Our rating is based on our subjective judgment. Use our resources—including our rating and community ratings and reviews—to find the best fit for your firm.
Community Rating: 4/5 (based on 1 rating)
The community rating is based on the average of the community reviews below.
Composite Rating: 4.3/5
The composite rating is a weighted average of our rating and the community ratings below.
Rocket Matter is robust, productivity-focused law practice management software for solos and small firms.
Who Rocket Matter is For
Rocket Matter is a good fit for most solo and small firms. It is an especially good fit for firms that want a productivity-focused dashboard. (Getting Things Done (GTD) aficionados will feel right at home.)
Third-party software integrations are limited, but most firms will be perfectly happy with the currently supported integrations.
For law practice management software, the following are essential features, and you should therefore expect to see a check in every box in this section.
Case/Matter Management
Matter management is the defining feature of law practice management software, of course. However, some software is targeted at specific practice areas and may implement case management in different ways in order to manage information specific to those practice areas.
✓
Client/Contact Management
Managing clients and other contacts is a core feature of law practice management software.
✓
Task Management
Basic task management includes creating tasks with due dates that can be associated with cases/matters and assigned to different lawyers. Some products stick to pretty basic task management, while others offer enough features to make any Getting Things Done devotee happy.
✓
Calendar
As with email, this feature means a full calendar client, not just an integration with Outlook or Google Calendar.
✓
Timekeeping
Timekeeping is a core feature of practice management software, essential for lawyers who bill by the hour but useful even for those who don't.
✓
Additional Features
Conflict Checking
An actual conflict checker is more than just a search box. This applies to software that actually has a conflict checking feature. Implementation varies, but at a minimum you should be able to search the entire database for matching names. It should check for conflicts accurately and intuitively, allow for a lateral hire to input their conflict database into the system, work quickly when new clients call, and comply with the rules of professional conduct for checking conflicts.
✓
Email Client
Does it include a full email client? (Alternative solutions that don't amount to an email client, like plugins for Outlook or Gmail, do not earn a check for this feature. See software integrations, below.))
✗
Document Management
Basic document management allows you to add documents and associate them with your cases/matters.
✓
Document Assembly
Loading your firm’s document templates into your law practice management software can save time and ensure consistency. This check means basic document assembly suitable for form letters, invoices, etc. For advanced document assembly, you’ll probably need additional software.
✓
Secure Client Portal
✓
Basic Bookkeeping
This means basic checkbook register–style bookkeeping, which is more limited than full accounting. You should be able to keep track of your operating accounts and reconcile your balances, but you may still need full accounting software.
✓
Trust Accounting
This means you can track your client trust accounts, including expenses and payments. It is normal to see trust accounting without basic bookkeeping or full accounting, in which case you will need something else for accounting.
✓
Full Accounting
Some software includes full double-entry accounting features, making additional accounting software unnecessary.
✗
Billing & Invoicing
Does the software allow you to send bills or invoices?
✓
Online Payments
Payment processing is increasingly offered either as an included or add-on feature, especially with cloud-based law practice management software.
✓
Software Integrations
Box
Chrometa
Dropbox
Evernote
Google Calendar
LawToolBox
Lawmatics
LexCharge
Microsoft Office 365
Microsoft Outlook
QuickBooks Online
Ruby Receptionists
ScanSnap
Skype
Smith AI
Uptime JurisPage
Open API
✓
Additional Details about Rocket Matter
Email integration. You can connect your email, associate your email folders with client matters, and search your email from within the platform.
Firm-wide chat. Simple, effective chat makes it easy to discuss cases (or anything else) with other members of your firm without resorting to the clunkiness of email. Communicator is similar to Google Hangouts, with elements of Slack or HipChat, but built with lawyers’ needs in mind.
Backup. Rocket Matter backs up its databases throughout the day to standby machines, copies those backups to a remote facility daily, and the data-center specialists keep backups as well. It also offers the option to manually download your billable time, matters, calendars, and contacts. After you get that information from Rocket Matter, you can back it up locally, but it is a clunky process, especially if you want to back up regularly.
Limited integrations. Rocket Matter does integrate with the software and services you are most likely to use, like G Suite, Office 365, Dropbox, Box, QuickBooks, and Evernote. But its integrations don’t go much further than those.
Accounting sold separately. You can send invoices, but you will probably need additional accounting software.
Security. Rocket Matter uses 128-bit SSL encryption to secure the data traveling between your computer and Rocket Matter’s servers. This is sometimes called “bank-grade” encryption. For what it’s worth, most of the cloud-based practice management software options in our directory use 256-bit SSL encryption. Rocket Matter’s website also details a number of other security measures, such as strong physical security and a multi-point backup system.
Disclaimer: I use Rocket Matter primarily for invoicing and keeping track of billing. I haven’t used any other case practice management software, so take this review with a grain of salt. I LOVE having all of the different reports that it generates, being able to calculate billing by client, by month (or other date), what the firm has been paid over a specific period of time, etc. The one complaint I have is that entering billable time can be a bit tedious. When I enter new time, I have to put something in both the task title and the entry for what’s going to show up on the invoice – since I just add my time before invoicing, I’d like the option for that to just be one entry. Also – the is the biggest – Once I enter, say, 10 entries, there’s no way to just add all 10 to the invoice at once time. And each entry takes about 5 seconds. So entering my time is half just sitting there waiting for the software to catch up after I click the switch to move something from “task” to “billed.” YMMV.
Love it, with a few exceptions.
Disclaimer: I use Rocket Matter primarily for invoicing and keeping track of billing. I haven’t used any other case practice management software, so take this review with a grain of salt. I LOVE having all of the different reports that it generates, being able to calculate billing by client, by month (or other date), what the firm has been paid over a specific period of time, etc. The one complaint I have is that entering billable time can be a bit tedious. When I enter new time, I have to put something in both the task title and the entry for what’s going to show up on the invoice – since I just add my time before invoicing, I’d like the option for that to just be one entry. Also – the is the biggest – Once I enter, say, 10 entries, there’s no way to just add all 10 to the invoice at once time. And each entry takes about 5 seconds. So entering my time is half just sitting there waiting for the software to catch up after I click the switch to move something from “task” to “billed.” YMMV.
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