Home > Legal Software > PracticePanther > PracticePanther vs CARET Legal

PracticePanther vs CARET Legal

Last Updated: November 18th, 2024

Our analysts compared PracticePanther vs CARET Legal based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Legal Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

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Product Basics

PracticePanther is a cloud-based platform that helps manage cases, documents, client communications, time tracking and billing for law firms. It acts as a centralized hub for handling client information, cases and documents. Its reporting tools let you track your firm’s financial health and performance.

The platform allows you to create detailed case files, including evergreen retainers, deadlines, billable hours and specific tasks associated with each case. It offers document management tools, enabling attorneys to edit, track changes, eSign and share files with concerned clients and internal departments.

Additionally, you can track time spent on each case, generate detailed invoices and automate trust account management. Practices of all sizes can automate invoicing, time-tracking and payments while remaining compliant with IOLTA, ABA and state bar guidelines.

The software also allows firms to store client contact information, communication history and matter details in one place. It provides tools for client intake and onboarding, including custom intake forms, checklists and client portals. Its intuitive mobile app helps you stay connected with your firm and communicate with staff and clients remotely.

CARET Legal (formerly Zola Suite) is a cloud-based practice management solution with integrated matter management, CRM, time tracking and billing capabilities. Businesses can centralize all firm and client data, track time and expenses, and manage operating and trust accounts. It helps prepare digital invoices, run financial reports and connect legal matters with associated contacts, documents, communications and tasks to get complete visibility over active cases. The built-in legal calendar tracks important events and touchpoints in real time.

It complies with SOC 2 auditing standards and secures sensitive information via military-grade encryption and user permissions. Companies can expedite client onboarding with trigger-based workflows and intelligent forms. It integrates with third-party applications for continued scalability.

$49/User, Monthly

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$150/User, Monthly

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Tailored to your specific needs

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Chromebook

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Mobile

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Product Assistance

Documentation

In Person

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Videos

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Phone

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24/7 Live Support

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Product Insights

Never Miss Billable Hours: PracticePanther excels in time and expense management, with our data showing that it offers 96% of all key requirements out of the box. You can manage retainers and set custom hourly rates, item prices and contingency rates. It supports multiple time clocks and helps you log billable and non-billable hours accurately. You can also add uniform task-based management (UTBM) codes while creating time and expense entries to set benchmarks.
Improve Client Experiences: Another strong suite is the platform’s client and contact management module, which has received an 89 rating from our analysts. You can design unique client intake funnels to capture all required information. Clients get individual portals to submit documents, track cases and pay invoices. You can use the built-in two-way messaging system or send emails and text messages from the software interface. The platform maintains a communication log and enhances client outreach with email campaigns and lead-tracking tools.

Easier Data Management: A centrally accessible data repository provides a single source of truth for all employees and team members.
Prompt Customer Support: Offers multiple support options to clients with quick response times.
Flexible Accounting: Provides in-house accounting tools and integration with QuickBooks.
Onboarding Support: Minimize time to market with dedicated onboarding and data migration support.
Better Insights and Decisions: Comprehensively diagnose the firm’s financial health, productivity, profitability and efficiency metrics with powerful built-in reports.
Global Reach: The mobile app provides unrestricted access to all features, including time tracking, matter management, emails, payment portal, billing and OCR capabilities.
Seamless Integration: CARET Legal seamlessly integrates with your existing systems, streamlining workflows and eliminating data silos.
Enhanced Efficiency: Automated processes and intuitive dashboards empower your team to work smarter, saving time and resources.
Improved Collaboration: Secure document sharing, real-time communication, and collaborative workspaces foster seamless teamwork.
Advanced Analytics: Data-driven insights provide actionable intelligence, empowering you to make informed decisions and optimize operations.
Exceptional Security: Industry-leading security measures protect sensitive data, ensuring compliance and safeguarding your clients' information.
Tailored to Your Needs: Customizable settings and flexible configurations adapt CARET Legal to the unique requirements of your practice.
Enhanced Client Experience: Client portals and self-service options provide transparency and empower clients to actively participate in their cases.
Timely Reporting: Automated reporting capabilities deliver real-time visibility into key metrics, enabling proactive decision-making.
Expert Support: Our dedicated team of legal experts provides ongoing support, ensuring a smooth implementation and maximizing your ROI.
Future-Proof Innovation: CARET Legal is continuously updated with the latest technologies and best practices, ensuring your firm remains at the forefront of legal innovation.

Case Management: Store detailed user information with ease, along with tags and follow-up updates, making it easy and organized.
- Remote Access: Get quick overviews of all case-related information, including contacts, tasks, calendar entries, documentation and more. Automatically sync firm databases for unobstructed remote access from any device with an internet connection.
- Contacts and Matter Management: Keep legal matters organized and up-to-date by adding relevant contacts, notes and bills. Limit access to sensitive matter information with controlled permissions. Securely collaborate with team members and share and recall data.
- Conflict Search: Link contacts to matters for checking on conflicts of interest and parties represented by the lawyer.
Document Management: Manage all your documents in one place and set up automation to reduce repetitive tasks.
- Centralized Repository: Store and manage all legal documents and files securely in a single location. Enhance efficiency by electronically sending documents for signatures, auto-populating client information, and creating custom templates to streamline document creation workflows.
- Organized Access: Avoid wasting time searching for documents. Organize files by client and matter for easy retrieval. Use custom tags to categorize and filter your firm's legal documents.
- E-Signatures: Expedite the document approval process by offering electronic signatures via email, text message or the client portal. Create and send multiple documents for eSignature in batches simultaneously.
- Cloud Integration: Connect with leading cloud storage platforms like Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box.com. This eliminates the need to switch between platforms and helps you sync all document changes automatically.
- Customizable Templates: Boost document creation speed by uploading and using pre-defined templates. Automatically populate templates with your firm's information and client data. Track document progress through a dashboard with status indicators (incomplete, completed, in progress, overdue) and assign conditional tasks as needed.
Legal Billing: Never miss a billable hour with automated time and expense tracking tools.
- Customizable Invoicing: Create professional invoices tailored to your firm's branding. Include client information, activity logs, notes and more. Assign specific billable rates based on user, activity, matter or contact for accurate fee calculations.
- Integrated Payment Processing: Accept payments through various methods, including custom payment links, the client portal, phone or in-person transactions using Panther Payments, the native payment processor.
- Billing Reports: Gain insights into your firm’s performance by generating detailed reports. Analyze billing trends and collections data, identify top-billed practice areas, and filter reports by custom tags, bank accounts, payment methods, contacts or matters.
Trust Accounting: Manage trust and operating accounts while automating compliance with IOLTA, ABA and all 50 state bar regulations. Stay informed about retainer balances by setting up automatic alerts. Receive notifications when trust account balances fall below pre-defined thresholds and perform daily three-way reconciliations for oversight of your trust account activity.
Legal CRM: Organize client data, gain a holistic view of cases, automate client onboarding and sync new client data from automated intake forms.
- Custom Tags: Categorize contacts by client type (existing, potential etc.), professional contact or any other relevant category using custom tags. Use these tags to filter data and gain insights into your client base.
- Client Portals: Provide clients with a secure online portal. They can access uploaded documents, communicate with your firm, review invoice balances and make online payments. The platform automatically populates client information from their intake forms to create accurate profiles.
- Workflow Automation: Streamline client follow-up with automated workflows that trigger tasks and events based on pre-defined conditions. Automate appointment scheduling and send automatic reminders to clients, ensuring timely communication.
Calendaring: Create time entries, confirm client meetings, manage tasks and stay on top of court rule deadlines using a centralized calendar system.
- Visualized Deadlines: Use color-coded tags to visually identify deadlines and events associated with specific contacts, matters and tasks.
- Automated Time Capture: Convert appointments and events into time entries with a single click, ensuring all billable hours are captured and accurately allocated to the appropriate client.
- Court Rule Integration: Connect with LawToolBox to sync pre-set and custom court rule deadlines with your PracticePanther calendar and workflows, keeping you ahead of important legal dates.
Integrations: Connect to a host of essential applications to improve the firm’s productivity and automation standards. Some popular applications it supports integrations with include Gmail, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Exchange, Box, Dropbox, Outlook, Google Calendar, Apptoto and many more.
Security: Protect firm data against vulnerabilities with 256-bit military-grade encryption. Limit platform access to authorized IP addresses and enable two-step authentication. Maintain client confidentiality and HIPAA compliance with Box.com’s secure storage capabilities.

Matter Management: Use the matter dashboard to track active cases in real time. Create custom fields with check-boxes, dates, pick lists and currency and record all matter-specific activities, including time entries. Limit access to sensitive information on a per-matter basis and categorize matters based on practice area, responsible attorney, custom fields and open date.
Intelligent Email: Automatically file emails to associated case files and add time entries for sent emails. The proprietary smart suggest feature locates associated contacts. Convert emails to tasks, matters and billable hours.
Integrations: Supported integrations include G Suite, Exchange, Microsoft 365, RPost, Outlook, Google Calendar, NetDocuments, OneDrive, LawPay and QuickBooks.
Calendar: Send ICS invites, create time entries, set private events, mark recurring events and follow up on team obligations. Set up daily, weekly or monthly schedules for report delivery.
- Rules-Based Calendaring: Integrate with LawToolBox to automatically track procedural, administrative and regulatory deadlines.
- Date Calculator: Factor in days out, federal holidays and weekends while calculating dates for templates and deadlines.
Legal Contacts: Create cards and lists for various legal contacts, including clients, prospects, witnesses, opposition counsels and referral sources. Generate custom fields and categorize them based on contact role, created by and contact type.
Legal Documentation: Store multiple legal documents depending on the subscription plan. Access instant preview of documents, in-document search, complete version history and file locking and tagging capabilities. Create matter-specific document folders and securely share files via the Caseway portal.
- Word Ribbon Plugin: Create, open and save documents directly from Microsoft Word.
CRM: Filter leads by source, practice area and potential revenue and convert them to matters. Identify successful referral sources with intelligent metrics. Embed intake forms into the firm’s website. Automatically create lead entries and generate retainer agreements and standard documents.
Task Management: Tag, sort, filter and create sub-tasks based on requirements. Implement standardized procedures using task templates. Delegate tasks to team members, turn on notifications and assign deadlines.
Client Portal: Allow clients to exchange case-related documents via a 256-bit encrypted channel. The payment portal can process both debit and credit card transactions. Request and approve eSignatures instantly.
Mobile App: Available for both Android and iOS users. Insurers can design custom logos, send and receive documents, share invoices and receive payments. Secures access via fingerprint authentication and Apple TouchID.
Time and Billing: Choose from over 11 ways to create time entries. Build custom invoices with support for UTBMS codes and LEDES format. Run financial reports, develop accounts payable and trust checks, process payments and more. Manages vendor bills and supports split, consolidated and separate billing frequencies.
- Time Entry: Create automated time entries and assign “no charge” and “no charge don’t show” labels. Designate round-up increments and log time entries in decimals or HH:MM format.
- Rate Cards: Create rate cards with custom user rates. Allow clients to inherit rate cards and set matter-specific discount rates.
- Expenses: Automatically track all expenses. Charge soft costs and import copy activities from photocopier devices via the uniFLOW importer.
Business Accounting: Earmark part of payments for expenses and to timekeepers. Set up firm-wide budgets to predict revenue on a monthly, quarterly or yearly basis. Run year-end reconciliations and add time entries for individual transactions.
- Reports: Run built-in client, compensation, productivity, accounting, trust and vendor reports.
Trust Accounting: Manage trust accounts separately. Accept payments via checks and debit and credit cards. Administrators can withdraw money from trust accounts to avoid overdrawing from operating accounts.
- Retainer/Trust Fund: Create retainers for trust and operating accounts and get notifications when the balance falls below the minimum. View and print ledgers and trust account summaries with sub-ledgers. Run three-way reconciliation reports.
Smart Settlement: Intelligently manage settlement workflows, including percentages and memo generation for all involved parties. Create a settlement statement for every settlement memo. Capture expenses incurred by the firm, clients and third parties in a detailed value list.

Product Ranking

#14

among all
Legal Software

#46

among all
Legal Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

100

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Time and Expense Management

Client and Contact Management

Integrations and Extensibility

Platform, Security, and Compliances

Billing and Payments

Task Management

Time and Expense Management

Dashboard and Reporting

Matter/Case Management

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

PracticePanther

CARET Legal

+ Add Product + Add Product

82%

12%

100%

83%

17%

92%

60%

40%

100%

21%

79%

64%

36%

78%

22%

89%

11%

78%

22%

67%

33%

83%

17%

100%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%

86%

14%

100%

75%

25%

User Sentiment Summary

92%

of users recommend this product

PracticePanther has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 613 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

94%

of users recommend this product

CARET Legal has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 94% when considering 345 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

4.2 (100)

4.8 (114)

n/a

4.64 (119)

4.7 (508)

4.6 (112)

4.6 (5)

n/a

Awards

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Ease of Use: Many users find PracticePanther easy to use, with an intuitive interface that makes it accessible for beginners without extensive coding experience.

Comprehensive Features: The software addresses critical legal practice management needs, offering tools for billing, invoicing, time tracking, case management, document handling and client portals.

Efficient Automation: PracticePanther offers automation for client onboarding, billing and document handling, streamlining workflows and saving time on repetitive tasks.

Easy Accessibility: The cloud-based platform, along with its mobile app, helps users access tasks and stay in touch with their operations from anywhere.

Streamlined Client Experiences: The platform offers client onboarding automation, unique portals and internal messaging tools that help simplify and streamline client-attorney interactions.

Robust Legal Case Management: CARET Legal offers a comprehensive suite of tools for managing cases, including document management, calendaring, and time tracking, streamlining legal operations.

Excellent Collaboration Features: Its intuitive interface fosters collaboration among team members, allowing seamless sharing of documents, notes, and tasks, enhancing teamwork.

Customized Reporting: CARET Legal's customizable reporting capabilities provide tailored insights into case progress, resource allocation, and billing, enabling data-driven decision-making.

Automated Workflows: The software automates repetitive tasks such as document generation and approval processes, freeing up lawyers to focus on higher-value work.

Improved Efficiency and Productivity: By centralizing legal operations and automating tasks, CARET Legal helps firms improve efficiency, reduce turnaround times, and enhance productivity.

Performance Issues: Some users report the software being slow and unresponsive, particularly during peak usage times.

Bugs and Errors: A few users reported calculation errors in trust accounting and time tracking due to bugs and cookie issues.

Documentation Quality: The software’s documentation could be clearer and more user-friendly, particularly for new users.

Limited Reporting: The solution offers limited pre-built reporting templates and dashboard visualizations. However, the vendor offers assistance in designing custom ones.

Integration Challenges: Users have reported faulty integrations with third-party tools, especially with Zapier, Jubilee and Record Grabber.

Billing Limitations: The platform offers limited billing customizations and requires users to manually open each bill to see its content, making the review process slow and cumbersome.

Limited Customization: Many users find that CARET Legal's customization options are limited, making it difficult to tailor the software to their specific needs.

Steep Learning Curve: The software's complex interface and lack of user-friendly features can make it challenging for users to navigate and use effectively.

Expensive: CARET Legal's pricing model is often seen as expensive, especially for small to medium-sized law firms with limited budgets.

Integration Issues: Users have reported difficulties integrating CARET Legal with other software applications, leading to workflow disruptions and data management challenges.

Limited Support: Some users have experienced slow response times and inadequate support from CARET Legal's customer service team, leading to frustration and delays in resolving issues.

During testing, I found PracticePanther relatively straightforward to set up. Customizing the platform with my firm’s logo and name was a breeze. Creating matters, assigning tasks and syncing calendars felt intuitive. Even integrating Panther Payments for online payments was smooth sailing. While the interface could use a design refresh, it’s functional and easy to navigate.One standout feature is the matter creation process. The ability to categorize matters with tags and custom fields is beneficial. PracticePanther’s flexibility in handling different billing structures, including flat rates, hourly rates and retainers, is a major plus. The platform's automatic alerts for depleted retainer funds are a time-saver.I'm also impressed with its document management capabilities. The integration with cloud storage and the version history feature is invaluable for maintaining document control. Creating custom templates for different document types is a convenient touch.While PracticePanther offers a solid foundation for legal practice management, it presents some notable limitations. The billing process is particularly cumbersome. The absence of a streamlined review function, forcing users to open each invoice individually, significantly hampers efficiency. This contrasts sharply with other platforms that offer more intuitive billing and reviewing navigation.Additionally, the lack of advanced features, such as integrated legal research tools, is a drawback for firms that rely heavily on online research. Although the software can track time, the absence of connections with research websites and tools means manual timekeeping, which can be error-prone and time-consuming.Despite these shortcomings, PracticePanther is well-suited for solo practitioners and small law firms with relatively straightforward caseloads. Its ease of use and core features, such as matter management and document handling, make it a viable option for firms that prioritize these functions. However, for larger firms with complex caseloads or those that require advanced features like robust reporting and analytics, PracticePanther may fall short.

CARET Legal has garnered significant user praise over the past year, with reviewers consistently highlighting its strengths in legal research and document automation. One user remarked that CARET Legal's "research tools are top-notch, making it easy to find relevant case law and statutes." Another reviewer lauded its "intuitive document automation features, which have saved me countless hours drafting contracts and pleadings." Compared to similar products, CARET Legal stands out for its user-friendly interface, comprehensive research capabilities, and robust automation tools. Users have noted that its "clean and organized interface makes it a breeze to navigate," while its "deep integration with legal databases provides access to a wealth of information." The software's ability to automate repetitive tasks has also been a major differentiator, with one reviewer stating that "CARET Legal has streamlined my workflow, freeing up more time for high-value tasks." In summary, CARET Legal is highly recommended for legal professionals seeking a comprehensive and user-friendly legal software solution. Its strengths in research, document automation, and user experience make it an ideal choice for lawyers, paralegals, and legal teams looking to enhance their productivity and efficiency.

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Head-to-Head Comparison

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FAQ

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