CosmoLex Reviews

I actually liked this software for the most part in my first year of use. There were a lot of bugs. For instance, the email linking doesn't actually do anything, you have to manually sort and link emails. This is disappointing because it was basically sold to me as something that you could customize by adding rules like emails from x email address should be sorted to x client. But I otherwise found it fairly easy to use and I liked the functionality of invoicing, etc.

I am giving this a poor review for the following reasons: (1) Cosmolex is really only price-efficient if you are a solo attorney. When I added a staff member and tried to add another timekeeper, I was told my price was going to effectively double!! As a result I am now trying to switch programs which is a huge headache, but the added costs made Quickbooks actually cheaper and Quickbooks has way more integrations and a payroll feature. (Plus you can find email archiving for FREE if you are a small business that takes care of that functionality for Cosmolex.) (2) They were not upfront about the pricing issues. I was told that the reason it cost money to add this timekeeper was because my previous timekeeper had been "grandfathered in" and that I should have learned about this pretty drastic change in an "update section." First, why wouldn't I have received this in an email? Changing the price and price structure of a product should require actual notice! Second, when I chatted someone to find this "update" they could not find it or direct me to it. (3) The lack of integrations (and the integrations they are getting) is really problematic. For instance, they now integrate with Net Documents, which is pretty expensive. For a product that must be targeted almost exclusively to solos as a result of the pricing structure, that doesn't make sense. Why not integrate with Box or Dropbox? And to not have a payroll integration or to work with existing payroll companies is difficult.

CosmoLex has provided practice management support for Suresh Law to client our with with their technology, business and real estate law needs.

Plaid integration fails at times and needs resetting for bank feed.

We liked that it appeared to have a bunch of services wrapped up into one--time-keeping for billing, accounting software similar to Quickbooks with an automatic feed into our accounts, and email archiving/practice management. The time-keeping component works well although you would think it would be easier to do mixed-fee or alternative fee arrangements given that these are the fastest growing in the legal industry.

The accounting system is a joke. The bank-feed regularly just stops syncing with no notification. We have spent so much time reconciling our books this year as a result of issues that Cosmolex refuses to address claiming its the result of their third-party vendor. We recently needed to transfer a file, and in going to export the emails, we learned that we would need to go into each email, print to PDF, and manually save! When I asked why this wasn't explained in the marketing materials as we would never have used Cosmolex for email storage if we knew that it would require this much work to actually use or access the emails, I was given instructions for how to download the emails from my Outlook account directly. Then why am I paying to use Cosmolex?

Lastly, the customer service has been consistently terrible. The chat function used to be helpful--but it appears they outsource it now, and it's no longer a benefit as the users can only refer you to articles. Additionally, we are constantly being told that they will make changes in response to our feedback (and presumably the feedback of others) but the only changes that have been made in the past few years have made the program less helpful. Where were the increased integrations we were promised? Why can't they figure out the syncing with their vendor?

The best features of cosmolex are A) The intuitive nature of the platform. The categorization makes sense, and makes searching matters, seeing outstanding balances owed, and viewing trust fund balances easy. B) The accounts payable section is well put together and easy to use. C) Customer service is great.

I don't like how slow it runs - seems as if the website could run faster, also there are occasionally glitches and I need to close the browser and restart. Also, there is no feature for running bills for outstanding amounts due for clients without billable time for the month, and there is no feature for running courtesy bills for clients with no active time or amount due, but monies in trust.

It is a comprehensive software. Its like having Quickbooks and a practice management program in one. This is the best feature.

Lots of glitches: (a) it emailed an invoice to the wrong person; (b) user restrictions do not work in my office; (c) calendar is not on the main page- usability is difficult for some tasks; (d) you can only have one person assigned to the client portal.

Does not have email capabilities

Does not have document assembly

Does not have automatic assignment of matter numbers.

Limited reporting features- you can not tailor reports (financial)- very limited.

It is better than PC Law was. Other than that, I would rather not use it.

you can't easily correct or edit entries. There is no clicking on when you are on a journal, you need to leave the screen and go somewhere else. Very time consuming. I also don't like that you can't just "view" reports, everything has to be downloaded and it takes time. When I contacted support as to why there were lines running through my view report, I was told it was a glitch...like really!! I don't find it at all intitutive . The downloading of bank statements for reconciliations is very painful, and quite frankly doesn't work.

It does both front and back office capabilities. It is easy to access everything about a client. All time, billing and any other information needing to be entered is in one software application. No need to have Quick Books and some other legal software. Invoicing is easy to facilitate and clients can pay through links on the invoices.

This program interacts with Microsoft Office, Outlook, Google, LawPay and many others.

There are some reporting functions that are not yet available. This program still does not have a function for collecting Judgments on behalf of clients.

Web based; Ease of use right from the start; Excellent training tools; Excellent customer service;

Most of my clients really appreciate the customer portal - I expect that as my clients are, as a group, more inclined to use technology to manage their legal affairs, they will be using it more.

The reconciliation of trust accounts with the option to simply download and compare entries is very simple and helpful.

Some of the more advance functionalities still need work. As an example, we still haven't figured out how to create several template invoices for fixed rate matters (the fixed rate will vary based on the type of matter); there have also been some challenges with the coding of our letterhead (which works fine in a Word document) so we have had to use a work-around.

I have enjoyed the ease of learning and using this software. I like the Dashboard that tells you many useful things at a glance. Customer service is also very good. I like that it integrates with several other applications, such as LawPay and Casemaker (although I no longer use Casemaker). I also found a CL knowledgeable accountant through the site, which was very useful for getting set up my first year.

I really don't have cons. They did go up in price by $10/month without warning (one time in 18 months) but I still think it is a fair value.

The integration of accounting and check preparation into the law practice package.

The calendar is not easy to view and use. Quite frankly, I merely have linked to to my Outlook Calendar and avoid using the Cosmo calendar entirely. The other "con" which surfaces each time I use it, is that when you cycle to matters or clients, you cannot simply begin to type a name and have the system go to the name in the list. Being forced to do a search each time you want to go to a listing is really a time waste.