What do you like best about Smokeball?
I find it a little strange that I never see Smokeball included in lists of common legal case management platforms. Because I’ve worked with several case management platforms, and I have yet to see one that is even remotely as robust as Smokeball. Smokeball is a full document management and document Storage platform as well as a case management platform, so it is able to do a lot more quickly than otherwise would be the case. For instance, the integration with Outlook is great. Tagging an email with a specific matter is so much easier and quicker than it was in Clio. Although I still don’t think you can tag multiple emails with the same matter as a bulk function. That’s something that under certain circumstances would be extremely helpful.
The timekeeping function alone is probably worth the cost if you need timekeeping in your practice. Obviously, this would not be the case if timekeeping was not important, but when it is, it’s amazing because it captures so much more than you would capture yourself if you were doing it by yourself. And it saves a ton of time. It also provides a much more reliable result than reconstructing something after the fact.
I think the internal communication portal is extremely useful and easy to use. We use that all day all the time. The task function is good as well, in the integration with the Outlook calendar is great. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
What do you dislike about Smokeball?
I will say that there are some things that it cannot do -- or instance, we have a separate Smokeball folder on our Dropbox where we put Smokeball documents that have to be downloaded from another source before they can be imported to Smokeball. Smokeball has improved this issue by creating a PDF to Smokeball option from print menus from anything you can print. But there are still other things, like scanning software that do not go straight into Smokeball. You have to save it on your computer or in Dropbox and then import it into Smokeball. Not a huge deal, but one more step.
There is a way to file documents online using Court systems like PACER and Odyssey directly from Smokeball. However, if you have exhibits to those documents, you will have to do that separately.
If you are using a particular function of a Smokeball matter, you cannot use another function in that matter at the same time. For instance, if you are inputting information on the names and addresses of defense counsel in a matter, you cannot open up another window for that same matter and look for an email or a letter from that counsel to obtain that information. You have to stop what you’re doing with inputting the data, close that window, and then open up another window in that matter to get the information and then reopen the first window to input the info. Very bulky.
Because SB documents are generally stored in the cloud, you can't open a large file like a video immediately. The file has to download from the cloud before it opens, and that can take some time, depending on the size of the file. And while that’s happening, you can’t open up any other files in that matter. In fact, I think you may not be able to open anything else in Smokeball while waiting for a file to download. And if you get anxious, and start opening up multiple large files, it can take forever to get anything done. You would then have to cancel those downloads before you do anything else. So large files like videos you can keep on Smokeball but if you need them immediately, you should also have them stored on your hard drive so you can open them up immediately.
Another quibble I have is that the memo function and Smokeball is extremely clunky. Clio’s memo function was much better and cleaner and easier to use.
Also, Smokeball is not particularly visually compelling. For instance, I like larger icons and images, and Functions for certain things as opposed to having to look at small print all the time. Smokeball is a small print platform. That’s a quibble not a major criticism, but if I was doing my own case management platform, I would have the functionality the robust functionality of Smokeball and combine that with The aesthetics of maybe a Cleo or something else. But until I invent my own platform, I’ll probably stick with Smokeball.
Finally, there's no way to collaborate with another firm that has Smokeball unless both firms have the same license. There's a firm I collaborate with often that has SB, but we can't collaborate like we could with Dropbox. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.
