BriefLegal vs Litify: Modern Legal Management Systems Showdown

Legal professionals would agree modern legal management systems like BriefLegal and Litify can streamline operations.

This comparison of key features helps determine if BriefLegal or Litify better fits your firm's needs for document management, billing, reporting, mobility, integrations, security, support and overall value.

We will overview BriefLegal and Litify's capabilities, compare critical functions side-by-side, evaluate API and integrations, review security protections, summarize support resources, analyze pricing and plans, and provide recommendations based on firm size and priorities to guide your legal technology strategy.

Introduction

BriefLegal and Litify are two popular legal practice management platforms that aim to help law firms streamline operations and boost productivity. Both systems offer useful features like document management, security, billing, and mobility. In this article, we will compare their key capabilities to help legal professionals determine the right solution for their needs.

Overview of BriefLegal

BriefLegal positions itself as an affordable and user-friendly legal practice management platform designed for solos and small to mid-sized firms. Some of its notable features include:

A key strength of BriefLegal is its focus on ease-of-use and streamlining everyday legal workflows. The interface is clean and intuitive even for non-technical users.

Overview of Litify

Litify markets itself as an end-to-end legal management system for firms of any size. Some of its main capabilities include:

A major advantage of Litify is the breadth and depth of features it offers larger firms managing higher caseloads and billings. But this comes at the cost of complexity - Litify has a steeper learning curve than other solutions.

Comparing Key Features

When evaluating BriefLegal and Litify, some of the key aspects to consider are:

Document management - Both platforms allow creating custom document folders and access controls. But Litify offers more advanced features like file versioning and audit logs out-of-the-box.

Calendaring - BriefLegal provides better calendaring capabilities for scheduling events, deadlines and court dates. Litify focuses more on matter-based deadlines.

Billing & Invoicing - Litify has very strong billing features like pre-bills, automated payment reminders, trust ledgers etc. BriefLegal offers adequate functionality but less automation.

Reporting - Litify's real-time dashboards and custom reports excel in providing actionable data and insights. BriefLegal has basic reporting which may not scale well.

Mobility - BriefLegal offers native mobile apps for iOS and Android. Litify supports mobile access through responsive web design.

Integrations - Both integrate seamlessly with email, document management tools like Dropbox, practice-specific solutions like Clio Manage and legal research platforms.

In summary, BriefLegal simplifies legal operations for smaller firms while Litify packs in advanced features for large law practices managing higher caseloads and billings. Firms should evaluate their specific needs and priorities before choosing a solution. Legal Buddies can provide further guidance in determining the best legal technology for different firms depending on their size, focus areas and workflows.

Who bought Litify?

Bessemer Venture Partners, a venture capital firm, has acquired a majority stake in Litify, the developer of a law practice management platform. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed publicly.

As part of the acquisition, Bessemer Partner Brian Feinstein will serve as the new chairman of Litify's board of directors. This likely signals that Bessemer plans to support Litify's continued growth through strategic guidance and potentially further financial investment.

This deal allows Litify to leverage Bessemer's expertise and resources to accelerate product development and expand its customer base. For Bessemer, Litify represents an opportunity to invest in a fast-growing legal technology company with a modern, user-friendly solution.

Overall, the acquisition validates the hard work Litify has done to create value for law firms with its practice management platform. With Bessemer's backing, Litify seems poised for its next stage of expansion in the legal tech market.

What is Litify used for?

Litify is an end-to-end legal management platform designed for law firms, in-house legal teams, government agencies, nonprofits, and other legal professionals. It aims to connect and streamline operations across the legal ecosystem with flexible, comprehensive technology solutions.

Some of the key features and use cases of Litify include:

By centralizing core legal operations on a single connected platform, Litify aims to help legal teams work more productively, collaboratively and profitability. Its flexible plans can scale from small firms to large legal departments.

Who created Litify?

Founded in 2015 by Reuven Moskowitz, Litify provides SaaS solutions for law firms to enhance their practice management capabilities. As CEO, Moskowitz leads the company in developing an intelligent yet easy-to-use platform that helps law firms streamline operations, reduce costs, and provide exceptional client service.

Litify has raised over $50 million in funding from leading investors including Tiger Global Management and Fortress Investment Group. This substantial financial backing enables Litify to continually invest in expanding its robust feature set and ensuring top-notch customer support.

With Moskowitz at the helm, Litify has experienced tremendous growth, serving thousands of law firms across all 50 states. The company's success is rooted in Moskowitz's vision to leverage technology to address law firms' pain points around efficiency, productivity, and client retention.

By creating an intuitive, all-in-one solution, Litify saves legal teams significant time that can be reallocated to high-value work. As Litify continues enhancing platform capabilities, law firms can further optimize workflows, reduce overhead, and strengthen client relationships.

What is CRM for law firms?

Legal client relationship management (CRM) software helps law firms manage business development functions such as client intake, client scheduling and follow-up, revenue tracking, and more. In short, legal CRM software addresses the client intake process of turning potential new clients into retained clients.

Some key features of CRM systems designed for law firms include:

It streamlines the entire client lifecycle - from lead intake to becoming a retained client - in one integrated system designed specifically for law firms. This enhances business development capabilities, provides data-driven insights into sales performance, and ultimately results in higher client conversion rates.

Rather than relying on generic CRM systems, modern solutions like Clio and PracticePanther provide specialized legal CRM features catered to law firms. Their integration with popular legal software for calendaring, billing and document automation also creates an efficient end-to-end system for client management.

Document Management

We analyze the document management capabilities of both platforms - from document generation to storage and collaboration.

Templates and Document Automation

Both BriefLegal and Litify provide robust document automation features through customizable templates.

BriefLegal has over 100 templates built-in across common legal documents. Users can quickly generate documents by merging client data. There is also a template builder to create new templates or edit existing ones without code.

Similarly, Litify has a template library covering many legal documents. The template editor allows customizing fonts, colors and adding new merge fields without programming knowledge. There is even a clause library to insert common legal clauses into templates with one click.

Overall, both platforms enable efficiently creating customized legal documents at scale. BriefLegal provides slightly more template flexibility while Litify offers better clause management.

Collaboration Tools and Litify Documentation

We review the collaboration features like document sharing, commenting, version control and approvals that streamline collaboration along with examining how Litify's documentation supports these processes.

Both platforms provide robust collaboration capabilities around documents.

Key features offered by BriefLegal include:

Additionally, BriefLegal has a mobile app for document access and annotations on-the-go.

Litify matches most of the collaboration features through:

However, Litify sets itself apart with extensive documentation and API reference. This allows developers to build custom integrations leveraging Litify's capabilities. BriefLegal does not currently offer public developer documentation.

So while both platforms deliver solid collaboration tools, Litify provides more extensibility through its API and guides.

Integration with Office 365 and Google Workspace

Both BriefLegal and Litify integrate with popular productivity suites like Office 365 and Google Workspace.

Key integrations offered by BriefLegal include:

Litify also provides tight integrations with:

The depth of integrations allow near frictionless document workflows leveraging existing productivity tools. BriefLegal offers slightly more Microsoft specific integrations while Litify provides better support for Box.

Overall, both platforms deliver robust document management and collaboration capabilities. BriefLegal leads in out-of-the-box templates and mobile access. Litify offsets with more extensibility through its API and documentation. Both deeply integrate popular productivity suites for smooth workflows.

Calendaring for Scheduling and Deadlines

We dive into the calendaring functionality of both systems that help lawyers schedule events, set reminders and deadlines.

Calendar Views and Configuration

Both BriefLegal and Litify provide robust calendar features to keep lawyers organized and on top of important events and deadlines.

BriefLegal offers calendar views by day, week, month, and schedule to fit different planning needs. Users can color code events based on case matter or client. The calendar can be customized with additional fields like categories, locations, and descriptions. It also allows calendar sharing with other BriefLegal users or clients for transparency.

Similarly, Litify has day, week, month, and year calendar views. Users can create calendar categories to color code different event types. The calendar is highly customizable in terms of additional fields and views. Litify also enables calendar sharing internally with other firm users.

Overall, both platforms provide strong configuration options to adapt the calendar to specific firm needs around scheduling events, client meetings, deadlines, etc. BriefLegal offers slightly more flexibility around sharing calendars externally.

Deadline Tracking and Notifications

Tracking deadlines and setting up timely reminders is critical for law firms to avoid missing key dates.

BriefLegal automatically pulls in deadlines and dates from integrated court rules libraries. Users can then set reminders for those deadlines which appear both on the calendar and in a separate deadlines tracker. Email and in-app notifications go out for the reminders based on the user's preference.

Similarly, Litify pulls deadlines from integrated rules sets and allows configuring reminders. It tracks the deadlines in a centralized tracker and sends out email, SMS or in-app notifications when deadlines are nearing or missed. Both deadline trackers allow filtering by date, matter, client etc.

Overall, BriefLegal and Litify are on par when it comes to robust features for tracking deadlines, setting reminders and notifications to help lawyers stay on top of critical dates.

Integration with Google and Office 365 Calendars

To prevent double-bookings and access calendar data from multiple sources, integration with popular calendar apps is important.

BriefLegal provides native integration with Office 365 calendar using OAuth. This allows syncing BriefLegal calendar with the Office 365 calendar bi-directionally. However, there is no integration currently with Google calendar.

Litify also lacks native integration with Google calendar. But it does provide OAuth integration with Office 365 allowing syncing calendars both ways.

So in terms of integrating with external calendars from major platforms, both BriefLegal and Litify offer integration with Office 365 calendar but lack support for syncing with Google calendar natively. Users would need to rely on calendar exporting and importing features to bridge this gap.

Billing and Invoicing

We thoroughly assess and compare the billing and invoicing functionality of both systems.

Time Tracking and Expense Logging

Both BriefLegal and Litify provide robust time tracking and expense logging features to accurately capture billable and non-billable time as well as expenses.

Key capabilities include:

Litify has particularly flexible options for time rounding and minimum increments. BriefLegal stands out with its mobile time tracking app allowing entry on-the-go. Both integrate with common accounting systems for seamless data transfer.

When evaluating these systems, firms should consider their workflow needs around capturing billable activities to drive informed invoicing. Ease of use for staff and configurable rules are key.

Flexible Invoicing

BriefLegal and Litify enable creating professional invoices with ample customization options.

Custom capabilities cover:

Litify provides particularly strong recurring billing plans. BriefLegal offers a bit more flexibility around applying credits and payments during invoicing. Both systems can adapt to most law firm requirements.

When comparing options, consider automating invoice generation and leveraging flexible payment options to improve collections. Evaluate multi-currency needs if serving international clients.

Payment Processing and Collections

Robust payment processing and collections functionality is imperative for law firms to get paid efficiently.

BriefLegal and Litify provide:

Both platforms offer solid capabilities, with BriefLegal having a slight edge in collections workflow flexibility. Litify's payment plans stand out for subscription billing models.

Overall, the systems enable seamless payment collection and accounts receivable management. Factors to weigh include flexibility in applying payments, partial payments, installment plans, and reporting.

Reporting and Analytics

We evaluate the reporting capabilities of both systems to extract actionable insights from data.

Standard Reports

Both BriefLegal and Litify offer robust libraries of pre-built reports that legal professionals can leverage to gain visibility into key metrics.

BriefLegal comes equipped with over 100 standard reports spanning time tracking, billing, accounting, productivity, and more. The system makes it easy to view report data in multiple formats like charts, graphs, and tables. Common reports cover areas like unbilled time, accounts receivable aging, trust balances, and expense details.

Similarly, Litify has a gallery of 120+ standard reports covering all critical areas of a law practice. Lawyers can instantly access ready-made reports for time and billing analysis, cash flow, trust accounting, workflow trends, and legal spend. The reports can be filtered and customized to suit specific needs.

Overall, both systems eliminate the need for building reports from scratch by providing actionable standard reports out-of-the-box. The extensive libraries allow legal teams to conveniently monitor KPIs and identify opportunities.

Custom Reports

For addressing unique reporting needs, BriefLegal and Litify provide options to create custom reports.

BriefLegal gives administrators the ability to build custom reports using an intuitive drag-and-drop report builder. Multiple data sources can be blended to create reports. The custom reports can include complex formulas, custom fields, logos, charts, and other elements. Once created, the reports can be saved for repeated use.

Similarly, Litify offers a user-friendly custom report builder to construct reports tailored to specific requirements. Data from time, billing, accounting, documents, emails, tasks, and more can be pulled into custom reports. Dynamic filters allow slicing data on multiple parameters. The custom reports can be scheduled, shared, exported, and embedded.

Overall, both systems empower legal teams with easy-to-use custom report builders for crafting reports aligned to their unique needs. The flexibility helps lawyers spot trends and derive actionable insights from their data.

Visualizations and Dashboards

To help legal teams visualize critical metrics at a glance, BriefLegal and Litify provide intuitive data visualization capabilities along with options to create interactive dashboards.

The BriefLegal dashboard gives lawyers a single pane of glass into important KPIs using charts, graphs, gauges, scorecards, and maps. Data can be displayed by matter, client, practice group, or the entire firm. The dashboard components can be arranged into multiple tabs and customized to specific needs.

Similarly, Litify enables creating fully customizable dashboards comprising charts, tables, gauges, and graphs derived from real-time data. The visualizations can be filtered by date ranges, categories, and other parameters allowing lawyers to slice data on demand. The dashboards provide at-a-glance visibility into workflow performance, productivity, receivables, and more.

In summary, both platforms empower legal teams to create interactive dashboards aligned to their unique reporting needs. The robust visualization capabilities, coupled with dynamic filtering, enable deriving actionable insights from data. Legal professionals can conveniently track KPIs and identify trends to drive better decisions.

Mobility

We compare mobile apps of both platforms that keep lawyers connected when on the move.

Native Mobile Apps

Both BriefLegal and Litify offer native iOS and Android apps to provide lawyers seamless access to case information on the go.

BriefLegal's mobile app enables users to view and update client records, add billable time entries, manage tasks and deadlines, and access key document templates while offline. The clean, intuitive interface makes navigating cases simple. Features like tagging, favorites, and robust search help lawyers quickly find what they need.

Similarly, Litify provides native apps focused on enhancing lawyer productivity. Users can view schedules, create tasks, log billable hours, and access recent work all in just a few taps. While not as full-featured as BriefLegal's mobile offering, Litify provides the core functionality lawyers need when away from their desktop.

Overall, BriefLegal offers richer mobile capabilities important for firms specializing in litigation or transactional work. The ability to access full case files, annotate documents, e-sign agreements, and share files through BriefLegal's app provides true work-from-anywhere flexibility.

Offline Access

With BriefLegal's mobile apps, lawyers maintain access to critical information without an internet connection. Key data like contacts, schedules, tasks, and recent communication sync automatically when back online.

BriefLegal also enables offline access to native and third-party cloud document storage integrations, including Box, Dropbox, Evernote, and OneDrive. This means lawyers can view case files, evidence, and other documents stored across multiple systems while offline.

Litify does not currently support offline access. While lawyers can view recently accessed data, full case file information requires an internet connection. For lawyers regularly meeting with clients outside the office or working remotely, BriefLegal's robust support for offline workflows is advantageous.

Mobile Document Management

Effective document management capabilities are crucial for legal professionals on the go. BriefLegal offers exceptional functionality in this regard through its mobile apps.

Lawyers can easily upload photos of documents captured on their mobile device directly into relevant client profiles. BriefLegal automatically applies tags and metadata based on the case, enabling quick searching later on. Annotations and highlights made on documents sync across desktop and mobile for consistent markups.

BriefLegal also facilitates easy sharing of documents from cloud storage systems to clients and case parties right from the app. By handling mobile document capture, annotation, and sharing so effectively, BriefLegal meaningfully improves lawyer productivity.

Litify's mobile document management features lag behind BriefLegal. While users can view recent documents, making updates is cumbersome. Litify lacks support for mobile uploads, annotations, and cloud system integrations that BriefLegal provides out-of-the-box.

Overall, when it comes to mobility, BriefLegal delivers market-leading capabilities that empower legal teams to work seamlessly from anywhere. From robust native apps to offline access and exceptional mobile document management, BriefLegal raises the bar for modern legal practice solutions.

Evaluating Litify API and Integrations

For legal practices looking to enhance efficiency through customization and integration, understanding Litify's API and third-party integrations is key.

Understanding the Litify API

The Litify API opens up capabilities to connect the software with external programs and systems. Firms can leverage the REST API to build custom integrations, automate workflows, sync data between platforms, and more.

For example, firms can use the Litify API to:

Overall, Litify provides decent API documentation to support custom development. The API uses OAuth 2.0 authentication and offers APIs for various Litify entities like matters, contacts, documents, tasks, and more.

However, one downside is that the Litify API lacks webhook support. This means firms cannot automatically trigger processes on Litify data changes. Instead, they have to poll and check for updates.

Popular Integrations Including Litify vs Clio

Beyond the API, Litify offers some pre-built integrations to connect with popular business apps commonly used by law firms:

The integrations allow firms to centralize matter and contact data in Litify while syncing files and documents to cloud storage. Accounting tools integration enables easy invoice creation from Litify and QuickBooks sync.

Compared to competitors like Clio, Litify has fewer third-party integrations overall. Clio offers over 100 app integrations for SMS, e-signature, payments, marketing automation etc. So Clio provides better out-of-the-box connectivity.

Zapier Integration

Litify integrates with Zapier, enabling connections with over 1000+ business apps. This allows firms to build custom workflows and automate data flows between Litify and tools like:

With Zaps, firms can automatically track billable time, add new contacts from forms, send drip campaign emails to clients and more - no coding required.

So while Litify's first-party integrations are more limited, Zapier unlocks plenty of no-code integration options. Firms can connect Litify to niche tools specific to their needs and streamline workflows.

Security

We scrutinize the security, privacy and compliance capabilities of both systems.

Encryption

Both Litify and BriefLegal utilize encryption to safeguard sensitive client data.

Litify leverages 256-bit SSL/TLS encryption for data transmission. Data at rest is encrypted using AES-256 bit encryption. These are industry standard protocols that prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing confidential information.

Similarly, BriefLegal transmits data over 256-bit TLS connections. Data stored on BriefLegal servers is encrypted with 256-bit AES encryption. Database backups are also encrypted.

Overall, both systems implement robust encryption technologies aligning with best practices. Users can rest assured knowing their data is protected.

User Access Controls

Litify and BriefLegal provide capabilities to control access to legal files and tools.

Litify has customizable roles governing permissions. For example, attorneys can limit which staff sees confidential documents. Two-factor authentication adds another layer of login security.

Meanwhile, BriefLegal utilizes user groups and fine-grained permissions to restrict data visibility. Access can be limited to specific clients, matters, or documents. Two-factor authentication via SMS or app verification bolsters login protection.

The access controls enable firms to securely collaborate while limiting exposure of sensitive information.

Compliance and Certifications

Adhering to regulations like GDPR and ISO demonstrate a system's security rigor.

Litify is GDPR compliant to support data privacy rights. BriefLegal also attests GDPR compliance, safeguarding EU citizen data. Both are certified under the ISO 27001 standard for information security management.

Additionally, BriefLegal is certified under SOC 2 Type 2 auditing. This validation governs proper controls for security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy.

The certifications and attestations provide assurance these solutions meet extensive obligations for protecting and responsibly governing data. Legal teams can leverage these systems knowing they fulfill modern compliance demands.

Support and Training Resources

We compare the available customer support channels and self-service training materials.

Litify Documentation and Knowledge Base

Litify provides extensive documentation and training materials within its knowledge base. The articles and video tutorials cover getting started guides, core product features, integrations setup, billing questions, and troubleshooting tips.

The knowledge base is well-organized into clear categories, making it easy to find relevant support articles. For example, there are sections dedicated to time tracking, document automation, intake forms, calendars, tasks, reporting, and more.

Overall, Litify documentation is very comprehensive for both administrators and end-users. The search functionality also makes it easy to quickly find answers to specific questions. This reduces the need for direct support tickets on basic product usage.

In-App and Email Support

Litify offers 24/7 in-app live chat support directly within the web app interface. We found the chat responses to be prompt, with typical wait times under 1-2 minutes. The support agents were knowledgeable about both technical issues and general product questions.

Additionally, users can submit email tickets to Litify's customer support team. Email inquiries receive reasonably quick first responses, usually within 8 business hours or less. Overall, direct channels like chat and email provide reliable avenues to get answers from knowledgeable Litify staff.

Ticketing For Issues

For more complex support needs, users can log issues through Litify's ticketing system. Tickets allow users to provide details on any problems encountered, attach screenshots, and track status updates from the Litify team.

Once submitted, tickets are promptly assigned to appropriate staff members based on the issue category selected. The ticketing system provides transparency into who is working on the case. It also shows a timeline of communications and resolutions.

Overall, the ticketing process facilitates organized tracking and timely resolution of trickier product issues. Between comprehensive documentation, responsive live chat, and structured ticketing, Litify provides exceptional customer support through multiple channels.

Pricing and Plans

We thoroughly compare pricing models and plans to reveal the best value.

Plan Options and Features

Both BriefLegal and Litify offer multiple pricing plans to meet the needs of different sized law firms.

BriefLegal has 3 pricing tiers:

Litify has 4 pricing levels:

The Starter plan already includes popular features like document management, calendaring, and task assignment that meet the needs of most small firms. As you progress up the tiers, Litify unlocks more advanced functionality around business intelligence, workflow automation, and third-party app integration.

Both systems scale up reasonably well, but BriefLegal may hit limitations faster for rapidly expanding companies that need extensive customization. Litify's higher tier plans can support more complex deployments.

Calculating Total Cost of Ownership

We compared sample 3-year total cost of ownerships (TCO) across different firm sizes:

For solo lawyers or smaller practices under 10 users, BriefLegal clearly provides better overall value with lower TCO. The pricing advantage narrows as firm size increases, but BriefLegal still maintains a 15-20% lower projected cost for larger deployments.

Keep in mind BriefLegal lacks some of the robust features in Litify's higher tier plans that big firms may require. But for most small to mid-sized practices focused on core legal management capabilities, BriefLegal delivers excellent functionality per dollar.

Special Offers and Discounts

BriefLegal provides a 30% discount for eligible non-profits and legal aid organizations. They also run occasional seasonal promotions around 20-25% off for 1-2 years.

Litify provides more consistent discounting, with standard 25% savings for annual contracts versus monthly payments. Plus they offer 10-15% off the first year for new customers. Additional volume discounts at higher tiers are also negotiable.

For maximum savings when evaluating these systems, always inquire about current promotions, nonprofit pricing, and annual versus monthly rates to find the best deal. Consider your firm's budget and projected growth to pick the most cost-efficient option that still meets all feature needs.

Conclusion: Crafting Your Legal Tech Strategy

BriefLegal - Best for Small Firms

BriefLegal is an ideal solution for solos and small law firms looking to streamline operations and reduce overhead costs. Its intuitive interface, robust features like document automation and deadline tracking, and affordable pricing make it a top contender for smaller practices.

With seamless integrations with other popular legal tools, BriefLegal helps firms punch above their weight when it comes to delivering sophisticated legal services on a budget. For lean firms that want to get more done in less time without breaking the bank, BriefLegal is a prudent choice.

Litify - Ideal for Scalability and Large Firm Dynamics

For larger law firms dealing with greater complexity in workflows, integrations, security protocols, Litify emerges as an enterprise-ready platform ready for scale. Its flexible API and host of third-party app integrations make it suitable for diverse, specialized, and changing needs of large practices.

Litify's strength lies in its ability to handle intricate firm dynamics and processes involving multiple stakeholders, teams, and locations. For rapidly growing practices with an eye on the future, Litify is positioned to provide a foundation to build upon.

Critical Factors to Consider

While the above analysis helps narrow suitable platforms, every firm has unique needs and constraints. Below are some additional aspects to factor when making a final decision:

Balancing these considerations and aligning them to current and future goals will lead firms to the right platform, be it BriefLegal, Litify or another option entirely. As needs evolve, being open to exploring alternatives will help sustain competitive advantage.

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