CosmoLex

Avantages

I was previously using PC Law, provided by LexisNexis, and had nothing but problems. I wanted more elegant software that I could access anywhere, with reliable data storage. CosmoLex is exactly that. It is cloud-based, which allows me to access it from court, home, or the office. It manages all of my billing and accounting, and is elegant to use. I am a huge fan!

Inconvénients

I frankly don't have much of anything to offer in the way of complaints!

Avantages

The built in efficiency. Great accounting system. Easy to generate invoices, apply payments, and print checks.

Inconvénients

It takes a bit to learn how to do everything and fully utilize the software. That being said, the customer service is excellent. The software is pricey and I wish there was a discounted rate for firm members who only have limited access.

Avantages

I appreciate most the ability to correct errors in accounting when they are noticed and the integration with the trust account.

Inconvénients

Some of the deep user options are difficult to find but this is necessary with the level of customization allowed.

Avantages

I like that you can handle your everyday office accounting in the same program as your trust accounting. There is no need for a separate program. Our clients love the client portal and they can upload documents directly to the client portal instead of having to bring them into our physical office. Cosmolex keeps each of your client files organized where you can save all of your emails, documents, and share the ones that you need to share with your clients through the client portal.

Inconvénients

We would like to be able to make one bulk deposit at one time instead of having to go through by individual dates and make individual deposits.

Avantages

Cosmolex is easy to use and to implement. Initially, Customer Support was great, but now not so much. Customer support is still better than any other legal accounting product I have used from Lexis or Westlaw, even Clio. The company is generally pretty good about responding to its customers inquiries; but, you typically have to wait about 4 to 6 hours or the next day or two for a technical support person to call you back and sometimes they don't. The billing features are great for a small transactional law practice or family law practice, but not so much for a firm that handles heavy amounts of civil litigation for commercial clients, which requires reporting and data feed back. Trust accounting on Cosmolex is fantastic and allows for contingency fees in PI cases. Overall, its ease of use and simple interface is why we continue to use it.
Compared to most legal accounting and billing software, training employees is easy and they offer tons of opportunities to attend free webinar classes and are great at assisting you in getting your employees up and running. Altogether, it is not bad if you have other software or services to cover document and case management, but is expensive considering its deficiencies in this area.

Inconvénients

The biggest Con is that there is a clear the lack of usable reports, no way to export client data for analysis and forecasting, third party integrations with Office is a work in progress for 2+ years and Cosmolex should absolutely not be relied on for Case Management in a litigation practice. If you are going to use Cosmolex, I would suggest doing so only for the accounting (w/ trust features) and billing for noncommercial clients. Cosmolex provides linking with your Drobox Account but is very limited when it comes to document management and your space is dependent what you purchase from other third-party companies for storage. We use the client portal for our clients to upload new case documents securely, but that is absolutely those are the only documents “managed” by Cosmolex. Docketing for litigation would be a nightmare if you depended on this software (especially for those that have midsize firms or handle multiple cases for companies). Reporting and data analysis is nonexistent. Cosmolex is absolutely not Microsoft Office friendly and has little to no integration with Microsoft products, despite the way it appears on their website. It will not integrate with on premises Exchange Server 2016, SQL or Power BI so you have to enter everything twice and have other software or services to cover its deficiencies. Calendaring features are worthless unless your firm uses Gmail as your firm email and calendaring system. The calendar may now integrate with 365 but does not have a way to customize jurisdictional presets for counting deadlines like most case management software that integrates with your calendar through Exchange. Altogether, the lack of even usable Excel or .PDF reports is the worst thing about Cosmolex. Report features, including AR ledgers and Invoice listing reports for a client with multiple ongoing cases is worthless. There is also no way to segregate your fees for fee recoverable causes of action, which is required in Texas when you are seeking attorney’s fees from the opposing side. Reports in Cosmolex could not be more unorganized. Trying to pull usable billing data over a period of time longer than one year is virtually impossible unless you want to do it by cutting and pasting from poorly formatted excel spreadsheets, which makes it difficult as hell to analyze client data over a period of time. Overall, all legal accounting software I have seen is terrible, Cosmolex is just less terrible than most. I think we are going to be moving on shortly to something else.