Speaker 1: Let's talk about Clio versus ProLaw. Of course, we're speaking about legal management software. So here's an overview I want you to pay attention to. So when we ask the question, which is better, ProLaw or Clio? Really, it really depends on the features you want to focus on, okay? ProLaw is more expensive to implement in terms of TCO than Clio, and Clio is rated higher when it comes to overall customer service, okay, than ProLaw. And Clio offers more features to users than ProLaw if you look at it on a holistic basis. But I really want to really get a little, like, one might say, well, Clio is the Clio winner, but not so fast, okay? So let me really elaborate a little bit on this comparison. First of all, you have to understand that Thomson Reuters, that's ProLaw, basically provides intelligent information for legal professionals, lawyers, legal researchers, and they do, like, Thomson Reuters is way larger. They offer more software tools than any other, than Clio, for instance, okay? And so they actually help lawyers, consultants, all kinds of industries get better through intelligent information. And we love the fact that with Thomson Reuters or ProLaw, you're constantly, you have a larger organization, which makes it more expensive, and basically you have customer service, you have a more structured approach. So Thomson Reuters, ProLaw is kind of cool if you have a small to medium-sized or even larger business. Now, if you're a small law firm, you better have the budget to actually afford Thomson Reuters, ProLaw, okay? What about Clio? Clio actually provides a full suite of web-based practice management tools targeted specifically at the admin needs of solo practitioners and small firms. Now, Clio wants you to believe that they actually cover the whole nine yards, that they cover the whole gamut, so to speak, so they actually address larger firms, medium-sized firms, all the way to solos, but based on our research, in reality, Clio actually is, their target base is mostly solos and small businesses. So basically, what Clio is, is a single resource that really eliminates the needs for multiple specialized applications by incorporating the principal talent of each application, okay? By the way, boss, welcome back to the show. It's really a pleasure to have you here. Make yourself comfortable. You are going to enjoy today's conversation. Let's talk about affordability. So who is more expensive, ProLaw or Clio? I can tell you right off the bat that ProLaw is more expensive, okay? Now, Clio is not cheap either, but ProLaw, when it comes to the total cost of ownership, the TCO that we always look at when we analyze software in the legal industry, it's a little bit more expensive than ProLaw. So if you're looking at the cost of ownership, you're looking at the cost of ownership when we analyze software in the legal industry, the TCO for ProLaw is higher than the TCO for Clio, okay? And so when we talk about TCO, we're speaking about the software license, the subscription fees, the software training, the customization, the hardware if needed, the maintenance and support, and other related services, okay? And when calculating the TCO of a legal management software tool, it's important to add all of these hidden costs as well. So when we think about, so first of all, I wanna show you on the screen here. Here is the pricing for Clio as of the date of this show. So Clio, as you know, Clio is basically, they're showing you four pricing tiers from 39 bucks to 129 bucks per month per user. But in actuality, the price is higher. The price is way higher than what we have here because Clio, they actually give you like a low price to start with to sort of lure you in. Once they have you, they start adding extra prices. But Clio's price is nowhere near what you will pay if you go with ProLaw. And ProLaw price starts at 52 to 5,200. That's 5,200 to $6,000 per license. So on a scale between one to six, or one to 10 rather, ProLaw, in our view, is rated six to eight, which is similar to the average cost of a legal management software. We're talking here about all-in-one. And Clio price starts at 39 bucks per month. So basically this is like two, one to two on a scale of one to 10, okay? So when comparing Clio to its competitors, this software is rated two, which is much lower. So if you really, as you can see on the screen here, now ProLaw, they want you to contact them. So you're not going to get anything on their website. This is actually a customer, though. This is not the first player doing that. I mean, this is, Thomson Reuters never puts their prices online anywhere, okay? You have to contact customer sales. By the way, boss, I wanna quickly remind you of today's topic. We're having a conversation about Clio versus ProLaw legal management software comparison. Let's talk about the features that you can expect to have if you were to, let's say, test out Clio versus ProLaw. So which software includes more or better features? And the thing first is that when you think about ProLaw, you have a billing and invoicing. You have time and expense tracking. You have document management. You have a legal management software. You have a legal management software. You have document management. You have time tracking. And you have contract management. Basically, when you look at ProLaw, I want you to look at an all-in-one service because, basically, you have access to everything, including accounting. So, for instance, when you have billing and invoicing, and when you have time and expense tracking, that has some accounting, I would say, functionalities embedded natively, natively. So no need to have a third-party integration here. What about Clio? Clio, you have time and expense tracking. You have billing and invoicing. You have document management. You have time tracking. And you have task management. And, basically, the thing here is that when you think about Clio versus, so that's for the features, right? And one thing I need to really specify here is that Clio actually does well when it comes to integration. They have an open API, so this is kind of cool. And something that Thomson Reuters ProLaw doesn't have. They don't have it. They have a closed API, okay? In terms of the target customer size here, and so Clio legal management software serves a range of customers in the legal industry, from solo practitioners to large law firms. And as I said before, in reality, their customer base is more like solos all the way to small firms. What about Thomson Reuters ProLaw? They actually serve mostly small to large firms, okay? Now, if you're a small firm and you have the budget for it, you can actually avail yourself of ProLaw's capabilities. This is totally fine. One thing I need to say here is that with ProLaw, you also need to understand that there is a cost for implementation, okay? They have to set up, because Clio is actually web-based and it's cloud-based. ProLaw can be a web-based and cloud-based, but in some cases, they would actually set up the software on your local servers or your local drives, so to speak. Let me talk to you about the specs you need to really pay attention to when you consider actually ProLaw versus Clio. So when you think about ProLaw, just kind of go back to the pricing. So ProLaw, their license, the price for their license starts at $5,200, from $5,200 to $6,000. This is per license. So it's one of those things where you have to understand, when you think about ProLaw, think about an all-in-one solution, okay? Because ProLaw is really a legal practice management solution for legal practices of all sizes. It offers search services as financial management, something you never have in Clio. You have client and matter management. You have it in Clio, of course. Risk management, you don't have it in Clio and others. So from a feature perspective, one can say, well, ProLaw is expensive, but ProLaw also offers more features, and that's true, okay? So when you think about ProLaw, the most important operational categories for us include accounting and finance, billing and invoicing, business tax, document management, and so on and so forth. And ProLaw, being part of the Thomson Reuters professional software ecosystem, can integrate very well with other products from the same ecosystem. Okay, so that's why they have a closed API. They do not need to have third-party integrations into their systems, because their system, their universal systems is already big. What about Clio? Well, Clio, as I said before, the pricing start at $39 per user per month. And think of Clio as a law practice and legal case management solution. It is a solution, okay? Which means what? They are trying to solve a pain point. They're there, I would say, pragmatically. They're there punctually, if you will, okay? And what I wanna say here is that the capabilities that you have with Clio include billing and time management, reporting, case management, and security. You don't have financial management. You don't have risk management, okay? You do have records management. You do have document management. You do have communications. You do have strategic planning. You do have billing and invoicing. As you can see, all those things, all those features are way more like solutions, okay? Than anything else. Boss, I wanna quickly remind you of today's topic. We are having a conversation about what? Clio versus ProLaw. What is better when it comes to legal management software? ♪ Ooh ♪ Let me talk to you about the value added here. So I first wanna talk about the ProLaw specifications, okay? You need to understand that ProLaws actually is again, an all-in-one solution. It's not just for legal management. You have financial management, for instance. of risk management. Okay. Something again that Clio lacks. So financial management plays an important role. If you are, if you really care about that aspect of your law firm, you really want to have a clear idea about your balance sheet. When I have a clear idea about your income statement, I have a clear idea about the revenue per attorney profitability per attorney. You want to have a clear idea about the key financial ratios that, that your law firm is actually generating. I don't have a clear idea about your cashflow statements. Then you might want to think about a software tool such as pro law. Of course, if you have the financial hefts to sort of cover the $5,200 starting price per license. And so, and again, the cool thing is that you have, you, you do have the ability to integrate, if you will, with other Thompson Reuters software tools. And so the specs here is that when you think about a Thompson Reuters pro law, the target audience, the typical customers, if you will, are medium and large size businesses. You do not have solos. I mean, we don't know any, any solo who can, any solo who can really afford a $5,200 for, for one license. Okay. I mean, unless that solo is really a star attorney or something. And when it comes to, when it comes to prologue, you do have a desktop mobile and cloud platforms. So prologue can also be integrated in your cloud. They can, they can also come and actually set it up on your computer. This is totally possible. They've been doing it for, for years anyway. Let me talk to you now about Clio's specs. So what are Clio specifications? What should you know when it comes, what should you really remember when it comes to Clio? Now, first of all, it's really important to understand that Clio is cheap comparatively to Thompson Reuters prologue, right? And I charge you $5,200 minimum, they charge you $39 to start. So basically right off the bat, if you're a solo practitioner, you will love Clio. And, and, and if you only care about the essential aspect, the essential law firm related aspects of your, of your, of your business, then you want to go with Clio because if you are a solo, you do not need risk management. You just want to have, you want to build a business, a law firm. And you know, no matter how small the firm is, you still want to sustain a law firm. You don't need the financial management. You don't need the risk management. You can get those through third-party apps. For example, financial management, you can get it, you can get it through integrations, through a QuickBooks online or FreshBooks, for instance, or, or Zoho or Wave, or, you know, you can, you can have that. You don't have to pay 20, $5,200 per license for that. That that's one. Another thing I want to say here is that you have the ability to have this software deployed via the cloud on your mobile and also desktop. So this is really cool because if you have a small firm, some of your attorneys are not working in the office, they're working from home or they are on the road. You have the ability to actually, they can, they can work, they can log in because it is a cloud-based solution. And you also have a, with Clio, you also can have a desktop solution. That's totally possible. But one thing I need to say here is that just remember that the numbers I'm giving you like 39 bucks per, 39 bucks per month, that's just a beginning. That's the bare minimum because when, when you get the bill from Clio at the end of the month, you're not paying enough 39, you're paying more than that. Okay. Because once they actually, for all intents and purposes, when they actually close everything, when they add all those integrations to your total price, you're going to have to pay more. Now, maybe some of that, those, some of that money, you're not giving it to Clio directly, you're paying it to a, to that third-party app provider, but still, okay. From your point of view, from a law, from your law firm point of view, you are paying way more in the end. So what are the extras here? I want to talk to you about some extras. So when we analyze Clio versus Prolo, basically Prolo has a five prominent features and Clio six. Okay. Now one might say, well, Clio really wins when it comes to features, but no, because the five prominent features are really dense. I mean, they're, they're really comprehensive with, with Prolo versus Clio. Okay. So for example, when you think about billing and, so let me first talk to you about the features with Prolo. In Prolo, what are the most important features? You have billing and invoicing, you have time and expense tracking, you have document management, you have time tracking, you have contract management. That's for Prolo. What about Clio? You have six important features. You have a time and expense tracking, you have billing and invoicing, you have document management, you have time tracking, you have task management, you have vendor client portal. Now you can say, well, Prolo has five features, Clio has six, but the thing is the features in Prolo are denser. They are, they're broader. Okay. They're deeper, if you will. Let me give you an example. When you look at time and expense tracking in, you have, you have this feature in both tools, right? You have it in Clio. You also have it in Prolo. Now in Clio, that time and expense tracking really has to deal with the, the time and expense tracking of one attorney. And in some cases they do, they do analysis on a holistic basis to give you the time and time and expense tracking for all attorneys within your firm. In Prolo, you have that. You have the individual and the holistic analysis, but the thing is that analysis ties into your firm's financial statements. Okay. That's actually the extra layer of, of the extra granularity that you only have in Prolo that you don't have in Clio. So that numbers can tie into your revenue number, that tie into your financial statements, your income statement, for example, in your, in your balance sheet, for example, in your cashflow statement, for example, and also in some cases in your statement of owner's equity, in your law firm's statement of owner's equity. In other words, if some partners, some lawyers are partners within the firm, then their equity account will be impacted as well because of the time and expense and expense tracking. This is just one example. I have many examples like billing and invoicing. You have it, you have it also in both software tools, but the level of the depth and breadth that you have in either software is totally different. Thank you so much for your attention. I really appreciate into this conversation. I was, I was just doing a quick Clio versus Prolo comparing contrast. I hope you enjoyed it. And I hope you will be able to make a decision based on that comparison. Thank you so much. God bless you. I'll see you next time. Until then, remember, stay marvelous.