Rockwell & Kaufman is a civil litigation firm with extensive experience defending complex medical malpractice, construction, and nursing home cases. The record-heavy practice thrives with Smokeball, which allows staff to organize and search tens of thousands of documents with ease. Smokeball’s secure AI matter assistant reduces daily work that previously drained time. With staff able to work their cases faster and with more accuracy, Rockwell & Kaufman has increased their case volume.

The right legal software to accelerate growth

Managing Partner Thomas Rockwell saw an uptick in business several years ago, but he was reluctant to hire more staff if the growth was temporary. Instead, he turned to technology. The firm used ProLaw, and—while it served them well initially—Thomas saw significant room for improvement. Staff were wasting valuable time searching through disorganized files & emails, tracking their time manually, and worrying about their servers. “Billing and searching was a pain,” Thomas remembers. “I needed something user friendly that would help the firm’s efficiency.”  

‍Legal practitioners recommend Smokeball  

Thomas rigorously researched legal practice management software options by comparing features, watching videos, and taking demos. He also consulted reviews and learnings from other legal practitioners to ensure his expectations aligned with the reality of the software’s capabilities. Ultimately Thomas chose Smokeball for its:

• All-in-one cloud-based software that enables organization and efficiency

• Automatic time tracking to accurately capture staff activity and billable hours

• Seamless Microsoft Office compatibility for fast document creation and email management

• Ongoing innovation that leads the legal tech and generative AI space ‍

Secure Smokeball AI drives daily efficiency

Thomas was intrigued by generative AI and its applications for his legal work. "I experimented with ChatGPT, but it was really limited for ethical reasons,” recalls Thomas. Then Smokeball released its AI matter assistant, Archie, and Thomas was hooked. “I encouraged our staff to experiment with Archie, asking it questions and making requests. Everyone has evolved to use it for their own work and needs,” says Thomas. Rockwell & Kaufman staff use Archie daily to eliminate time-draining tasks without risk to any of their firm or client’s data.  

When dealing with numerous cases that involve thousands of documents, Thomas finds Archie essential for refreshing his memory. “I have it summarize an evaluation letter from local defense council or pull a snippet from a deposition for an email,” says Thomas. He also uses it to search large files and speed up daily work. Meanwhile, paralegals use Archie to start letters and draft email for their review.  

And staff use Archie together to save time. Thomas recalls thinking about an email he needed to send while driving. “There were numerous people on the file, and I couldn’t remember a name. I called my paralegal and described the person’s job. She used Archie to extract the name in seconds.” As soon as Thomas parked, he sent the email. “It saved me time and ensured I didn’t risk forgetting to send the email later,” he says.

Archie is a personal assistant that eliminates blank page syndrome and boosts productivity at Rockwell & Kaufman. “Archie is extremely helpful and saves everyone on staff time. We’re regularly discovering new ways to have it work for us,” says Thomas.

‍Capturing all the billable hours

Like most law firms, Rockwell & Kaufman live and die by their billable hours. With automatic time tracking, staff’s activity is recorded while they work ensuring their billable time is accurate. “Without a doubt we were missing out on billable hours before using Smokeball. You get busy and forget to record small things—and that adds up. We’re capturing so much more time than we were previously,” says Thomas.

In addition to billing more without working more, Smokeball has lifted the billing burden. “I was shocked how easy it was to get bills out with Smokeball,” remembers Thomas. With staff’s activity automatically tracked, Thomas quickly reviews the time entries before generating the invoice in a click. “Smokeball billing has helped us enormously. We’re very pleased with it,” says Thomas.    

Smokeball unlocks efficiency and growth

With Smokeball, Rockwell & Kaufman is productive, organized, and profitable. Smokeball AI and automatic time tracking handle time-draining tasks, so staff can focus on winning their complex litigation cases. And with everything securely stored in the cloud, Thomas no longer stresses about server malfunction or data loss.  

Rockwell & Kaufman is now more efficient and accurate, which allows the firm to handle more cases than before. “Smokeball was key to our growth and will definitely be part of our future,” says Thomas.