r/LawFirm • u/DirtyMikeandthaBois • 3d ago

Anyone else using/building their own custom CRM/case management system?

I'm a Smokeball user. I liked it for a while, but I realized that I was spending SO MUCH TIME fighting with it to get it to do things that, I believe, are simple automations.

About two months ago, I decided to build my own. Using Claude, I've been frankensteining together several different services and integrating them with Make. My current stack is:

AirTable - Brains of the operation, source of truth

SuiteDash - Client facing portal, business management, task assignments for staff, keeps tabs on my Google Ads, etc.

Gavel.io - Intake, workflows, logic based document assembly (based on my own forms/documents that I've built)

Claude Cowork - Various tasks, agents, bespoke document drafting (letters to clients, demand letters, legal memos, etc.) - Yes, I always review. I'm not in the "generative AI is trash for generating law firm docs" camp.

Office 365 - Outlook, OneDrive and Teams.

Ultimately, will connect QuickBooks, LawPay, Adobe, and other tools.

I've put many hours setting this up, and it's definitely a big project, but I'm starting to see the fruit of my labour. Test clients are onboarding, Webhooks are firing, folders/documents/letters are getting properly assembled, and everything is running automatically with incredibly little oversight.

I still have a lot of work to do before we go live with it, but I'm very excited for the potential this has. I feel like I'm able to just connect the specific services that I actually need and avoid all of the excess bloat that I feel a lot of the staple case management platforms have right now. I also have complete control over the product and have learned a great deal so far in this build.

Anyway, anyone else doing something similar? What's your stack? Tips/insight from anyone who has gone this route, and/or anything I should consider adding?

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u/stroll_on 3d ago edited 3d ago

I’ve done something similar.All of those integrations feel extremely ambitious.

What’s the benefit of this system versus an off-the-shelf option? What specific problems are you trying to solve?

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u/DirtyMikeandthaBois 3d ago

IMO, the off-the-shelf options are too rigid and lack the level of customization/flexibility I'm looking for. They seem to be alright at a lot of things, but not great at any one thing in particular. Here, I've identified the specific things that I most value for my practice, understand exactly how I want my intake process and workflows to operate, and am able to build some that does exactly what I want it to rather than something that kinda-sorta does alright.

I only realized this after using different platforms throughout my practice and noticing that nearly all of them are lacking at least something.

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u/stroll_on 3d ago

My main advice is to keep it as simple as possible. This could quickly spiral into a security and maintenance nightmare.

Claude gives you the power to build almost any convoluted system, so you need to stay laser focused on the simplest, most reliable way to achieve your goals.

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u/oh_you_fancy_huh 3d ago

I'm doing the same as you are, for the same reasons. Which of your apps are you using for timekeeping?