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I often speak to firms wanting to achieve similar goals: Improving the visibility of work  Becoming more organised  Making the workday more efficient  Delivering consistent client experiences My first recommendation is always the same; take the time to set up Tasks and Workflows. It’s a simple way to get more work done with less effort.  Never miss a deadline or key dateAutomating tasks lets you replace a manual “to-do” checklist, freeing up your time and delivering the best possible experience to your clients. Tasks and Workflows allow you to effortlessly allocate tasks including documents and files to the right person at the right time, every time!

We recently hosted a webinar with virtual receptionist Smith.ai, a 24/7 client engagement platform that helps you save money, gain business, and reduce interruptions. Chelsey Lambert and Maddy Martin shared how Smith.ai offers an exceptional client experience—and integrates with Smokeball for seamless intake and increased lead conversions. You can watch the webinar for free here. Here's what they covered:   Part 1: Introduction to Smith.ai  Screens potential clients based on your criteria  Schedules appointments on your calendar  Takes payments   Makes outbound calls for quick follow-up  Part 2: Engage & Convert with Smith.ai 

Smokeball is full of features designed to place what you need to run your best firm right at your fingertips. Each area of law, firm, and employee needs something different. That’s why we have so many great features and customizations accessible with a single right-click.   1) Matter list view By right-clicking on the matter list heading, you can choose the information you wish to see at a glance when opening the matter list. Learn more about organizing your matter list.2) Matter detailsAdd more information you have on a matter by right-clicking certain fields in the Matter Details, such as

Despite working for free, never getting tired and always showing up on time, robots still need to be set up for success—they require an occasional check-in!  Automation, or “the robots,” is really just using specialized technology to quickly complete common legal tasks. It will never replace key components of the work: problem solving, mentoring colleagues, advocating for clients, or other things that drew you to the work. Automation will ensure you’re not burning hours on repetitive and tedious tasks.   Take back your time In our free CLE Embrace the Robots: Automate Law Firm Tasks + Grow Your Practice on November 15, we’ll help you take the next steps in automating your firm. But to do it, we need to know where you’re stuck.  

We talk a lot about personal New Year resolutions, but do you set resolutions for your business too?To help you achieve your goals this year, on behalf of our Client Success team, we’d love to know what your firm is focusing on, and how we can help.Want to find more clients? Keen to branch out into different areas of Law? Looking to grow your team? Something else?Your success coaches are on standbyThe Client Success Team here at Smokeball are here to help you realise your business goals by helping you use Smokeball to your advantage.We also invite our community members to share learnings to help each other. Starting a conversation or simply posting your goals below is a good place to start.Whether you're planning on automating more of your processes to give you more time back or want to start tracking your profitability so that you know where to f

Before I joined Smokeball I worked in a law firm. When my firm moved from manual to automatic time tracking we quickly saw how much more we were earning and how much time we saved on admin.  Here’s what I learned from making the move to Autotime and why I think you should too.Before: Manual time tracking & billing the old-fashioned wayMy firm and I tracked everything using a timer and a new spreadsheet to log the time for each matter.It was completely manual and I remember how much time I spent recording tasks and calculating the totals when it came time to bill. Smokeball research with clients showed that firms that track time manually underestimate billable hours by up to 30%.That was my experience too. It was hard to be sure I had captured everything that was billable. I know we missed a lot.As a Client Success Manager here at Smokeball, I’ve seen how many firms are under billing and under valuing their work.

Happy holidays!After a busy year, many of us here at Smokeball are taking a break between now and new years day. Don't worry; some of us are sticking around to chat if you need help during normal support hours (excluding public holidays).Ask a question here in the community Check out our help articles  Or -if you're still stuck-do send our support team a messageWe

Hello Smokeball Community!As we head towards the new year we are doing some research here in the USA and would love your feedback.We want to hear what kinds of things you think would help your firm be more successful or would have helped you get your firm rolling.Do you wish you had access to a place where you could buy/sell templates for common documents (wills, common petitions etc)?  What about access to resources on how to run a firm from a business standpoint or best practices by area of law? Is there something else you wish you had now or that would have made your life easier?As a note, this is not meant to be a forum for Smokeball feature requests and we would love this to be a more holistic view of the needs you might have as a firm and/or as you were getting started. Drop a comment here with ideas for discussion or if you'd like us to reach out to you so we can chat.

Want some inspiration to transform and grow your firm?Smokeball Spark, Australia’s premier small law conference, offers a chance to join other leaders to spark new ideas for business growth and learn about top technology trends to fuel your firm’s business transformation.2 streams: ‘Firm Development’ or ‘Daily Efficiency’ streams to either map out long-term strategies for your firm or to identify how you can operate more efficiently day-to-day. Keynote speakers include ‍Holly Ransom, globally renowned content curator and speaker, and 

Automation can sound overwhelming, but Jordan Turk and Chelsey Lambert broke it down into three manageable parts in their recent CLE, which you can watch here for free. They also connected automation practices to ethical considerations. Afterall, automating one's practice doesn't just save time, reduce errors, and alleviate stress; it also helps ensure excellent client communication, protected information, and other top ethical concerns.Here's how they broke down automation opportunities across a firm:Getting the workLead generation Intake SchedulingDoing the workDocument automation Workflows Utilization reports Unified calendaring Expense trackingBilling the workCapturing time

Turkeys are filling freezer space, and Mariah Carey is telling us what she wants for Christmas. It signals there's no better time to give back--and Season of Giving is the way Smokeball does just that.Join us by taking or referring a demo today until Dec 30. For each demo ran, we'll donate $50 (up to $25,000) to our partner organizations: Howard Brown Health, Equip for Equality, Restore Justice, and CASA.Help us make a difference! The more we grow, the more we can give.   

There's no end to the ways that paralegals contribute to law firms. In celebration of National Paralegal Day (Oct. 23), we’re honoring paralegals who go above and beyond every day.  Now through Friday, November 4, nominate your paralegal for their chance to win great prizes and bragging rights! Just fill out this short submission form, including the name of your paralegal and a short description of how they go the extra mile for your practice.  We’ll select one grand prize winner and nine runners-up, to be announced November 14. The 2022 National Paralegal Day Winner will receive a $250 Amazon gift card, a giant personalized tin of Garrett's popcorn (Chicago's favorite!) and a blog feature on Smokeball’s website. We can’t wait to read your submissions!  

We’re about to go live with a webinar on how to make the most of the data Smokeball gathers and shares with you about how your firm is running.  Ask your questions hereWe’re on standby to help you put the lessons learned in this webinar into action. Whether you’d like help using firm insights in Smokeball or you’re not sure how to interpret the data, this is the place to get help.  

Marketing can be an expensive, time consuming effort that struggles to pay for itself. It doesn’t have to be that way.This is your chance to ask an expert how to market your firm.   Ask your question now @Mel at Loyalest joins us to answer anything you’d like to know about marketing for small law firms. Are you not sure what the best approach is for marketing your firm?  Do you need some help making sure your Google Business Profile is set up correctly?  ​​​​​​ Not sure where to start or if you even need marketing for your firm? Just type in your question below! Feeling shy? ​Ask your quest