Just Starting UK

Yes! What really helped us (small criminal defense firm, US, 2 lawyers and 1 para) was working closely with the Smokeball team for migration and our trainer. The prep we did beforehand was key, and we kept in mind “garbage in, garbage out.” The Smokeball system is going to be whatever is migrated in to Smokeball, so making sure our files were in good order was our first step after we signed. My paralegal and I spent about a day or two going through the server, copying out/moving duplicative or really old files, and making sure the case matter folders we had all had good meta data. That means that we had the folders named properly, and the documents inside arranged in a way that made sense to us - one folder for so called opening docs, one for any electronic discovery that wasn’t in a physical form yet and didn't need to be kept in a secure locker (again, criminal defense, cough), and a folder for motions. We made sure we had good contact info and other PII in the e-file or at least accessible.

This way, when our Smokeball migration expert set everything up and moved it over for us, the interface was identical in organization and hierarchy to what we had prepared on the server. If there was some info missing because we hadn’t put it in yet, we were easily able to add it after the migration. It made getting started actually using Smokeball much easier with less hassle, because we controlled the documents going into it and how they were arranged. I hope this helps! If you have specific questions I’m happy to think them through with you!

Getting started felt like a big hurdle, but the team really made it so easy. And as soon as it was all set up, our trainer (Sara! love her!) came in and made sure we knew exactly what to do to start using the features we were so excited about. No question was too small or stupid for her, and it was those nitty gritty questions that really helped get us in gear using the product. It was a lot easier and went a lot more smoothly than we thought it would!