Law firms know managing matters efficiently is critical, yet solutions often fall short or cost too much.
What if there was an affordable, feature-rich alternative tailored to legal enterprises? Both Zola Suite and Themis Solutions aim to fill this need, but have key differences.
This comparison outlines the core capabilities, support, and pricing of Zola Suite vs Themis to help legal teams determine the best fit for their needs.
Introducing Zola Suite and Themis Solutions
Zola Suite and Themis Solutions (Clio) are two legal software platforms that aim to help law firms streamline operations, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency.
Zola Suite offers robust matter management, document assembly, deadline tracking, and other features to smooth legal workflows. Themis Solutions, formerly known as Clio, excels at client intake, matter management, billing and accounting. Both provide versatile and cost-effective solutions for legal professionals.
Zola Suite's Key Features
Zola Suite enables law firms to efficiently manage matters with features like:
- Centralized matter profiles and deadlines
- Automated document generation
- Task assignment and collaboration
- Time tracking and billing
It also offers analytics on matter costs, productivity, and profitability. Document collection is facilitated through integrations. Overall, Zola Suite delivers an end-to-end legal management platform.
Themis Solutions' Key Capabilities
Formerly known as Clio, Themis Solutions focuses on:
- Streamlining new client intake
- Centralizing matter data
- Simplifying legal billing
It provides cloud storage, deadline notifications, and collaboration tools. Robust accounting features are also offered for billing and payments. Integrations expand its capabilities. Ultimately, Themis Solutions excel at the operational aspects of legal work.
Both Zola Suite and Themis Solutions offer versatile options for law firms aiming to enhance efficiency. With strengths in complementary areas, they provide solutions tailored to different legal needs and workflows. Evaluating their specific features and pricing models can help identify the best platform.
Comparing Core Functionality for Matter Management Enterprises
An in-depth look at how Zola Suite and Themis Solutions stack up across key areas like matter management, document management, reporting, and more for enterprises focused on matter management.
Matter Management and Client Intake
Both Zola Suite and Themis Solutions provide robust matter management and client intake capabilities tailored to the needs of larger legal teams and enterprises.
Zola Suite offers customizable matter profiles, intelligent matter numbering, and robust searching to easily track details for a high volume of matters. Themis Solutions provides similarly powerful matter management with customizable matter types, automated matter opening workflows, and bulk editing tools.
For client intake, Zola Suite enables creating client profiles with custom fields and documents attached. Themis Solutions also allows building client profiles with custom fields, documents, and relationships. Both solutions make it easy to collect client information upfront to eliminate duplicate data entry later.
Overall, these solutions are on par for core matter management and client intake needs of larger legal teams. Themis Solutions may have a slight edge in flexibility to customize matter management workflows, while Zola Suite provides rich integration with its document management capabilities.
Document Generation and Assembly
When it comes to accelerating legal drafting, Zola Suite offers embedded document automation with clause libraries, templates, and questionnaires to streamline creation of custom documents. Themis Solutions provides document automation through integration with external providers like HotDocs to merge data into templates.
For document assembly, Zola Suite enables pulling data and clauses from various sources into a single document. Themis Solutions does not have embedded tools for document assembly, but integrates with solutions like Contract Express for this functionality.
So for larger teams, Zola Suite simplifies document generation and assembly within a single platform. Those using Themis Solutions would need to integrate external document automation and assembly tools for similar capabilities.
Billing and Accounting Integration
Robust time tracking and accounting integration is crucial for larger practices to effectively monitor revenue and profitability across matters.
Zola Suite provides built-in time tracking and expense management, integrating directly with accounting tools like QuickBooks Online and Xero. Themis Solutions delivers time and billing functionality through its Clio Grow add-on, integrating with Clio to push invoice details to QuickBooks and Xero.
Both solutions cover the critical bases of capturing billable time, managing expenses, and integrating accounting. Zola Suite's unified platform avoids needing an additional time and billing add-on. For those already using Clio Grow, Themis Solutions aligns neatly with existing workflows.
Overall for enterprises, Zola Suite and Themis Solutions both deliver solid matter management, but Zola Suite's unified document and data platform enables greater productivity gains from embedded document automation and assembly tools. Themis Solutions offers more flexibility for customized matter workflows and integrates time and billing functionality through Clio Grow. Legal teams should weigh their specific integration and customization needs to determine the best solution.
Examining Support and Implementation
Onboarding and Implementation Strategies
Both Zola Suite and Themis Solutions (Clio) provide dedicated onboarding support to ensure a smooth transition process. They work closely with matter management enterprises to migrate data, configure custom settings, and train staff on using the software.
Zola Suite implementation specialists conduct discovery calls to understand your workflows and objectives. Based on that, they design a migration strategy and suggest optimal configurations to enhance efficiency. Their flexible data mapping allows you to consolidate information from various sources into one centralized database. You can track matters end-to-end with custom tags, fields, and views tailored to your needs.
Themis Solutions (Clio) also assigns a dedicated implementation manager who learns your workflows through questionnaires and screen sharing sessions. They help migrate relevant case data and accounts into Clio while preserving data integrity. You can organize matters into custom folders, sync them with accounting software, and build conditional logic to automate routine tasks. Their flexible API integration options allow connecting Clio with other tools you use.
Both platforms provide training resources like setup guides, video tutorials, interactive walkthroughs, and unlimited email support to help you get started. While Zola Suite offers scheduled online training sessions, Themis Solutions (Clio) provides regional seminars and a Clio Cloud Conference focusing on legal technology and best practices.
Ongoing Support Options
After implementation, Zola Suite provides round-the-clock end user support via live chat, email, and phone. They also offer a knowledge base with training materials and an online user community forum for peer networking. For larger firms, they provide dedicated account management and ongoing optimization of configurations.
Similarly, Themis Solutions (Clio) offers 24/7 technical support and robust self-help resources in their knowledge base. They recently introduced Cleo, an AI-powered virtual assistant that provides instant answers to frequently asked support questions. Users can also access the Clio Community forum to connect with other customers. For premium customers, Clio provides access to a technical account manager for long-term guidance.
Both platforms strive to deliver prompt, effective troubleshooting so you can focus on core legal tasks without technology hindering productivity. Their range of self-service and human support caters to users at different expertise levels.
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Comparing Pricing Models
At Legal Buddies, we understand the importance of choosing legal software that fits your budget and needs. When comparing options like Zola Suite and Themis Solutions (Clio), pricing is a key consideration alongside features and functionality.
Plan Options and Feature Availability
Zola Suite offers three pricing tiers: Basic, Pro, and Enterprise. The Basic plan includes core features like document automation, intake forms, and calendaring. Pro adds client portals, billing, and other premium capabilities, while Enterprise caters to large law firms with customized onboarding and support.
Similarly, Themis Solutions (Clio) provides four incremental editions: Solo, Standard, Plus, and Enterprise. Solo covers solo practitioners and small firms with features like contacts, calendaring, and document management. As firms grow in size and complexity, the Plus and Enterprise options enable more customizable workflows, reporting, and integration support.
When evaluating these products, align plan options to your firm's current and future needs. For example, rapidly expanding practices may benefit from Enterprise editions to allow for extensive customization as demands evolve.
Estimating Total Cost of Ownership
While base subscription fees provide a starting point, total cost of ownership entails additional factors around integrations, storage, and support.
For example, Themis Solutions tacks on charges for excess document storage, whereas Zola Suite bundles unlimited storage and users with Enterprise plans. Support needs are another variable—Zola Suite offers unlimited phone and email help with Enterprise, while Themis charges extra for priority assistance.
Mapping out your complete feature needs rather than focusing solely on base pricing provides a more accurate cost projection when budgeting for new software. Don't hesitate to ask Legal Buddies for guidance comparing options to choose the best fit for long-term success. With deep expertise staffing specialized legal teams, we're ready to help simplify your software evaluation process.
Key Considerations for Matter Management Enterprises
Legal professionals at enterprises specializing in matter management have unique needs when choosing legal software solutions. Key factors to consider include scalability for growth, suitability for international firms, integration capabilities, and cost. As practices expand, having flexible and versatile solutions becomes crucial.
Scalability for Growing Firms
As enterprises grow and take on more clients and cases, having scalable legal software is essential. Solutions like Zola Suite and Clio grow with companies by easily adding more users and capabilities.
For example, Zola Suite offers customizable plans to match current needs, with the ability to upgrade as firms scale up. Built-in Zola bots can automate repetitive tasks as caseloads increase. Clio also provides flexible subscription plans for growing companies. With Clio Manage, users can track billable hours across a large number of cases.
When evaluating options, understanding the scalability of features like document automation, calendaring, and reporting is key for long-term success. Prioritizing scalable solutions ensures efficiency improvement as operational demands evolve.
Suitability for International Firms
For enterprises with international offices or clients, solutions that offer localization and multiple language support provide better experience for global teams.
Zola Suite enables customized terminology configuration to match regional legal standards. Users can build multilingual document templates and allow language selection during document merge. These features streamline collaboration across borders.
Meanwhile, Clio also offers some multi-language support and currency conversion for international billing. However, Zola Suite currently provides more extensive and customizable localization functionality to meet diverse global needs.
Carefully examining localization capacities allows firms to choose solutions positioning them for international growth and efficient cross-region coordination.
Making the Right Choice for Your Matter Management Firm
Prioritizing Your Firm's Needs
When evaluating Zola Suite and Themis Solutions (Clio) for your legal matter management needs, it's important to carefully consider your firm's priorities.
Assess your budget and identify must-have features that align with your operational goals, whether it's streamlining intake workflows, centralizing matter data, or facilitating collaboration. If reducing costs is key, compare pricing models for the solutions. If you need integration with other platforms in your tech stack, validate compatibility.
Also factor in the level of ongoing support each provider offers. As a talent provider, Legal Buddies provides dedicated legal assistants to support your use of platforms like Zola Suite or Themis Solutions. With deep expertise navigating legal software, Legal Buddies' staff can guide you in configuration, assist with workflows, and troubleshoot issues.
By understanding your firm's pain points and highest-value functionality, you can determine if an end-to-end platform like Zola Suite or a focused SaaS like Themis Solutions better suits your needs. Defining priorities upfront enables you to make the optimal software choice.
Next Steps for Evaluating Products
Once you align on must-have legal software capabilities, delve deeper into comparing Zola Suite and Themis Solutions. Analyze free trial versions, reach out to customer support with specific questions, and read product documentation to validate that key features meet your firm's preferences.
Pay particular attention to the platforms' matter management tools for intake, templates, deadlines, document generation, and calendaring. Evaluate any built-in integrations, APIs, and compatibility with apps you already use. Also research options for collaborating with outside counsel if applicable.
Assessing free trials and documentation will clarify how well each solution's strengths map to your firm's priorities. Coupled with your budget and support requirements, this additional evaluation will lead you to the ideal matter management pick for your needs. Connect with a Legal Buddies associate anytime for personalized recommendations based on your firm's goals.
