Has Law Firm Management Software Become Too Complicated?

As a litigation paralegal turned trial court presenter turned attorney, I’ve used just about every legal tech platform out there—Clio, PracticePanther, MyCase, Rocket Matter, TrialPad, Trial Director, OnCue, you name it. I’ve worked at small firms, big firms, and everything in between. I’ve been the guy doing the demos, the guy leading the trainings, and the guy sitting in the back of the room whispering, “We are never going to use this.” So, when I say law firm management software has gotten too complicated, I say it from experience.

At some point, legal software stopped solving problems and started creating new ones. And that’s exactly the issue ExhibitSuite is here to fix.

Complexity ≠ Better

The pitch always sounds great: One platform to rule them all. Your billing, your document templates, your client communication, your CRM, your phone system, your accounting, your intake forms, your calendar—wrapped into a single piece of software that promises to run your whole firm. Except it rarely works that way.

You don’t get a turnkey solution. You get a bloated system with hundreds of options, tabs, drop-downs, sub-tabs, nested folders, and permission settings you need a dedicated IT person to configure. You get software that can do everything... as long as someone in your office is willing to spend six weeks learning how to use it, then teach you how to use it.

Here’s the thing no one likes to say out loud: most law firms are using maybe 10–20% of the system they have purchased. Tops. Meanwhile, they’re paying for 100%.

So the real question is: why are we spending so much time and money on tools we don’t even use?

What Law Firms Actually Need

Most law firms don’t need an all-in-one command center for running a multinational corporation. They need a way to:

• Keep their cases organized.
• Assign attorneys and support staff to matters.
• Collaborate with their team and take internal notes that stay private and accessible.
• Upload and store key documents.
• Share exhibits during depositions, hearings and trials.

That’s it. That’s the job.

Enter ExhibitSuite. We built it because we were tired of training people on systems that made everything harder. ExhibitSuite is a streamlined, intuitive case management tool designed specifically for the litigation process—with real-world lawyers and paralegals in mind.

You can organize cases by category, assign team members, and keep everyone looped in without overcomplicating anything. You don’t need a certification to use it. You don’t need a month-long onboarding. If you can open a browser and use your email, you can use ExhibitSuite.

The Myth of “Feature Rich”

One of the biggest traps in legal tech is the idea that more features = better value. But in practice, that just means more complexity, more confusion, and more things that can go wrong.

Take document automation, for example. Sounds amazing. But most firms I’ve worked with don’t have the time to build or maintain a robust template library. So that feature sits unused while the team keeps filling out Word docs manually.

Or customizable intake forms. Another great idea—until you realize that every field has to be manually mapped to a case record, and suddenly you’re in a Zoom training wondering why "Middle Initial" isn’t syncing with "Client Profile."

At some point, we forgot that software should serve the user—not the other way around.

Time is the Real Expense

It’s easy to talk about subscription fees and licensing costs, but the biggest cost in adopting complicated software is time. Time spent training. Time spent troubleshooting. Time lost to inefficiencies while people try to figure out what button does what.

With ExhibitSuite, we’ve stripped things down to the essentials. You can get a new user up and running in 10 minutes. Most people don’t even need a training session—they figure it out by clicking around.

We intentionally built a system that does less, on purpose. It’s not trying to be all things to all people. It’s trying to be a tool you’ll actually use.

You Shouldn’t Have to Choose Between “Powerful” and “Simple”

There’s a weird assumption in legal tech that powerful tools have to be complicated. But I don’t think that’s true. The most powerful tool in your office is the one you use every day. The one that doesn’t require a tutorial. The one that doesn’t make your paralegal throw his or her hands up in frustration. That’s power.

ExhibitSuite lets you:

• Prepare and share deposition exhibits in real time
• Store and organize documents in each case
• Create private or team-wide notes
• Assign cases to responsible attorneys and staff
• Navigate everything from a clean, modern dashboard

And it does all that without forcing your firm through a six-week bootcamp.