Firm Central vs CounselLink

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Our analysts compared Firm Central vs CounselLink based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Legal Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Firm Central Software Tool
CounselLink Software Tool

Product Basics

Firm Central is an end-to-end cloud-based solution that provides firms with a centralized interface to manage legal matters, accounting, calendaring, time tracking, billing and client communication. Users can track time and expenses efficiently from multiple devices and create flexible payment options and custom invoices for clients. Monitor legal workflows using its legal calendar with custom rules templates, deadline assistance, permissions-based access and multiple viewing options. Dashboards and reports provide up-to-date data-driven insights.

It offers robust data security with encryption, compliant servers and 24/7 security monitoring. It also provides continuous data backups and seamless integrations. Users can access it from anywhere, from any device.
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LexisNexis CounselLink is a cloud-based software that helps corporate departments and law firms manage their legal operations. It offers a range of features to manage matters, invoices, vendors and reports in one place. Its powerful analytical and reporting capabilities enable teams to make data-driven decisions and optimize performance, resulting in better client outcomes.

Centralizing matter and invoice management helps reduce administrative burdens and focus on higher-value work. With the ability to track budgets and spending, businesses can better allocate resources and mitigate the risk of overages.
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Windows
Mac
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Android
Chromebook
Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

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24/7 Live Support
Email
Phone
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Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Comprehensive Reports: Get detailed daily, weekly and monthly reports of billable and non-billable time tracked. Maximize accuracy by cross-checking before billing. 
  • Easy Access: Directly access Westlaw’s legal research network from the homepage. 
  • Customizable Dashboard: Customize the dashboard with status bars for crucial functions. 
  • Simplify Collaboration: Collaborate with clients and team members by integrating with SharePoint. 
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  • Comprehensive Analytics and Reporting: Legal departments can analyze expense data and make informed decisions. Generate reports on various metrics, including spend by matter type, matter status and vendor.
  • Robust Collaboration Tools: Collaborate with vendors, outside counsel and other stakeholders in a secure and centralized platform. Ensure that everyone is on the same page and can stay up-to-date.
  • Enhanced Matter Management: Track progress, store documents and manage deadlines. Automate workflows and provide alerts to ensure nothing falls through the cracks.
  • Optimized Spend Management: Gain visibility into legal fees, enforce billing guidelines and optimize billing rates. Identify cost-saving opportunities and get real-time budget tracking capabilities.
  • Efficient Vendor Management: Manage vendors, including law firms and other legal service providers. Track vendor performance, enforce service level agreements and ensure compliance with billing guidelines.
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  • Matter Management: Manage legal matters, tasks, contacts, deadlines and documents from a single platform. Automate the client intake process and store an unlimited amount of documentation and files. 
    • Matter Search: Identify specific legal documents and files with the global search function. 
  • Collaboration: Securely share case files and calendar entries with all team members and counsels. Encourage collaboration between counsels and clients with a dedicated client portal. 
  • Task Management: Assign tasks to staff members, set reminders for important events and appointments and keep track of notifications. Monitor document reviews and updates and perform conflict checks across the client database. 
  • Time Tracking and Billing: Track every single minute of billable time with the Firm Central Time & BIlling portal. Create and operate trust funds, run reports and issue expedited invoices for faster payments. 
    • Financial Reporting: Generate reports with custom datasets to identify profitable practice areas, aging receivables, referral values, important clients and more. 
    • Financial Dashboard: Get real-time access to firm financials, outstanding bills, WIP, year-end reconciliations and more through a single interface. Use the dashboard insights for agile decision-making and strategic future planning. 
    • Time and Expense: Log billable hours with multiple timers from any computer or mobile device. Integrate time tracking and billing capabilities to directly invoice for the time entries. 
    • Billing: Prepare tailored payment plans and payment options for clients. Edit invoices and accept credit card payments with the ClientPay portal. 
  • Accounting: Manage separate trust and operating accounts with purpose-built accounting software. Process invoices ethically and in compliance with industry standards. 
    • Reports: Run regular accounting reports to measure profitability, discounts, write-offs, bank reconciliations, account transactions and more. Stay on top of the firm’s financial health to make informed decisions. 
    • Eliminate Error: Automate data entry to eliminate duplicate data and human errors. 
    • Compliance: Prepare an audit trail for all trust account transactions and simplify year-end reconciliations. Set up internal controls to protect financial data from leaks. 
  • Legal Calendar: Manage deadlines, events, hearings and more with the integrated legal calendar tool. 
    • Deadlines: The Deadlines Assistant automatically computes the deadlines of ongoing projects based on the rules set by the firm’s jurisdiction. Set up custom rules if required. 
    • Calendar Sync: Add, edit and update events in either the built-in calendar or Microsoft Outlook and automatically synchronize entries. 
    • Multiple Calendar Views: Allow all staff members to view the legal calendar for a holistic awareness of deadlines and appointments. Drill down on specific entries by matter and permissions. 
  • Mobile Application: Retain full control over legal matters and tasks while away from the office. Use the mobile application to securely access legal documents, matters, contacts, calendars and more. Track time and process expenses on the go. 
  • Security: Secure firm files and documentation in transit as well as in storage. Additionally, solve any data residency requirements with U.S.-based servers hosted by Thomson Reuters. 
    • Data Encryption: All connections to Firm Central servers are routed via HTTPS sessions with 256-bit SSL and TLS encryption. 
    • Compliance: Ensure the data security standards of the firm are compliant with SOC 2 Type II and AICPA regulations. Physical data centers are ISO 9001 and ISO 27001 certified. 
  • Client Portal: Provide clients with an encrypted communication environment for secure collaboration with counsels. 
    • Communications: Share documents, bills, case updates, messages and more with clients in real time. Monitor all client activity and maintain a record of all communications. 
    • Self-service: Clients can check case files and matter information, receive push notifications and upload documents. 
    • Security: Maintain ABA ethics mandates with the self-service portal. Use permission-based controls to decide who gets access to what items and documents. 
  • Westlaw Compatibility: Subscribe to Westlaw for built-in case citation flags and integrated global search and research tools. 
  • Integrations: Integrate with multiple Thomson Reuters applications under the same platform. Available inclusions include Westlaw legal research, Westlaw Form Builder, Practical Law and Drafting Assistant. 
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  • Work Management:
    • Collect and Organize: Use legal requests to establish a centralized work intake source that meets specific requirements. Create custom fields that capture information unique to the department's needs. Configure the homepage to focus on what's most important and organize documents in a central repository.
    • Track, Audit and Report: The work tasks feature helps manage deadlines and maintain compliance with processes. Use the budgets module to plan legal spending and save costs. Assess the work status of law firms and internal staff and prevent any circumvention of business rules using audit trails. Get 80+ standard reports to analyze work and customize reports to organize and present data.
  • Financial Management:
    • Paper Invoice Processing: Capture all expenses with invoicing service. Convert all non-LEDES format invoices, including PDFs and paper, into electronic invoices.
    • Smart Review: Examine and categorize all line-item invoice charges with proprietary AI-enabled technology to comply with billing guidelines. Save time and money with automatic error flagging and adjustments.
    • Invoice Review: Automate invoice processing, audit electronic and non-electronic invoices, and include non-CounselLink reviewers with external invoice review.
    • Advanced Accounting: Manage budget, discounts, accruals and reserves to stay on track within preset thresholds.
    • Allocations: Easily assign invoice spend to one or more accounts by setting up allocation codes and applying allocation templates to any matter.
  • Vendor Management:
    • Vendor Profiles and Scorecards: Use law firm profiles and scorecards to gain comprehensive insights into the firm's performance. Analyze legal spending, matter distribution and timekeeper-level billing with visualizations. Rate and score law firms for better vendor selection.
    • Fee Structure: Invoice for legal work by negotiating fee agreements with law firms. Be equipped to handle all types of alternative fee arrangements.
    • Diversity Survey: Assess the vendor's diverse talent pool. Collect and track diversity information to increase accountability.
    • Rate Analysis: Compare and evaluate performance by establishing, monitoring and enforcing timekeeper rates. Visualize historical time comparisons for better insights.
    • Billing Guidelines: Simplify onboarding by creating and publishing billing practice documentation and allow law firms to accept before invoicing.
  • Contract Lifecycle Management: Draft better contracts, expedite authoring, streamline negotiation and analyze executed contracts. Manage all contract-related work with one tool, featuring real-time collaboration, workflow automation and actionable analytics.
  • Analytics:
    • Interactive Dashboards: Optimize the user interface by tailoring dashboards with relevant metrics.
    • Reports: Use standard and customized reports to make strategic decisions supporting organizational goals.
    • Benchmarking Database: Evaluate fair legal rates and compare department performance.
    • Trends Report: Gain insights for better decision-making and analyze legal market dynamics over time with guiding metrics and expert contributions.
  • Legal Hold: Automate and simplify legal hold obligations by identifying, notifying and communicating with document custodians. Create an auditable record and maintain control with customized tools and templates for communication, surveys, reports and web pages.
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Product Ranking

#37

among all
Legal Software

#47

among all
Legal Software

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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 141 reviews
Good User Sentiment 12 reviews
74%
of users recommend this product

Firm Central has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 74% when considering 141 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

76%
of users recommend this product

CounselLink has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 76% when considering 12 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.1 (5)
n/a
3.8 (11)
3.8 (12)
3.68 (62)
n/a
3.7 (62)
n/a
3.0 (1)
n/a

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Data Management: It provides easy and secure access to client records and legal matters, according to 100% of users mentioning data management.
Ease of Use: According to 83% of users who reviewed this aspect, the platform is user-friendly and easy to learn.
Sharing and Collaboration: All reviewers who mentioned this benefit said they found it easy to share and collaborate on legal matters, especially with access to SharePoint.
Task Management: According to 67% of users who reviewed this feature, the legal calendar simplifies tracking pending tasks, assignments and deadlines.
KPI Monitoring: Everyone reviewing this element said that the customizable dashboard made it easy to track KPIs.
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Intuitive Interface: CounselLink is recognized for its user-friendly design, which simplifies navigation and overall user experience, even for those who are new to the platform.
Streamlined Billing: The platform streamlines the process of generating and managing client invoices, allowing for easy upload of billing entries and linking relevant client and matter details.
Invoice Tracking: CounselLink provides transparency into the invoice status and payment process, allowing users to track their invoices and anticipate payment timelines.
Client-Matter Linking: Users can easily link client information to specific matters, ensuring quick and convenient access to relevant data.
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Functionality: Without integrations, it has limited functionalities, according to 57% of users mentioning this element.
Integrations: According to 71% of users who reviewed this feature, integrations can be buggy and expensive.
Service and Support: 64% of users who mentioned this aspect said they found the technical support lacking in knowledge and responsiveness.
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Slow Performance: Users have reported experiencing slow loading times and delays between actions within the CounselLink platform, impacting productivity and user experience.
Time and Expense Entry Challenges: Some users find the process of entering time and expenses cumbersome and not as user-friendly as other features, potentially leading to inaccuracies or frustration for legal professionals.
Customization Limitations: Tailoring CounselLink to specific business processes or integrating it with certain existing systems may require additional coding or professional services, potentially adding to the overall cost and implementation timeline.
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Firm Central provides legal practitioners with a capable practice management solution with direct access to Westlaw. It offers secure and fast web access to basic features, including time tracking, billing, accounting, and matter and task management modules. Access to Westlaw is an important asset and should weigh heavily on any acquisition decision. That said, multiple integrations can drive up costs and put a lot of pressure on the platform. Implementation and technical support can be hard to reach at times. Unless a Westlaw integration is absolutely essential to the firm, there are better options available in this price range.

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Can CounselLink link arms with your legal team to boost efficiency and transparency? User reviews from the past year suggest a qualified "yes," but with some caveats. CounselLink garners praise for its user-friendly interface, with reviewers consistently highlighting its intuitive design and ease of navigation, even for those new to legal software. This accessibility is crucial for legal teams who need to quickly adapt to new technologies without extensive training. Users also appreciate CounselLink's robust billing management capabilities, particularly its ability to streamline invoice creation, submission, and tracking, which significantly reduces administrative burden and accelerates payment cycles. However, some users have reported that CounselLink can feel sluggish at times, with slow loading speeds impacting productivity. This is a recurring complaint that LexisNexis should address to ensure a seamless user experience. Additionally, while CounselLink's integration with eBillingHub is generally viewed positively, some users find the need for separate websites for certain clients cumbersome and counterintuitive. This fragmentation of access can lead to confusion and disrupt the otherwise streamlined workflow that CounselLink aims to provide. CounselLink's strengths lie in its user-friendly design, efficient billing features, and comprehensive reporting capabilities, making it a valuable asset for legal teams seeking to enhance operational efficiency and gain better visibility into their financial data. However, the occasional slow performance and the somewhat disjointed experience with client-specific websites are areas that LexisNexis should address to solidify CounselLink's position as a top-tier legal management solution. Overall, CounselLink is best suited for legal departments and law firms of all sizes looking to streamline their operations and improve financial transparency, particularly those who prioritize ease of use and efficient billing processes.

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