MerusCase Erfahrungen

A little about me, I am a Technology Consultant for about hand full small to medium sized law firms. This particular client of mine wanted to migrate to full cloud-based solutions for all their needs. As I am not a user, I am reviewing upon a technical basis which will include import, support, and Cons: Learning Curve.

As a quick note, and because I don't want to type this out a million times, their product, once items are imputed correctly, and the learning curve is achieved, is friendlier to use, more user-friendly than others I've seen. I recommend MerusCase.

Importing:
The migration was slow-going. We opted to manually import all the cases manually, instead of paying MerusCase to do so. This was a double-edged sword, as it created a lot of work for us and was time-consuming. Although, the procedure for importing a mass of files was consistently stable. Our uploads did not seem throttled by MerusCase, we have 100Mbps Upload and we uploaded on average of +/- 80Mbps. Overall, I was pleased with the consistent speeds.

Support:
By far their support is beyond anything I have worked with before. Our account manager is so knowledgeable and a straight shooter. He [surprisingly] remembers me for when I call in. I've called in multiple times to purchase additional licenses, request help while absorbing another company, creating and importing custom letterheads for different locations, and working and creating with making new automatic templates. [The templates are the ABSOLUTE best feature, saves time, money and streamlines a process which is highly susceptible to errors.] 11/10 for Support. Can't thank enough, he keeps me looking like a superstar to my client.

The learning curve was surprisingly low for attorneys. The most trouble was the supporting staff inputting the cases incorrectly. It's not like its a long procedure to imputing new cases, case details, etc., but our office staff didn't see the importance of inputting some fields in the case description. This lead to billing without someone to bill to, templates and forms not inputting data, and other issues which were quickly remedied with the help of MerusCase's Customer support.

Closing:
I recommend MerusCase to my clients because it can be scaled, the data is safe, the employees are helpful, and they don't cut corners. Also, they say they are always working on making the software better, adding more features, and I believe them.

We migrated from legacy practice management software we used for over 17 years to MerusCase early last year.

Features I love:
1. Email sync: Microsoft Exchange (or Gmail I understand but have not experienced) email syncs seamlessly with Merus. Everything in your inbox is in Merus, and you can assign a message to a file easily. If the incoming message is in response to something you emailed from Merus, MerusCase will automatically relate the response to the correct file. Another very useful email feature is the ability to email an editable text document as a PDF file or in its original form. This allows me to email letters and other documents directly from Merus without the need to print first.
2. Document handling: I can drag and drop multiple documents into a file at one time, then quickly tag them to make them easy to find again. This includes editable text docs, PDF docs, various photo formats, and more. Merus integrates very well with MS Word. It is easy to download a .docx format document, edit it, then save it back into the file with a quick save" macro. Merus offers robust document automation, so I can easily create templates that pull data from fields in our files. Merus templates have drastically reduced our document creation time and errors.
3. Calendar: Merus makes it easy to access either the firm calendar, events for a case, or one's own appointments.
4. Workflows: it is easy to create groups of tasks using workflows. We use workflows to docket critical case tasks and milestones.
5. File merge: Merus allows me to merge files and choose the dominant one. This has been invaluable in weeding out duplicates and bad data from our migration.
6. Sorting/filtering: lists sort easily according to various columns, or filters may be applied to pull the needed data. Once filtered and sorted, data can be printed or exported for more work.

Features I love a little less:
1. Contacts: we imported thousands of duplicate contacts. Merus does not (yet) provide a way to manually merge contacts.
2. Task list: just not my fav. :)

Note: Our data migration was a nightmare, but not due to Merus. Merus charged us a fair fee and got more work than they bargained for migrating our data into Merus. It was very difficult to align fields in Merus with fields in the old system. After 3 different migrations, most of our data was pulled into Merus. I would give Merus 4 out of 5 stars for the migration itself, although the degree of difficulty was extreme.

First and foremost, MerusCase is cloud based, which keeps from eating up the resources on my computer - which is pretty common these days - but I have also used some terrible on premise Matter Management systems throughout my career. From a managing attorney perspective I like the ability to monitor my teams data and activities and easily export them to excel. From a practitioner perspective - I love the integration that allow notes/activities and billable time to be easily recorded inline and alongside the interactions points with my clients... especially the tightly coupled email tools.

As for dislikes... I did have a tiny bit of a learning curve getting organized around how MerusCase organizes things. This was ultimately a benefit for my firm -- they provided some logical operational guidelines that actually made my team more efficient. So, I guess this is ultimately not a dislike -- it helped us out! -- but it did take several days of push back from my staff before we had an all-hands meeting and I had to tell them to get with the program.

In summary, MerusCase is great for running a growing firm. Aside from my word processor and iPhone, there's not much else I use on a daily basis. There are also a pretty big set of features I take for granted, like how it turns all my documents into PDFs automatically and has all of the court forms I regularly use integrated.

Finally, I haven't needed to call support much, but they seem to be pretty responsive. They also seem to be "real people" -- not faceless robots in a call center far away, which is a nice change.

Too many to list, but the most important ones are: HIPAA compliance, automatic document field merging, accessibility from anywhere, scale-ability, billing flexibility to keep our larger clients happy, and management oversight of all tasks.

Enhanced productivity, increased awareness of coworkers' plans and progress, which generally made everyone more efficient.

EXCELLENT. TIME SAVING. ALLOWS BETTER AND QUICKER ACCESS TO INFORMATION AND EASE OF MODIFICATIONS TO FORM LETTERS TO MEET SPECIAL NEEDS.

I get to work on my case load more efficiently on an everyday basis.

I access my cases and mail from anywhere because the program is cloud-based. I can open files in court for presenting to the judge and for questioning witnesses.

All files are updated in real time as tasks are occurring, so any member of staff can access the information when needed. Our multiple users have the security of knowing the file is up to date anytime it is opened.

I like that MerusCase is user friendly & if you have a questions there is the Help sections to turn to.

MerusCase is very well thought out and organized. Every field has purpose and a deeper relationship to the system as a whole. The system not only feels faster but it begs to hold all your data because everything works in harmony. Need to see a document but forgot to install a word processor on your laptop or iPad? MerusCase creates roll-over image previews of every documents and converts your Word docs into PDF, without you asking it to. Do you want to see your calendar for a case, for an office or for just your colleagues Bill, Steve and Jane? MerusCase handles this gracefully using filters. The Merus filters are ubiquitous in MerusCase and make customization endless without the need to run reports to get what you need.

There is a great divide between what MerusCase is offering and every other system. Where other systems are generic, MerusCase is flexible and has knowledge into a variety of different case types. For example, when you create an Immigration case you see all the UCSIS forms and have the ability to populate those forms with data that you wouldn't normally collect for other cases such as a the petitioner's employment history, citizenship status, or even "alien registration number". It's not just the fields either, when you create a Personal Injury case the system tailors itself depending on if the case is Motor Vehicle related, Premise Liability, Product Liability or Medical Malpractice. This gives you the sense that MerusCase is thinking ahead, helping you become a better attorney/paralegal/secretary without you even recognizing it.

There's a reason MerusCase doesn't have integration points into every other system; it does a lot more for you.

Merus is a great case management product because of its ease of use and its ability to manage all aspects of a case.

Overall great program

I find MerusCase very easy to use. I love the ability to access all the case information from anywhere - I never take my entire file to the Board anymore simply because I am able to rely on the ability to quickly get to case information, documents, etc. through Merus. I have all the information I need at my fingertips. The staff loves the upload feature that allows easy uploading of documents into the cases.

I've been in this field 19 years now and this is the easiest to navigate, easiest to train people in, and most reliable.

besides the issue with the email and the capacity for sending documents , everything is very good.