Daleena Hartin

​At Law Solutions in Cairns, we are a team of 11 where my role is Senior Lawyer. We offer an array of services, though we are predominantly property lawyers. Our company has been in business for six years now, however, our Managing Director Ranjit Singh and I have both been in the Law industry for 12 years. I have personally been using Smokeball since January 2018, and we started rolling it out to other staff soon after.

So far Smokeball Legal Practice Management Software has been amazing. It’s the most modern system available and has significantly improved the overall profitability and productivity of our office already - saving us hours each day!

Before switching to Smokeball, we were dealing with a number of key issues. Firstly, each employee had their own workflow, which wasn’t effective and was quite time-consuming. It became increasingly difficult for the staff to communicate and track all their emails, documents, phone messages, and meetings.  If you were busy it was easy to forget these various activities and if Outlook went down, we had no idea what our workflow was.

With the software we were using prior to Smokeball, support was minimal to non-existent. If there was a program update this would usually cause an error and the system would go down. It would then be virtually impossible to speak to someone over the phone. We would alternatively have to email support and could wait for over three days before we were up and running again.

I also work from home a lot, so on the days when I was working out of the office the only way I could access my work was to remote into the server, which was at times a burden. We required a far more flexible system to suit our firms’ needs.

Smokeball was initially recommended to us by the owners’ brother who works at another law firm and had a positive experience using the program. Our owner is always on the hunt for the quickest and most efficient solution and thought we should look into Smokeball software to help rectify the organisational problems we were experiencing.

We were comparing alternative solutions; however, after viewing a demonstration of Smokeball we knew it suited our firms needs the best. The affordable price point was a major determining factor and the modern, user-friendly technology Smokeball provided in our opinion was leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors. Another key advantage that really stood out when we were deliberating was the hybrid cloud technology. The fact that we could work from home or remotely while simultaneously making our office more paper light was fantastic.

The onboarding process with Smokeball was a smooth transition. Prior to installing, I must admit I had some initial concerns regarding the staff adapting to change. However, Smokeball quickly eliminated these anxieties. The training their client support team provided us with was extremely thorough, plus Smokeball has an array of informative webinars available online which helped us in using the software confidently. Smokeball also assisted us in customising the program to include all the forms and precedents to suit our work. I really like how you can adjust Smokeball to accommodate your firms’ specific needs.

Smokeball has an array of beneficial features, but now that I’ve been using the software for a few months I’ve developed a few favourites. Firstly, I love that you can create your own tasks and workflow for your firm. Smokeball makes it simple for you to stay on top of tasks and key dates, to ensure you don’t miss important deadlines. You can also delegate work by assigning tasks to your staff and easily view tasks for yourself or another staff member. It really has improved the overall efficiency and communication within the office.

Smokeball’s integration with Microsoft Outlook is also one of the most important features for our firm. When you start an email in Smokeball, emails are saved automatically to the appropriate matter. It is easy and quick to assign the email and any attachments to the appropriate matter. You can also sync and share your emails, contacts and calendars with your entire firm so everyone is on the same page.

The most stand out feature by far is Smokeballs’ fabulous Support Team. No matter what the issue may be I can guarantee they’re only one phone call away and the problem will be dealt with professionally and promptly. Smokeball is also constantly trying to improve their program by adding new features and benefits. They listen to our suggestions and they really strive to make things better for the individual firm. We’ve found other software companies to be far less willing to do this. In every which way, shape and form Smokeball goes the extra mile to serve their clients!

I highly recommend Smokeball to other Australian lawyers. It lets you access your matter information from anywhere and manage your files without touching a piece of paper. Overall the investment in Smokeball software was 100% worthwhile!​