LEAP

Pros

I adore LEAP and consider it to be a priceless resource for my legal business. The element of LEAP that I value the most is its thorough document management system. I can easily arrange, keep, and access all of my legal paperwork in a one location thanks to LEAP. The time and effort I would have otherwise spent looking for and managing tangible files is significantly reduced thanks to this. Finding specific papers is really simple for me thanks to the user-friendly UI and powerful search features, even on my mobile devices. The document management features of LEAP have significantly increased my productivity and efficiency, allowing me to devote more of my time to helping my clients and less of it to office work.

Cons

While I have had an overall positive experience with LEAP, there is one aspect that I found slightly challenging. The feature that I liked the least about LEAP is its learning curve when it comes to customization and advanced settings. As a user, I appreciate software that offers flexibility and allows me to tailor it to my specific needs.

Pros

I loved this program when we used it. You could save emails directly to the file, the documents could be easily organized to the file. You could easily create documents using the coding from each field you chose to set up your file.

Cons

Sometimes the program would lag or the coding would be an issue and then you would have to constantly fix problems. Toward the end of our use of the program, the emails sync was a giant issue for us. I also had difficulty finding the fields sometimes as it wasn't customizable. We would have to use the fields that were supplied by Leap which could be confusing at times.

Pros

It works. It collects dockets. It's reasonably easy to search. It's reasonably easy to bill. I do not comment on the document management side of things.

Cons

The onboarding was very disorganized. The contract is a 3-year but they don't tell you that. If you add users you have to pay for the 3 years which makes no sense because their full price not discounted. Overdue interest is awkward. There is no way to edit entries in the financial side of things. So if you make a mistake you have to unwind the entry and you end up with a very messy Ledger. They take your subscription term and factor it which means a third party will collect your money and they run a credit check on you because you have to personally guarantee the payments. I was not happy about that and I was not happy that I was not told that was going to happen.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Software capability is good, the cost is good with the WC integreation.

Cons

No Calendar System.
Must be downloaded on my PC.
Stupid Ribbon that mislables tabs. (e-signature and littigation support are backwards)
TECHNICAL SUPPORT IS HORRIBLE!!! BIGEST WASTE OF TIME. CLIO'S TECH SUPPORT IS 1000% BETTER.

Pros

Constant development and improvement, adding new features frequently.

Cons

Features feel incomplete and unpolished. For example, there is a bulk import tool to upload documents into LEAP, but bulk export is limited to the first 100 documents. Exporting more than 100 documents requires manually exporting files, subfolder by subfolder, and file by file if more than 100 files in a folder. Be warned that once you move your document to LEAP, they are stuck there. I've had a support ticket out for a week and am waiting for response.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Cloud based, creates efficiencies when working correctly

Cons

Lack of transparency with issues, tech support is lacking and disjointed

Pros

Not a bad product, good management system.

Cons

Great before you sign up, but no support should there be a problem...check out Leap Community.

They lured me back with a discounted fee and then raised it by 50% for the new term so we left...they don't have a monopoly anymore!

Pros

More user friendly than PCLAW in terms of being able to locate info regarding a client

Cons

Does not handle the accounting side of the operating account

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Easy access to all firm data, including accounting and client matters.

Cons

Not fully functional on Apple or Mac platform.

Pros

Viewing of scanned in scripts. That's it.

Cons

Long delayed response to actions. Unnecessary prompts. Too many password entries. Unclear view hiding important functions and information. Using keyboard and mouse wastes time. Full of bugs exiting program while in use.

Pros

My personal favorite attribute to this software is the technical support behind it. The helpdesk at LEAP is by far the most proficient, responsive, respectful, diligent, and most importantly, the helpdesk with the most overall proficient technicians responding. Every technician I have every worked with, and I ask questions to them almost as often as if they were in my office sitting with me, has a comprehensive knowledge of the entire software. If there has been a unique issue, they have always solved it within minutes. They are truly amazing.

My next favorite attribute is that the software becomes more useful and powerful with every piece of information you fill out. It requires the users to put the information into the system, but once it's there, what you can do with the information is where the dividends pay off. Clerks will spend far less time doing clerical work. Attorneys can draft better documents repeatedly in order to maximize time.

Next, is the document automation. It is continually being developed as we continue to work. Being able to generate large documents that can be used repeatedly at a substantial fee is a valuable asset.

I think my partner, who keeps our books, would say that the push over to Quickbooks feature is the best. It is timesaving and allows less room for error.

Cons

The accounting methodology is different from the US methodology causing a greater learning curve during the transition to LEAP.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Billing and Time-Keeping are Excellent features. You will bill more hours and be much better equipped to keep track of your time

Cons

Huge learning curve. But well worth it.ime

Pros

Leap is easy to use and integrates perfectly for your firm, whatever size. Great online support service available.

Cons

I cannot fault Leap. I have had no issues whatsoever.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

The product is easy to use but is way more robust for the needs of a small office

Cons

No customer support when you need it. They do not offer phone in Tech support and your "ticket" can go unassigned for hours

Pros

[sensitive content hidden] is great at document automation

Cons

Support is all on the web.....hard to get a human voice

Pros

Nothing leap has got nothing at all to recommend it. They are non-communicative, arrogant, failed to respond to communications, failed to return telephone calls do not respond to emails in short I would rather use a quill pen and use leap. Yes I have tried to contact them know they have not bothered to respond

Cons

I am a sole practitioner and I was using the virtual practice system run by SOS legal. It would appear that SOS legal have now been acquired/taken over by Leap and the manner in which they have treated customers who have been with virtual practice for 12 years is breathtakingly bad. You cannot speak to anybody. They do not respond to emails and then they blackmail you over your data. This company should not be permitted to conduct business in the legal arena, if you are a law firm beware they will hold you to ransom if you let them hold your data

Pros

It's great having everything in one place in a cloud based system. The integrations with Xero, Office and Review Solicitors are excellent.

Cons

Law Connect is not as useful as it should be. We have given up on using the Your Finances app

Pros

Works well on ipadDictation to matterPdf ability BylawyersLaw connect

Cons

Not full legal aid capability as promised

Pros

As with any new product, there have been challenges and an adjustment period. Most features are easy to use, but there are some that need perfecting. Entering time, entering clients and phone calls is fairly simple.

Cons

The document preparation process is not as effortless as one would hope. The margins are often and issue, transferring data does not always seem intuitive and MS word often has to be repaired. The critical dates section could be improved by making it easier to enter personalized information for the matter. The calendar could be improved so that it is simpler to add appointments without using the MS Office calendar.

Pros

Integration, ease of use, seamless remote working, Client contacts are collated and communication with Clients is simplified and streamlined, essential time recording is completed with ease. Access to documents is market leading.

Cons

Transfer form an old case management system did present some technical issues. This was minor drawback and limited to set up only.

Pros

You have absolutely everything you need for a file in one place, i.e. documents/correspondence/financials. Having everything in one place makes the job so much easier and time management is easy.

Cons

When some updates are installed, features and screens change which we are not informed fully about. This has meant it has taken time to find the features which have moved.

Pros

Cloud based system, easy to use, lots of online help using the Leap community or the Leap University for online video tutorials, also the connection to Xero Accounting system

Cons

Hard to think of any think really, all seems to be pretty good i must say, of course at first it's all very new & strange but then it always is no matter who we would have chosen

Pros

At first it was good, helps a lot but the renewal is the problem

Cons

I liked the software up until I had to renew. the renewal was inappropriate and possibly fraudulent.

Pros

it's just so user friendly and the "how to" articles are very helpful.
it's integrates brilliantly with Xero.
Info Track is a real time saver for conveyancers and cuts down the accounts work in reconciling the LR account - also far less likely to miss picking up a search on a bill.
the integration with the forms is also fantastic
the "print to LEAP" feature also saves a lot of time

Cons

create or tailor own reports would be useful
when attaching forms to emails, it would be good to have them running from new to old within the folder
create own work types
it's a shame LEAP ties you into a 3 year renewal deal.

Pros

Billing and time keeping, email, the mobile app, case and document management,

Cons

The lack of available categories for matter types tgst reflect aspects of real law practice in Illinois

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

The system is better for large firms with IT specialist.

Cons

Waste of money if you a a small firm or sole practitioner.
Have to reinvest in a system that is compatible with the software, costing additional 2k
External trainer rubbish as you have to book time and it’s rushed if you do not know windows.
You have to purchase top ons. That is more costly so your package could run into the thousand.
Read the contract and if not happy make sure you cancel.
Once your subscription finish you will not have the availability to gain access to your client files.
If you are tied in and try to negotiate you will be ignored and you have no resolution
BECAREFUL BEFORE YOU SIGN THIER CONTRACT.

Pros

The staff have tried to understand the issues we have and have promised to listen to all our feedback.

Cons

Once upon a time I could do my job far quicker and with great confidence using a system where I could access asset and liability lists - create estate accounts with ease. Download forms etc but with Leap it’s more reliable to go on google or get the books out. I feel as if I have gone back to the 90s or earlier the probate system is appalling. My team have had to manually do a lot of the work we used to do on a brilliant computer system called ALB. Those were the days. Leap is supposed to be good for conveyancers and our property team is happy but sadly it is the opposite for us probate practitioners.

Pros

The product is mature and provides a complete law practice package including document storage, time reading, billing, trust accounting and matter management. Remote access is available and there are nice mobile app features available.

Cons

Alot of functionality is heavily promoted in LEAP marketing materials but requires additional premium third-party licenses.

LEAP has a rigid pricing structure. There are no categories for admin staff vs fee earners etc. This means you must purchase a full license including precedent subscription for every staff member including casual and part-time staff.

Technical support has declined dramatically in the past 6 months. We have waited over a week to have a support ticket acknowledged. Matter remains unresolved two weeks later. There is no transparent ticketing system for technical error. You are pushing onto the online chat which currently has wait times over an hour and the end result is to lodge a support ticket.

Implementation was poorly handled with poor communication.

Alternatives Considered

Pros

Let's be honest, LEAP is aimed mid to large sized businesses. It doesn't really cater for us smaller players in the market. With this in mind, it's primary aim is case management and deployment/delegation to others. It offers many features and add-ons from outside apps but very few were ones I was already existing.

Cons

LEAP's software is difficult to manage, not very intuitive. Cumbersome for a so-called leading software provider. 8 months in, there are many features I do not use/nor require. Integration with other apps such as Willsuite has been a frustrating experience to say the least with many issues still unresolved.

Sadly, LEAP's customer service is woeful. No helpline, they just direct you to self-help videos or request you to email support. It can take days for them to respond, a complete joke when you have work and clients waiting for vital documents.

Pros

Does a good job of stgayhing up to date with changes in the law

Cons

LEAP programmers think they know more about running a law firm than senior lawyers. So they prevent you from doing useful things like easily producing a trust statement that you cam mail to a client. Also attaching files to emails is a pain because they think you should not do that, Over the years the programme has been getting harder and harder to use and less user friendly. They give excuses rather than listen to those who have been around for much longer.

Pros

My favorite feature in LEAP is the ability to manage trust accounts with accuracy and complete compliance with IOLTA standards. The integration with Quickbooks has eliminated the need for duplicate entries which increases accuracy and guarantees the integrity of the data. Also, LEAP's numerous features that facilitate communication (notes, e-mail tracking, phone logs, calendar) allow for any user to access the program and be able to get a real-time status of the matter.
LEAP's support system is another favorite feature. I can chat with support, open a case, schedule support or research through LEAP University and the Community pages.

Cons

Occasional failures in bulk printing and contact management can be frustrating.

Pros

Trust accounting is solid and reliable and support was good.

Cons

The contract is terrible. You cant exit early even if you ask nicely. They will not let you out and WILL chase you and WILL send a collection agency after you and threaten to damage your credit rating. Its also very very expensive to get your data in a usable form when you leave.

Pros

Client account and month end reports. These provide an excellent tools for management to keep on top of Month End reporting and reconciliation reports. I also liked that you can send an email from within the software and it will open up and send from outlook.

Cons

Task management and time recording. Also customer service is poor as help is not readily available. When the software first took over LOLA, there was good customer service support but slowly that diminished.

Pros

Price any project in minutes so easy to do

Cons

Make sure you update for any changes you make

Pros

Easy to learn, navigate and obtain the information needed . Simple features such as being able to convert large amounts of documents into a single PDF document within seconds is so helpful.

Cons

Like any other software Leap has its flaws. Often won’t open Word or Excel documents that are saved onto Leap. Can not add any attachments from Outlook straight onto Leap ( it has to be added onto desktop then onto Leap, which can be time consuming). Other than that, I am happy with Leap.

Pros

The offering was great and appeared to do everything I needed in my business.
Training offered was fairly good but useless in hindsight.

Cons

Software littered with problems.
Draft documents poor quality
Support was shockingly bad

Pros

integrates perfectly with word and outlook as if you can't notice the difference but the relevant buttons are there

Cons

cant use on mac unless you install parallel or bootcamp

Pros

I like being able to search for the item I am looking for.

Cons

Difficult to use invoicing system, I am not able to generate the invoices/

Pros

Good precedent library, fairly easy to use.

Cons

Lack of support from LEAP. No solutions to issues we had.

Pros

Detailed reports are easy to produce and it's easy to share files between LEAP and local storage. It's also very easy to learn for people with varying tech skills.

Cons

The customer service: I made 4 or 5 attempts to have the same issue resolved, and each time the LEAP customer support would offer the same solution did not work. I was told an engineer would call me back on 3 occasions, and each time I gave them a 1 hour window during which I would be unavailable. Each time their Engineers called within the one hour window and each missed call means starting the process from square one.There is no option to export/save time recording into an Excel compatible format - only hard-copy or save to PDF. This has added hours to time spent preparing a Schedule of Costs as each entry has to be added and updated manually.Transitioning from our old system to LEAP was far from smooth. Many matters were not transferred and most of those which were had time recording missing or numerous mistakes, resulting in us combing through a lot of our files to correct these mistakes.The bugs and errors are innumerable - the Microsoft Office Add-ons do not seem to function properly at all, with different issues arising for each of Office 365, 2019 and 2016.Most cloud services auto-deletes or encrypts locally stored data. With LEAP, all data and docs accessed by a user are stored locally in a folder without encryption or auto-deleting, meaning that anyone with access to a device using LEAP could browse through all documents and client info a user has accessed without logging in to LEAP or using LEAP at all.

Pros

There are lots of forms in the library to choose from, time keeping software, easy to use and the online support system is great.

Cons

The only thing i dont like its very costly.

Pros

The system is easy to use and navigate, and if there are any issues the team is always on hand to assist through various different means.

Cons

The case management system can sometimes be slow to load.

Pros

I liked Leap as it did a great job and everything that was needed. The UCPR forms and templates they have were very handy.

Cons

It was very expensive, from memory over $600/month/user, and locked in on a 3 year contract too. Very restrictive, which is why we moved.

Pros

The meeting with Kudzai was really informative and the system has many advantages, which were well explained by Kudzai.

Cons

They were just a few things we felt that the system was lacking with law connect: 1. The inability to send emails out of the law connect system and the fact that all documents would be in different places. So, only attachments to client's would be on law connect but the emails would be elsewhere. It would be useful if you could also send all things from one place on the law connect app so that it is easy for us and the clients. 2. Unable to open downloads on the law connect app, would have to be in leap.

Pros

The contact and matter cards are the best part of the CRM.

Cons

I disliked that several of the advertised features were not actually included once I already signed into a multi-year contract. Under the contract we were supposed to have immediate access to the client portal, it took over 6 weeks for the portal to be "setup." This resulted in a weird state of limbo regarding the transition. I also had concerns that they advertised a workflow procedure, but once we tried to use the workflow we were informed that it was only available in the UK, and no one could provide an estimate regarding when it would be available in the US. I'm also concerned that they require a third party to install the applications. Although the installation took about 15 minutes for each computer, the installer stayed active in one our firm computers for over 12 hours. When we asked about this potential data breach concern, no one followed up with us for weeks, then we were told "its ok nothing happened." That is a serious data breach issue.

Pros

LEAP allows you to customize your matters and templates and reduces time in various case areas. Their customer service is excellent, they are always available to help with any issues and/or look into the issue and guide you to the solution. I like the LEAP is constantly improving and cares about how the product can be an asset to law firms. They take the time to review suggestions and always work with you to improve not just the software but how our firm can take advantage of every feature to improve the quality of our cases and time.

Cons

Sometimes the software has glitches, but LEAP always fixes the issue right away, so it's not too much of a burden. The other feature that would be great is if LEAP allowed you to edit expenses once entered. The operating account feature could be a little more flexible with entries because you cannot make any edits once you hit save. Our previous software allowed us to make description edits and even transaction edits when it was time to submit an invoice to the court.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Most important was
The complete integration with Microsoft 365.
excellent time recording function - (need to add facility to add a time entry to a pdf which has been imported into Leap)

Cons

Using template documents and creating template matters is not very intuitive - of course this is a complicated function but it could be made easier/clearer.
Main page menu structure is not easy to navigate. in particular accounting information - it seems fragmented. some bits here others in different places.
have found excel documents are not always saved up to date which is concerning.

Pros

When using the case management it is so easy to use from start to finish on a file, opening, setting up folders, using precedents, setting up cards for businesses and people. Also when posting funds received or disbursed is so easy and using it in conjunction with Xero for Office Accounts.

Cons

The only negative I would say is that there is no option for a telephone message on a Client's file. I have been directed to use the New Comment tab but this isn't at all helpful for telephone messages, you fill them in and they "eventually" get to the person they are for, also the notifications come up for everyone in everyone's notification lists which is time wasting. In our business Telephone Messages are critical to receive immediately and if there was a proper tab for Telephone Messages on a Client's file which would flash up to the fee earner that would be better as they would immediately know about the call and also it would be recorded on the file

Pros

LEAP is reliable, functional and easy to use. It is as simple as that.

Cons

There are some efficiency points that could be included. Development seems to have focused on certain areas at the detriment of others e.g. conveyancing vs disputes. Some features may have not been thoguht through for use in practice.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Choosing LEAP

Switched From

Reasons for Switching to LEAP

Pros

Creating matters, attaching documents and emails to the matter, keeping a string of notes is key, as opposed to pulling the file. I want to pull the file less by being more diligent in using the software. Will be nice to communicate and transfer date with the program. I think that will be key with future generations.

Cons

The integration was a pain, but it was on my side with Time Matters and my computer company. That was a me and not you thing.

When you create a matter and even when I chose the areas of law that I practice some of it was not there and we have to force the program by entering a type of law differently. For instance, it took us awhile to figure out how to enter Estate Administration which is the main thing I do. Most lawyers in PA and I suspect elsewhere use the Decedent's Name to identify and find the file. LEAP does not and you have to remember the name of the Executor for a search. If they don't have the same name, I think we had to do something a little different. For criminal matters there are some simple areas that aren't an option.

It seems like some fields we don't need and some would be more helpful, if they were available. The one that comes to mind is the Sale of Real Estate.