PracticePanther vs Rocket Matter

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

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.

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Rocket Matter provides law firms with a user-friendly practice management platform capable of everything from case management and CRM to time tracking and billing. Store all case-related data and documents in one place and track them via kanban boards. Leverage robust reporting tools to get actionable insights. Automatically link time entries to invoices and product mass invoices with custom billing rules. SImultaneously manage both trust and operating accounts.

Securely create, store and share an unlimited number of legal documents. Use predefined parameters and templates to organize legal matters and develop automated workflows for all phases of a case. Create an invoice schedule that supports multiple billing plans and payment methods. Facilitate same-day payments with electronic invoices and online payments. Integrate with third-party technologies to improve scalability.
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$49/User, Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
$109 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
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Email
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Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
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24/7 Live Support

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.
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  • Simplified Automation: Manage ongoing cases and projects with automated workflows and customize them with plug-and-play templates.  
  • Connection On-the-Go: Access case information, tasks and essential tools remotely with a mobile app. 
  • All-in-One Billing: Eliminate billing errors and duplicate data with hassle-free batch billing, invoicing and electronic payment collection. 
  • Optimized Task Tracking: Track ongoing tasks in real time with a visual feed of ongoing tasks delivered via customizable Kanban boards. 
  • Short Subscription Periods: Try out the software extensively with a minimum subscription period of three months and cancel if it’s not a fit. 
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  • 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.
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  • Time and Billing: Use multiple timers and intuitive screen-capture tools to track billable time efficiently. Edit time entries in bulk and process them into invoices. Connect to QuickBooks for two-way synchronization of accounting data. 
    • Invoices: Create custom invoices with tailored branding, fonts and colors. Send digital invoices to clients with online payment options, including credit cards and eChecks. 
    • Billing Rates: Supports multiple billing rates, such as hourly billing, flat rates and contingency fees. Assign custom rates on a matter or client basis. 
    • Retainers: Maintain a minimum balance for trust accounts. Automatically request funds when the account balance falls below the minimum. 
    • Tax Calculations: Add custom tax rates to legal matters and automatically calculate deductibles. 
  • Integrations: Supported integrations include QuickBooks, LexCharge, NetDocuments, Office 365, Microsoft Outlook, Box, Dropbox, LawToolBox, Google Calendar and more. 
  • Online Payments: Accept credit card payments with a transparent processing fee of 2.95%. Provide clients with flexible payment plans, evergreen retainers and automated recurring billing. 
  • Tasks: Draft a series of predetermined tasks for specific legal matters. Administrators can create, track, update and assign tasks to employees. Assign due dates to set priority levels. Directly bill for tasks upon completion. 
  • Legal Calendar: Always stay on top of important events, appointments, hearings, touchpoints and tasks with firm-wide calendars. Color-code calendar entries based on staff members and choose from classic or datebook views. Convert calendar events to billable time with the Bill-As-You-Work tool. Access the calendar on the go and synchronize entries with Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook. 
    • Jurisdictional Rules: Automatically calculate Statute of Limitations. Access jurisdictional rules to avoid potential malpractice claims. 
  • Contact Management: Drag and drop contacts with the Copy-to-Contact tool. Create custom fields and tags to capture client-specific information. Organize the contact database to view related connections and direct relationships. Check for conflicts of interest and drill deeper into matter-related information, including case status, matter name, contact role and more. 
  • Mobile Application: Use the mobile application for unrestricted access to case information, communications, the legal calendar and time tracker. Securely upload and view confidential data. App security includes fingerprint identification, facial recognition and PIN authentication. 
  • Matter Management: Use matter templates to create automated workflows for repetitive tasks. Classify cases by matter types and create task and event parameters for each class. Edit matter templates with custom billing methods, tasks, events, due dates and statutes of limitations. 
    • Matter Dashboard: Get a 360-degree view of a matter’s calendar events, time and billing information, associated contacts and account balances. Uncover hidden relationships between agencies, guardians, adjusters and family members for contextual insights. 
    • Matter Checklist: Create a matter checklist. Automatically trigger new tasks on completion of existing ones. 
  • Communicator: Securely communicate with colleagues and share case-related files. Save complete correspondence history to individual or matter-specific channels. Give commands in natural language and organize conversations by matter-types. Supports video conferencing. 
  • Legal Projects: Break down complicated projects into manageable phases of automated tasks, custom data and calendar calculations. Move from one phase to another with automatic access to predefined data. Run reports to track project status and get real-time notifications via Communicator and mobile devices. 
  • Advanced Reporting: Leverage robust reporting tools to evaluate the firm’s productivity, efficiency and financial health. Built-in reports include origination reports, allocation reports, matter budget, productivity per user, productivity per matter and collections reports. Export reports to Microsoft Excel. 
    • Business Intelligence Module: Dig deeper into firm data to identify bottlenecks and evaluate KPIs based on matters, invoices, tags, clients, activities, contacts and more. Create tailored reports with custom queries, sums, averages and calculations. Arrange data into custom groups through a simple drag-and-drop interface.  
  • Legal Documentation: Scan legal documents directly from a Fujitsu ScanSnap iX500 or iX100 scanner and store them in matter-specific folders and sub-folders. Access documents globally from any device with an internet connection. 
  • Document Creation: Create documents faster by merging legal templates and custom fields with client and matter data. Get automated notifications about errors and omissions and convert completed documents to time entries. Directly upload documents and images from Office 365. Request and share case-related documents with clients. 
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Product Ranking

#14

among all
Legal Software

#20

among all
Legal Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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86
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75
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Time and Expense Management
Client and Contact Management
Integrations and Extensibility
Platform, Security, and Compliances
Integrations and Extensibility
Mobile Capabilities
Time and Expense Management
Client and Contact Management
Billing and Payments

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

PracticePanther
Rocket Matter
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Billing And Payments Calendaring And Legal Docketing Client And Contact Management Dashboard And Reporting Document Management Matter/Case Management Mobile Capabilities Task Management Time And Expense Management 84 90 55 18 75 76 82 97 94 95 75 58 83 100 65 100 0 25 50 75 100
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83%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

100%
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83%
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17%

User Sentiment Summary

Excellent User Sentiment 613 reviews
Great User Sentiment 214 reviews
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.

88%
of users recommend this product

Rocket Matter has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 88% when considering 214 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

4.2 (100)
4.0 (16)
4.7 (508)
4.4 (195)
4.6 (5)
5.0 (3)

Awards

PracticePanther stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Rocket Matter and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities and Integrations and Extensibility.

Mobile Capabilities Award
Integrations and Extensibility Award

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.
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Robust Document Management: Centralized repository for contracts, pleadings, and other legal documents, enabling easy access and organization.
Automated Billing and Time Tracking: Streamlined billing processes and accurate time tracking, reducing administrative burden and improving revenue.
Efficient Case Management: Comprehensive case management features, including task tracking, calendar integration, and document sharing, for seamless case coordination.
Seamless Collaboration: Secure client portal and internal collaboration tools facilitate efficient communication and document sharing among team members.
Enhanced Client Relationship Management: Integrated CRM capabilities, including contact management, billing history, and communication tracking, foster strong client relationships.
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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.
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Limited Customization Options: Rocket Matter's pre-configured templates and limited customization capabilities may not align with the specific needs of some legal firms, hindering their ability to tailor the software to their unique workflows.
Complex User Interface: The software's interface has been described by some users as cluttered and overwhelming, requiring a significant learning curve for new users and potentially hindering efficient workflow.
Insufficient Reporting Capabilities: The reporting functionality within Rocket Matter may not provide the depth and flexibility required by legal firms to generate comprehensive insights and make informed decisions.
Limited Integration Options: While Rocket Matter offers some integrations, its compatibility with third-party applications may be limited, restricting the ability of legal firms to connect with other essential software tools.
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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.

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Rocket Matter is a leading legal software that has received generally positive user reviews in the past year. Many users have praised its intuitive user interface, which makes it easy to learn and use. Additionally, Rocket Matter's robust features, such as time tracking, billing, and document management, have been well-received by users. One of the main strengths of Rocket Matter is its ability to integrate with other popular legal software, such as Clio and PracticePanther. This makes it a versatile option for law firms that use multiple software programs. Additionally, Rocket Matter's customer support has been praised by many users, who have found it to be responsive and helpful. However, some users have also reported some weaknesses with Rocket Matter. One common complaint is that the software can be slow at times, especially when handling large files. Additionally, some users have found the pricing to be somewhat high. Overall, Rocket Matter is a solid legal software option that offers a wide range of features and integrations. While it may not be the best option for all law firms, it is a good choice for those who are looking for a user-friendly and feature-rich software. Rocket Matter is most suited for small to mid-sized law firms that are looking for a comprehensive legal software solution. Its intuitive user interface, robust features, and integrations with other popular legal software make it a good option for firms that are looking to improve their efficiency and productivity.

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