How Smokeball Cut Drafting Time for a Family Law Firm (Full Transcript)

[00:00:02] Speaker 1: Before using Smokeball, we had a pretty antiquated case management system. Basically, it was just a set of folders, and they attached our internal client reference number to the billing software. We were just extremely worried, nervous about having to move all of our case files from the system that we're used to, and it really took us a long time to make that jump. I had been watching Smokeball from the Texas Advanced Family Law Seminar for a number of years, and every year that I went, I went to the booth and saw different demos of the product, and I really, really liked it and talked about it quite a bit coming back to the office, but it was before we were ready. You have to take the jump, take the dive off the high board, because it was absolutely worth it. We went from zero to a hundred in just a very short period of time by adding Smokeball, and once we got set up, it was smooth going all the way through. I think it's really brought together everything we do, it's connected everything into one streamlined program to allow us to provide an excellent, efficient, and effective service for our client. For me, what really made the decision was the automation. Because we have a great reputation with the judges here in Bexar County, I feel that anything we put out in the litigation system, our pleadings, our motions, our orders, have to have a certain look and have to have a certain consistency, and sometimes silly typos would get in the way of that. And the automation process really put it all together for me, that we were able to put out a consistent product every single time. Regarding time savings, the forms are absolutely beneficial, and I remember distinctly what it would take for me to do a very simple motion. I've been doing this for 10 years, it would normally take me a simple motion, 20 minutes. Now with Smokeball, it's under 10. If you're looking at doing a regular, simple, final decree of divorce, when I was using my old system, just to template it, not even to put the custom wants and needs of the client, but just to template it, would take me eight-tenths of an hour, and now I can do it in 10 minutes. Time savings. Smokeball provides a lot less stress, don't have to worry about, am I going to be able to get all of my tasks for today done in my eight-hour day? It's been very nice not to say, you know, I have to stay late at work, or I have to take work home tonight.