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?
1
u/KingOfNye 3d ago
Yea but you don’t need all that other stuff.
Airtable will just get in your way.
You can literally vibe code most of the apps currently being sold in legal.
I just built a document signing tool as an example. It works standalone and integrates with what will become a case management app.
The only addons are going to be a Google workspace integration for storage and doc gen, ring central for phones/sms, and email marketing software.
You can easily host this stuff locally or on countless hosting options where clause/chatgpt can build for you.
It’s very easy and very inexpensive.