Clio Erfahrungen

Web based program and cost.

Rigid, time consuming process. So many things don't work and the process of finding a work around is cumbersome.

The best thing about Clio is that they're not MyCase. They are a breath of fresh air. We were engaged in the misery of MyCase when Clio announced an informative dinner in our area. We went and were amazed by the functionality of their software. We were actually a bit aggressive with Clio as we were having such a bad time with MyCase. They managed to keep us calm and in doing so found themselves a new client. We spent the next month setting up Clio and found ourselves up and running thereafter. We detailed each monumental failure with MyCase and the support staff at Clio were astonished and assured us that they do not act like that. True to their word, the Clio staff was professional and could not have been easier to work with. The first couple of days seemed a bit shaky like we were kids with our first two-wheeled bike but after a brief learning curve, we were up and running. Any issues we had were ably resolved by Clio and we were quite thankful for the number and quality of the support staff. The days of putting a call in and waiting for a call back are over. They are a shining star in a world now devoid of customer service.

I haven't found anything I don't like about Clio yet.

We like the CRM/case management integration and the ability to use templates. We have a real estate and estate planning practice, both of which lend themselves to form documents, and we have further customized documents through integration with the CRM component to auto-populate documents.

My only issue is the way “non-billable” does not get shown on the invoices. I believe it is critical for the client to see this.

For us the program has changed everything in the workflow to the better. In our opinion Clio’s forte is how flexible it is. Every law firm has its own different way of organizing workflow and Clio can accommodate for that, at least our whims and quirks which we have abundant of. The program is like potty in your hand. You mold and sculp the program according to your own special needs in the workflow. The only barrier is your own imagination. You decide how information is inserted, in what order and form and how it is presented. You make your own work procedures. You can organize and make chains of tasks beforehand and set the relevant type of chain of tasks to fit the case you are working on. Then, there and now, the future workflow is decided and set for that case.

You can not copy matters/cases and clients. It is not easy to move data fram TM to clio. We decided not to to it. Integration between outlook calander and clio calander does not work, it is so slow it is not usable. But the integration between google cal and clio cal is excellent.

What I like most about Clio and it's developers is that when there is a feature you believe would be a great enhancement and you suggest it to them, it seems like not long thereafter you have that enhancement.

I cannot think of anything I don't like, honestly.

Clio easily tracks time and expenses, keeps client and matter details organized, generates invoices, and gives us reports that help track our firm's growth. It is easy to learn, easy to use, easy to customize to our practice, and has very helpful and responsive customer service. Since it's cloud based, we can also work remotely as needed. Very glad to have Clio!

I like most everything about Clio except that it can be slow if our internet service is being slow (not Clio's fault, but it comes with being cloud-based).

Every once in a while I find a glitch that frustrates me in creating invoices. Usually, though, chatting with customer support online leads to a) their showing me how to solve my problem, or b) the problem being sent to tech support for fixing in Clio's system.

I love that billing is so much easier, that my team can enter time remotely.

Clio was not developed by any sort of accountant. The reports are lacking, you can't memorize reports, everything within the software isn't consistent (like using the term everyone one place and all users in another place). The reports are inconsistent with what you can filter by on each report. There are still things where my account names are redundant - like Johnson - Divorce: Divorce. The biggest gripe I have is about replenishing retainers. The retainer replenishments don't get printed on the bill - I know it is because clio payments won't let you make a combined trust/legal fee payment, but they could have one link for anything owed and another link if a replenishment is due. Really - we webt to the moon 50 years ago but we can't figure this out? I spend hours and hours dealing with contacting clients to replenish. Also, way you enter into clio is clunky. I have to pick up my mouse all the time. It needs to be more like quickbooks entry. You never have to pick up your mouse.

Clio is very user-friendly and intuitive. Even if you do not have experience or training on Clio, there is a certain about of functions which you can work out how to use but by having a play with the system. Time recording is very straightforward and it makes our billing easy.

Downsides are: there is no currency conversation; cannot split invoices on one matter (e.g. we have to 2 or more entities responsible for payment say, 50/50, but there is no way of automatically splitting the invoice; no summary front sheet for an invoice.

I really do believe that Clio is the future of legal cloud computing and practice/file management. It's a functional piece of software that allows attorneys and legal staff to manage cases with ease. There are a few things that I find to be useful with Clio:
1. Clio integrates with tons of other software options, including Grow (a CRM management tool). Keeping things "in the family" is really useful and speeds up management.
2. Clio's billing functionality is really nice. It's one of the more functional back end management tools I've seen, and I really like the way it works. You can integrate it with Quickbooks for easy accounting, which we really appreciate and which looks great on the user end (for clients, when they receive bills).
3. Clio sports a really professional interface, which just looks nice when you're working. It looks grown up and sleek, so if someone peeks over your shoulder or you're working while in the vicinity of clients, it doesn't have a preschool feeling to it.
4. Most important - Clio's customer support is incredible. Have an issue? There are videos you can watch, or people you can talk to. They will literally stay on the phone with you for hours as you troubleshoot issues together, or learn something new. Top notch, seriously.

I do have a few gripes about Clio. If these were addressed, it would get a 5-star rating from me:
1. Mouseclicks. Clio requires so. many. mouseclicks. It is infuriating at times. I realize this sounds stupid, but over time, they add up. I am a huge fan of efficiency, and Clio is one of the most inefficient programs I've used.
2. Workflows. I really enjoy using workflows to track various projects. Clio sucks at workflows. A complete rework of how they approach them, and how they look for interface with the staff who are responsible for executing, would go a LONG WAY toward making Clio a more useful application. I think workflows are really the topic that causes Clio to lag behind other software out on the market. I would like to see something in place that allows a user to create a workflow, move tasks around in the list, add subtasks to tasks, and assign triggering dates, secondary dates, etc. It would also be useful to be able to assign various tasks to various users. Until that's in place, I'll be sad about using Clio.
3. A central location for performing various functions. Clio does have a left-hand toolbar that allows you to do SOME things, but not ALL things. It would be good if, from the left-hand menu, I could do each discrete thing that I can do in Clio by clicking a mouse a zillion times. Once that happens, I'll be happier.
4. Document management. I'm out of room, but it is not idea. Too much downloading/uploading. Dropbox is better (for collaborati

As a solo practicing attorney for almost a quarter century, tracking time, preparing and sending out bills has been my least favorite activity, and the place where I have lost revenue and had upset clients. My experience is that clients don't appreciate it when bills are sent timely or when they receive billing after six to twelve months of work - they really prefer regular billing.

Clio has revolutionized the billing and collection part of my solo practice environment. Now that I have learned how to create clients and matters and to input time, it is a simple once a month task to create professional monthly client bills which I can print and snail mail, email, or send with the LawPay connection and the client can "click through" the email bill to pay with credit card.

I cannot figure out how to set up or use the form template function. When I have tried it does not really work and I have stopped trying to use this. I would very much like to create some form engagement letters.

My work is mainly transaction, not so much litigation. At first it was difficult to figure out how to prepare a nice looking flat-fee for a project type bill. However, with the updates I have been able to customize bills to have both hourly fee bills and flat-fee bills.

Clio could be, and indeed was for a long time, a fairly good and overall well featured application. As with any application, it did not have everything covered, but was slowly improving and adding features. In other words, it was a decent application that was getting better.

As of few months ago, Clio, put simply, started going backwards, and fast. Features that existed for years and worked perfectly, were either intentionally removed or broken and no longer worked. The number of bugs has increased exponentially. I used to discover a bug once every few months in the past. These days, almost every day I have to report new bugs or follow up on the existing and unresolved ones. In the past, any reported issues were addressed and resolved quickly. Now, you still get emails in response, but the emails are more of the scripted/lip service type and most issues do not get resolved at all, including critical issues relating to basic features that used to work fine in the past.

As I am not an insider to Clio, I am not sure what the reason is, but from many recent interactions with Clio support and their answer, it seems to me that there is no one at Clio who has their hand on the pulse or any control over the "technical team" or the "development team". From responses I get, it sounds like the "developers" run the place and if they do not think that something is important, it will not get done or fixed. To give you a concrete example, an important financial report was working fine in the past and, as one would expect, it was showing the period to which the report relates. Some months ago, when "updating" that report to a "new" report, they removed the period of the report field, so, believe it or not, the report now does not show which period it relates to

Easy to switch from LawPay. Integrated easily with Clio (but so did LawPay). Supposedly lower fees.

Terrible turn around time for payments by credit card. 5-7 days! No explanation or customer service for the delays in processing time. Very difficult to switch back to LawPay - they make you schedule an appointment to talk to someone who takes your time to tell you how difficult it is to switch back to LawPay, plus they want you to cancel all your pending payments, which they didn’t require when switching from LawPay to Clio. No regular reporting or monthly statements - you have to figure out the reports on your own and calculate the fees charged yourself and download the transaction history periodically. The fees are deducted first before payments are made, which skews the income tracking for accounting purposes. I.e., the client payments from bills don’t match the bill amount. The customer service representatives have no power and don’t seem to care one way or another, though the sales reps cared about switching you over to Clio payments! Is Clio changing from a great company with real people who are concerned with helping law practices succeed to a mammoth company just concerned with its own bottom line? It’s starting to seem that way.

It being cloud-based and the app for my phone

Clio Payments is very problematic. CLIO Payments has been holding client payments that the clients authorized to be deposited into an attorney trust account. When the bank that the deposits were directed to refused to received them - CLIO did not refund them. I requested that the refund the clients since the money cannot go into that trust account b/c of issues with the bank. CLIO Payments says that it cannot refund money deposited to a trust account despite the fact that they have never deposited those funds into any trust account. CLIO Payments has taken possession of the client funds and will not release them or refund them back to the clients. This is a HUGE professional ethics problem for an attorney. They are oblivious and do not care about the impossible situation they are perpetuating for my business. Maybe they are making money on that money while they are holding it where it cannot be accessed and used for the client's benefit. DO NOT USE CLIO Payments - use LAWPAY.

It's online.
The timer can be stopped and started easily.

I spend about two (2) hours a day implementing workarounds to make the system work because it was not built for family law practice or file review. It's a good backup system but it's nothing very reliable unless you're willing to invest the time into making it work.