Need A Practice Management Tool With 'Killer Features'? Try Zola Suite
You need practice management software for your firm, and Zola Suite is a worthy entrant into the field.
I had the opportunity to try Zola Suite, a legal practice management software platform developed by the folks (and dogs) at Zola Media. I was not familiar with Zola before, but I see that they also build websites for attorneys and offer a document storage and management system for healthcare directives.
First of all, you do need a practice management tool, and unless you are a homebody who never leaves your house (or your office), a cloud-based system is the way to go. Zola Suite is a worthy entrant into the field. Even if you just started a firm yesterday and have no clients or associates, it’s best to pick a system and put it in place now, before you start to get busy. I spent a year trying to manage my practice from an Excel spreadsheet, and when I finally took the plunge and signed up for practice management software, it made it easier to keep up with clients and whatever various tasks were on my plate at any point in time. It also added a certain amount of stability to my practice.
Zola Suite is a complete platform, one that can take the place of not only whatever practice management system you are currently using, but also of Outlook and QuickBooks. The dashboard has three large windows, displaying email, calendar, and tasks, and with several buttons to the left taking you to other screens.
It doesn’t take much time at all to get up and running. The client intake process is easy and intuitive. They offer tutorials, but if you managed to graduate from law school, you probably won’t need them. You just click on “Matters” and then the plus sign, and you’re off to the races. There are a few fields to fill in, but nothing overwhelming. (Some of these practice management software tools will make you track down your client’s blood type and names of pets.) Time entries is another easy thing to figure out: four “work type” options (research, drafting, consultation, court) come standard, although users may customize by adding as many work types as they like. There is a “no charge” button right there on the entry, so if you’re feeling generous with your time, you don’t have to later remember that you gave that time away.
The full integration with email, calendar, and tasks is extremely useful. For those of us used to the full-screen default setup of Outlook, the email window is a little small on the home screen, but it doesn’t take long to appreciate the convenience of having all three items visible at once (tasks in particular). Once you click on the “Email” icon, a full-fledged email window appears, with full email capabilities and then some. Unlike emails from other practice management systems, emails coming from Zola Suite are not spoofed — they come from your actual email account. This is a plus, as spoofed emails will often end up in the recipient’s junk mail or clutter. Once you open an email and add the matter, the matter timer will begin. (This will be useful for some, though I’m not sure it would work for me, as I’m typically composing 4-5 emails at any one time.) Emails can be turned into tasks, which Outlook can do, but with Zola Suite you can associate the task with a matter, and assign it to another member of your firm. You can also receive notification when the task is completed or not, and get email, SMS, or pop-up reminders. By the way, you can still use Outlook if you must.
When you’re adding a meeting or other event to your calendar, there is a drop-down menu where you can select the corresponding matter, and when you’re adding attendees, the contacts connected to a matter will appear first in the drop-down, which is super convenient for those of us with a lot of contacts. You can view your colleagues’ calendars, though each colleague also has some privacy controls, so the boss doesn’t have to know the mid-afternoon entry on Wednesday afternoon is actually a golf date.
The tasks function is similar to that of other platforms, with six color options and a “sub task template” (aka workflow) feature, but unlike some of the others, it allows you to also specify the time the task is due. I particularly liked the “Waiting on Someone Else” status option, which would have come in handy during my government days. You can readily see all the tasks that are assigned to you, and through the advanced search feature you can see all the tasks that you have assigned, so you’ll know everything that is going on in your practice.
I know other management tools offer similar features to the above, but since with Zola Suite your email, calendar, and tasks are right there on the dashboard, the UI makes it harder to forget what the platform offers.
Zola Suite’s killer feature is that it offers full accounting. Many practice management software options are primarily for time entries and billing, but with Zola Suite you no longer need QuickBooks. Accounting is one of the buttons on the left side of the dashboard, so it’s easy to track up-to-the-minute P&L, balance sheets, etc. Zola Suite offers integration with LawPay, but not PayPal.
Zola Suite has an app to help you manage your practice on the go. The app includes the ability to scan a business card and turn it into a contact, which will help at networking events and conferences. (It’ll give you something to do during the speeches.)
Zola Suite is competitively priced for what you get. With a one-year subscription, the per-month price for solo attorneys is $49 per month, and $68 per month for everyone else. There are no services tiers, so for those prices you get everything the platform has to offer, plus unlimited customer support.
To sum up, I found Zola Suite easy to use and I recommend that folks consider it for their practice. Whether you want to change from an existing practice management system will depend on how much trouble it would be for you to migrate over to another system, but certainly if you were already thinking about changing, I would seriously consider Zola Suite.
Gary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and securities matters for startups, large and small businesses, private equity funds, and investors in each, and also has a number of non-profit clients. You can reach Gary by email at Gary.Ross@JacksonRossLaw.com.
