When the costs and potential hassles of linking other products to ProLaw's competitors are taken into account, the price difference can more wells evaporate. Marketing is not an isolated function relegated to a separate product. For example, a firm can select clients to receive a mailing based on their areas of law, the amount of business they have generated, and many other variables. The big advantage of this approach is outsourcing. Your firm does not need to deal with multiple specialists to maintain all the software and hardware required to run the many functions of practice management products.
Some writers criticize ASPs citing privacy, reliability and security fears.
We think these concerns are overblown, at least with respect to major, established companies providing legal application services. West Group has announced its WestWorks service that manages contacts, cases, documents, dockets, phone messages, and timekeeping and adds West legal content for some practice areas. Unfortunately, no one has published research comparing the returns on investment of different legal practice management products. We do know that customization and effective training correlate strongly with technology project success. Plan on spending 30 percent of your total hardware and software budget on training.