Hale Family Law

At a glance

• Team: One fee earner, plus a trainee a few days a week
• Work: Divorce, financial remedy, children matters, and enforcement
• Using: Smokeball and Archie

From reception to running his own firm

Colin Hornby began his legal career at a law firm’s reception desk more than 13 years ago. Over eight years there, he developed an interest in legal work.

He went on to earn a law degree, qualify as a solicitor, and work as a self-employed consultant. In January 2026, he fulfilled his ambition of opening his own firm, Hale Family Law, while raising four children. “The journey has been a rollercoaster,” he says.

A practice built on experience

The practice covers divorce, financial remedy, and children matters. Colin also handles property and trust disputes after unmarried couples separate, and enforcement when court orders aren’t followed.

His interest in family law began when a partner he worked for regularly gave him family matters. His own experience as a separated parent deepened it.

“Family law is more than just advising a client about the law,” he says. “There are emotions involved, and the decisions clients make will ultimately affect them or their children.” For Colin, that means helping clients see the difference between what the law permits and what’s right for their circumstances.

The challenge: winning work alongside bigger firms

Hale Family Law competes with multinational firms that have bigger marketing budgets. Referrals bring in work. But as the only fee earner, Colin has to balance winning clients with serving them. Every hour spent on admin leaves less time for either.

Why Smokeball

Colin has worked at several firms over more than a decade and used a range of case management systems. Their interfaces often slowed him down.

Smokeball felt different from the start.

• Automation: Routine tasks take very little time.‍
• Word integration: He rates it “pretty good”.
• Stability: It doesn’t crash. Even with a really big file, documents load quickly.

His day starts with Smokeball’s to-do list and the previous day’s billing record. Diary entries sync with Outlook, so his schedule is always clear, and precedents help him move matters forward.

There are so many things Smokeball can do easily without taking lots of time. That’s what I would emphasise: it saves me a lot of time. And, of course, for lawyers, time is money.

Archie: the second pair of eyes

Colin has tried other AI tools. He finds Archie better suited to legal work. Some tools answered only the question asked. Archie went further.

“It (Archie) tries to read between the lines,” he says. “If it thinks you might mean something else, it asks, ‘What about this? What about that?’ It guides you.”

Two recent examples show how he uses it.

Everyday correspondence. Colin asked Archie to review a file, check the client’s documents, and read the other side’s latest letter. Archie drafted a reply that summarised the letter and gave initial views. It also covered an earlier offer Colin wanted to confirm was still open.

Complex financial analysis. In a multi-million-pound financial remedy case with complex assets, Colin asked Archie to assist in comparing a party’s financial disclosure with their purported income and expenditure. Archie was prompted to build a month-by-month spending schedule and found a significant discrepancy. The purported present monthly expenditure was higher than the bank statements showed. It then exported the analysis into a table format.

Colin calls the accuracy “phenomenal”. He says Archie saved him a day’s work on a task that would easily have taken two.

What changed

Colin has always kept on top of his workload. Before, that meant extra hours. Now it doesn’t. “It’s taken a lot of pressure off me,” he says, “and clients are getting even quicker responses and progress on their files.”

Colin’s advice to other firms

I would encourage every law firm, especially those using Proclaim, Clio, or Mattersphere, to take a serious look at how Smokeball works and how it can make their lives, their practices, and their clients’ lives easier. It’s always worth a chat, isn’t it?

Ready to get time back in your day?

‍Book a call to see how Smokeball fits your firm.

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