system is costly to maintain. You need to pay for the hardware, upgrades, and an IT person to maintain it. Secondly, you also have to factor in the business cost of lost workdays due to server downtime.
Moving to a subscription-based law practice management software helps you avoid these costs. You no longer have to pay tens of thousands of dollars on a one-time basis. With a subscription-based model, you only pay for the number of users you have, which lowers your upfront costs. In addition, it’s also more flexible as you can switch to a different plan when your user base grows.
CARET Legal offers different subscription-based plans, so you don’t have to worry about server costs and complicated license pricing. This solution gives you everything you need to manage your law firm, from client cases to firm expenses. Thus, you also realize savings if you use separate software to store documents or generate invoices and reports. In this pricing article, we’ll present the different CARET Legal pricing plans. Knowing the inclusions in each plan will help you decide the right one that suits your needs and budget.
CARET Legal Pricing Plans
Like all other industries, technology is changing the legal landscape. Proof of this is how much law firms are willing to spend on technology to meet their goals. A 2020 American Bar Association (ABA) survey revealed that 48% of law firms spend more on technology than they did the previous year. Only 26% said their budget had remained the same, while 2% said theirs had decreased.
However, the irony is that law firms are not that quick to embrace cloud-based technology. Based on ABA’s 2019 Cloud Computing survey, lawyers who reported using cloud-based services rose from 55% in 2018 to 58% in 2019. That’s a rise of a measly 3%. Also, there was a slight decrease in the number of lawyers who did not use cloud services. From 33% in 2018, it went down to 31% in 2019 or by 2%.
Another surprising revelation is the typical user of practice management software. With the bigger budgets they have, one would expect large law firms to be its biggest consumers. However, ABA’s 2019 Practice Management survey results say otherwise. For the past four years, firms with two to nine attorneys represented 43% of the user base of law practice management software. This was followed by firms with 10 to 49 attorneys at 33%. In contrast, firms with more than 100 attorneys accounted for only 22%.
No matter what size your law firm is, there’s likely a package among the CARET Legal pricing plans for you.
Overview of CARET Legal
CARET Legal is a complete law practice management software that gives you a 360-degree view of your operations. Built by lawyers for lawyers, CARET Legal features a user-friendly cloud-based interface. This end-to-end solution combines matter and email management, document automation and management, and timekeeping and billing in one platform.
Firms of different sizes can benefit from CARET Legal. Small firms can use CARET Legal to keep case files organized in the cloud and effortlessly generate invoices. Firms with 10 to 20 attorneys can streamline their document storage process. Midsize firms with multiple locations can use its time billing features to track attorneys’ billable hours wherever they are. With apps for iOS and Android, you always have important case information at your fingertips.
CARET Legal allows law firms to have a central repository for all case matters. As a result, everyone has a single view of the truth. Consequently, you can move away from paper-based processes that are common in the industry.
Detailed CARET Legal Review
Law firms can be more agile with the help of CARET Legal. They can manage leads from their websites and turn them into paying clients, which recent legal marketing statistics have proved to be effective. Communication is faster with a secure portal where clients can send documents as well as receive invoices.
CARET Legal also enables law firms to be more profitable. You can bill clients in multiple ways and set up different timers to track all case activities. With reports for productivity, accounting, compensation, and more, you can check the financial health of your firm at any time.
The key features of CARET Legal are:
- Matter Management
- Intelligent Email
- Task Management
- Document Management
- Document Automation
- Time & Billing
- Complete Business Accounting
- Client Portal
CARET Legal Packages and Pricing Plans
CARET Legal offers three main plans—Enterprise, Enterprise Plus, and Enterprise Insights—all by custom pricing. With the Enterprise Plan, you get the standard matter and document management features, one TB of storage, and basic billing and reporting capabilities. On the other hand, the Enterprise Plus Plan provides you with unlimited storage and more powerful document automation, billing, and reporting features. The Enterprise Insights plan provides users with a 360-degree view of financial health that supports data-driven decision-making.
Enterprise Plan
With the Enterprise Plan, you can enjoy powerful matter management capabilities. CARET Legal’s email with built-in intelligent features allows you to automatically store a copy of an email to a certain matter. Advanced calendar management features like Smart Suggest let you quickly add matter-related contacts to an invite. In addition, you can create tasks, delegate tasks, and save frequently created subtasks as templates. Thus, you don’t need a separate task management software. With the Enterprise Plan, you get one customizable matter list and set up columns and filters.
Enterprise users get up to one terabyte of storage with a limit of five GB per file. It also allows you to manually or automatically manage file versions. Instantly create folders as new matters come in. You can import files and even folder hierarchies straight from your desktop. Moreover, a Microsoft plugin lets you access and save files from Word. This saves you a lot of clicks and boosts productivity.
CARET Legal’s billing and accounting features help keep your practice profitable. It offers various ways to capture billable hours and customize invoices. CARET Legal supports industry-wide standards like UTBMS and LEDES invoicing, allowing you to enjoy smooth, hassle-free transactions. You can process credit card payments with LawPay and sync up to two bank or credit card accounts.
Who is this plan good for?
The Enterprise Plan is a great fit for small law firms. You can use it to track time while on client calls or emails. With its built-in accounting tools, you don’t have to use spreadsheets, or third-party law firm accounting software to manage your books of accounts.
CARET Legal allows you to automatically save emails related to a matter.
Enterprise Plus Plan
With this plan, you get all Enterprise Plan features and more. For example, you get unlimited custom lists instead of just one custom list in the Enterprise Plan. On top of the usual document automation capabilities, you get unlimited document storage of up to 10 GB per file. In addition, integration with LawToolBox allows you to create rules-based calendar events based on procedural rules. This saves you time and eliminates human error when calculating deadlines manually. For lawyers, observing the rules is paramount, and even more so in countries with the strictest laws.
What sets the Enterprise Plus Plan apart from the Enterprise Plan is its more powerful billing and accounting features. With the Enterprise Plus Plan, you can sync an unlimited number of credit cards and bank accounts. Better manage your trust accounts with the ability to view or print ledgers per matter. Moreover, you can keep track of vendor bills and accounts payables, as well as generate tax forms.
When billing clients, Enterprise Plus customers can use rate cards rather than setting up user rates repetitively in the system. They can also do custom allocations where you can distribute a partial payment to team members who have billable activity with the client. In this case, the user determines the amount each team member gets rather than the system determining the allocation.
Who is this plan good for?
The Enterprise Plus Plan is ideal for midsize law firms with 15 to 100 attorneys. CARET Legal is a good fit for these firms that want to move away from a hodgepodge of on-premise legacy systems to a fully integrated cloud-based platform.
CARET Legal allocation dashboard.
Enterprise Insights Plan
This plan lets you unlock cutting-edge tools that empower your law firm with actionable insights and advanced capabilities. This plan includes all features from the Enterprise Plus Plan and builds upon them with exclusive functionalities tailored for firms seeking a deeper understanding of their performance and operational excellence.
The plan introduces CARET Analytics, a new product designed to provide a comprehensive view of your firm’s financial health. With configurable reports and dashboards, you can visualize key performance metrics and monitor financial trends, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Integrated payments simplify financial transactions by allowing you to manage client payments seamlessly within the platform, enhancing convenience and cash flow management. Additionally, the plan includes Tier 1, 24/7 support, ensuring round-the-clock premium assistance for any questions or technical needs. Unlike other plans, the Enterprise Insights Plan does not require a minimum number of users, making it ideal for firms of any size.
Who is this plan good for?
The Enterprise Insights Plan is designed for law firms that demand sophisticated analytics and automation to enhance their operations. It is particularly well-suited for firms that want to make informed, data-driven decisions with robust financial insights and optimize client payment processes for smoother transactions. The plan also offers top-tier, always-available support for peace of mind. Whether you’re a small firm looking to scale or a midsize firm aiming to refine operations, the Enterprise Insights Plan offers unmatched value and flexibility.
CARET Analytics delivers real-time insights and actionable intelligence through intuitive, configurable dashboards.
Who is this plan good for?
Firms that want to improve their bottom line will benefit from CARET Legal’s robust set of accounting reports. These include statements for profit and loss as well as assets and liabilities. These will come in handy for managing partners who want to ensure their firm’s profitability.
Downloading zDrive allows you to work on files within CARET Legal.
Buying the Right Software for Your Practice
As with any software, it is best to assess your firm’s needs before committing to a contract. You should understand how the solution addresses your needs. In other words, the solution should work for you and not the other way around. Have a list of must-have features versus nice-to-have features so you don’t get lost in the sea of functionality.
As you narrow your search for legal case management software, look for a vendor with transparent, easy-to-understand pricing schemes. In this way, you can have a good estimate of how much the software costs with your current user base. Also, it will be easy to predict the costs of upgrading if your needs grow in the future. Taking advantage of a free trial also wouldn’t hurt.
CARET Legal offers you all this and more. Their fuss-free custom pricing structure lays out what’s included and what’s not in a given plan. With a free trial, you can see for yourself how the features work and if it’s the right fit for your practice.
Even in a very traditional field like law, technology is upending how things are done. With practice management software like CARET Legal, you can keep your practice competitive today and in the future. You can contact CARET Legal for a custom pricing quote at (+1) 800-726-3339.
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