LeanLaw Review: Features, Pricing & Alternatives 2023

LeanLaw’s dashboard provides quick access to the most commonly used features, including a calendar with timers, recorded time entries, expenses, billing, clients, and matter management. You can also access different reports, including reports by client and matter, reports by responsible lawyer, and other accounting reports.

While the simple dashboard may appeal to new law firms and practitioners, more established law companies with multiple clients and heavy projects might look for a more comprehensive alternative. For instance, PCLaw has a more robust dashboard, including dashboards for managing clients and law practices and for viewing recent activities. Also, unlike most similar programs, LeanLaw has no document management feature.

LeanLaw’s dashboard

LeanLaw’s unique strength is its deep integration with QuickBooks Online, which not only simplifies your legal accounting but also your legal billing workflow. Enter your time in LeanLaw, and it’ll be pushed to invoicing automatically and then straight to your QuickBooks Online account. With QuickBooks Online plus LeanLaw, you won’t be dealing with two sets of books as data is always in sync. You can connect LeanLaw to any QuickBooks Online account.

To help you bill clients properly, LeanLaw allows you to track hours in multiple ways, including a time tracker mobile app, calendar view with timers, and a web app pop-up. These tools help you check if there are gaps in your billable hours so that they can be remedied immediately. Bulk time entry is also included in all LeanLaw subscriptions.

From the web dashboard, you can track time using the timer or by manually entering your working hours. To track time using the timer, go to the Calendar tab, and click on the Start New Timer button located below the calendar.

Starting a new timer in LeanLaw

Another option is to enter the time you’ve worked using worksheets manually. To do this, select the Time Entries tab, and enter the number of hours you worked for a certain client and matter. All time entries recorded can be tracked on the Time Entries page.

Recorded working hours can be tracked on the Time Entries tab Billing & Invoicing

LeanLaw follows LEDES and American Bar Association (ABA) standards for billing and invoicing clients. You can add standard litigation, patent/intellectual property, and bankruptcy codes to your billings to ensure that they’re compliant with LEDES and ABA standards. Electronic invoices are then generated automatically and submitted to LEDES billing systems, including Legal Tracker, eCounsel, Lawtrac, and CounselLink.

Once a new time entry is created, it goes to the Ready To Bill tab under the Billing section automatically. From the Ready to Bill tab, you need to pick a client or matter to bill and then click on the arrow on the left side, which will then lead you to the screen where you can edit and format your invoice. Click Prepare Invoice, and you’ll be redirected to the Draft Invoice screen.

From the Draft Invoice screen, you can make adjustments to your invoice, including the description, time, and billed amount. Once you’re happy with the invoice, click on Create Draft Invoice. Your invoice will then move to the Drafts tab for approval. Once approved, select Submit to QuickBooks. The invoice will go to QuickBooks Online automatically and is ready to be sent to the client. You can revert your invoice back to Drafts if you need to make some additional changes.

The GIF below shows the step-by-step process of billing and invoicing clients from LeanLaw to QuickBooks Online.

Invoicing workflow from LeanLaw to QuickBooks Online

LeanLaw’s built-in trust accounting can be integrated into the user’s legal invoicing workflow. This makes it easier for you to make legal trust deposits and pay invoices straight from your client’s trust accounts. These trust transactions are then synced automatically with QuickBooks Online, eliminating manual data entry.

While the accounting is done in QuickBooks, the real-time two-way sync between QuickBooks and LeanLaw allows LeanLaw to pull the account balances and display the reconciled trust balances. You can view all of your funds held in trust from the Billing tab.

LeanLaw Funds Held in Trust screen in LeanLaw (Source: LeanLaw)

The amounts displayed in a column with the QuickBooks logo are pulled directly from the QuickBooks ledgers for both the bank accounts and related liability accounts. Therefore, you can see that your accounting records agree with your billing records easily and that all trust accounts are reconciled.

The trust balances pulled from QuickBooks can also be viewed within LeanLaw in a report format and even added to your client’s invoice so they know the full status of their account. LeanLaw has created a video to help explain its trust accounting process further.

With LeanLaw plus QuickBooks Online, you can choose between accounting by client or matter. You may want to pick client accounting if you need to add time or expenses from multiple matters to the same invoice. Meanwhile, we recommend matter accounting if you need to track trust funds separately for each matter. LeanLaw uses client-based accounting by default, but you can change it anytime from the QuickBooks tab in LeanLaw.

You can choose to enter expenses either in your LeanLaw or QuickBooks Online account. Whichever method you choose, data is synced automatically between the two. LeanLaw also allows you to attach invoices directly to your expenses and tag the client to ensure that they’re always up to date.

To enter an expense in LeanLaw from the web dashboard, go to the Expenses tab, click on the +Create Expense button on the far left side of the screen, and then provide the required information on the Add Expense form. Click Save to record the expense.

Add Expense form in LeanLaw

LeanLaw has a special program that matches legal firms to QuickBooks ProAdvisors, who are accountants that have passed a certification exam from Intuit, demonstrating proficiency with QuickBooks. LeanLaw provides the necessary support to help law firms find QuickBooks ProAdvisors who are also proficient in LeanLaw. Contact LeanLaw to be matched with a ProAdvisor.

As with the web dashboard, LeanLaw’s mobile app allows you to track time using a timer or manual entry. You can track your billable and nonbillable hours and new time entry and expense on the go. Download the app on Google Play and App Store.

LeanLaw’s integration with Gravity Legal allows law firms to get paid through credit and debit cards or bank transfers directly within LeanLaw. You send a trust deposit request through email, and then your client receives the email which contains the link to where they can pay the deposit. Once the deposit is paid, it will be recorded automatically to the trust liability account in QuickBooks.

Another thing we like about LeanLaw is its comprehensive reporting feature. From the Reports page, you’ll find different legal-specific reports that are grouped into different categories, such as by client and matter, by user, and by practice area.

Reporting page in LeanLaw

Available reports include time and expense, client, timekeeper, and lawyer compensation. With LeanLaw, you can drill down into reports to get deeper insights into the financial standing of your law firm.

For instance, instead of checking your monthly invoice payments received, you can delve into specific details, such as revenue by attorney, revenue from a client, revenue by practice area, or revenue allocated to originating attorneys. Additionally, you can run compensation reports, which can help you calculate and track how much of your income is being allocated to users in your firm within a certain period.