Using legal software to thrive as a small law firm

Growing a law firm doesn’t have to mean hiring additional employees; sometimes it means implementing the right legal software to increase efficiency and capacity. Endzel Law, LLC has expanded and thrived as a solo practice thanks to Smokeball’s robust automatic time tracking and document automation.

Effortless time tracking for profitability

Endzel Law, LLC is a family law practice in Chicago working exclusively with low- and middle-income clients. When it came to attorney billing, founder Nora Endzel needed to balance affordable flat fee rates with maintaining her firm’s profitability. With Smokeball’s automated time tracking, she’s been able to analyze how much time she spends on different types of cases and adjust her pricing structure accordingly. Modeling her fee structure after real data captured by Smokeball gives her confidence that she’s billing fairly, and she’s able to pass that peace of mind on to her clients by offering flat rates for her services.

“The automatic time tracking of Smokeball has been a huge saver of my business… being able to have it automatically running in the background and tracking everything I do means that without any effort whatsoever I have metrics on what cases and case types are profitable for me, which helps me adjust my pricing.”

Successful solo practice

Nora started her solo practice in 2013 and has experimented with adding personnel ranging from interns to full-time administrative help. Ultimately, she’s found that the most cost-effective way to operate her firm is to maximize her own efficiency through the judicious use of technology.

“The longer [it] goes and the more into using Smokeball I get, the more I realize I don’t think I need administrative help because I have my computer AI administrative assistant in Smokeball.”

By utilizing Smokeball’s law firm productivity system– including legal document management, calendar sync, and integrations with services such as RingCentral- Nora’s practice has been able to prosper while maintaining its small size.

The power of case management software

For solo attorneys, carving out time to work on the business side of their law firm in addition to their existing caseload can be a challenge. That’s where Smokeball comes in. Automated processes like document generation and time tracking, along with case management features such as email and document management, ensure that law firms like Endzel Law, LLC are able to spend more time helping their clients and less time on repetitive administrative tasks.

Endzel Law, LLC offers affordable and transparent family law representation with an emphasis on cooperative divorce. Attorney Nora Endzel has been rated as a “Rising Star” by Illinois Super Lawyers Magazine in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and is a member of the Chicago Bar Association, Illinois State Bar Association, and the American Bar Association. For more information, please visit EndzelLawLLC.com.