CRM vs spreadsheet for a 10-person law firm
Most small law firms run on a shared inbox, a conflict-check spreadsheet, and individual lawyer notebooks. It works until it doesn't. Here's how to tell which side of the line you're on.
A 10-person law firm doesn't need a big practice management platform. Most of the well-known platforms are built for either solo practitioners or 50+ lawyer firms; the middle is awkwardly served. What a small firm usually does instead is run on three things: a shared intake inbox, a conflict-check spreadsheet, and per-lawyer notes in Word docs or notebooks.
That setup is fine until intake volume grows, a partner asks for a pipeline view, or someone realizes a conflict check didn't happen before the first consultation. Then the question becomes: do we live with the spreadsheets, buy a big platform, or build something focused?
Where spreadsheets quietly fail
- Conflict checks happen when someone remembers, not on every intake.
- Matter status lives in personal notes that nobody else can see.
- Stale matters (no contact in 30 days) are invisible until they're stale for 90.
- Onboarding a new lawyer takes weeks because nothing is written down centrally.
- A partner asking 'what's in the pipeline?' kicks off a small expedition.
Where the big platforms feel like overkill
- You'd pay $50-100 per lawyer per month, mostly for features you'd never use.
- Adopting it requires the firm to rebuild around the platform's workflow, not yours.
- Trust accounting and billable time features matter for some firms; for many they're noise.
- Configuration usually needs a consultant. Changes do too.
What the middle option looks like
For a 10-person firm, the focused middle option is usually about five things, and nothing else:
- A structured intake form that automatically runs a conflict check against the existing client list.
- Per-matter records with owner, status, deadlines, and a shared notes thread.
- A partner dashboard with pipeline, stale matters, and upcoming deadlines.
- Reminder rules: no contact in 14 days, deadline this week.
- Optional client portal for document handoff (often phase 2).
That's it. No automated marketing layer, no five-tier permissions, no time tracking unless you actually need it. The smallest version that solves the real problems wins.
What it changes
Firms that move from spreadsheets to a focused intake and matter tool typically see intake-to-decision time drop sharply (often from days to under 48 hours), pipeline visibility for partners go from 'guess' to 'glance', and the number of stale-but-still-open matters drop because they're now visible.
How to decide
If three of these are true for your firm, it's worth at least mapping out what a focused middle option would look like:
- Intake comes through a shared inbox.
- Conflict checks happen in a spreadsheet.
- Partners can't easily see pipeline.
- Matters go stale without anyone noticing.
- Onboarding a new lawyer takes more than a week of shadowing.
You don't need a big platform. You need a small tool that fits a 10-person firm.