Smokeball in Chicago offers their flagship cloud-based legal case management application featuring time tracking, file and document management, billing, and legal form generation.
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Time Matters
Score 5.1 out of 10
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Time Matters from PCLaw | Time Matters, a venture spun out from LexisNexis in collaboration with LEAP, is presented as an adaptable case and matter management software that helps foster collaboration on matters, streamline internal processes and increase profitability through attorneys having more available billing hours and increased efficiency.
1. Small and medium-sized law firms: Smokeball is specifically designed for small and medium-sized law firms, making it well suited for this type of organization. 2. Firms looking to streamline their workflow: Smokeball's range of features, including document management, time tracking, email management, calendar management, and task management, make it well suited for firms looking to streamline their operations and increase efficiency. 3. Firms looking to improve collaboration: Smokeball's centralized document repository and task management system make it easy for teams to collaborate and access information, making it well suited for firms looking to improve collaboration among team members.
When we first started with Time Matters, there were very few other options and it fit the bill. But it didn't really progress with the times and there is now a need for synching with IPhones that was not envisioned back then. Additionally, the number of users is limited to what you purchased and it is not simple to just pay to add a user if a company grows. They MANDATE that you have a service contract which is costly and may not be necessary, and if you want to upgrade to a newer version, they insist that you pay for the contract RETROACTIVELY (!!!) without having use of it.
Document Management: Smokeball provides a centralized document repository where users can store and organize all their case-related documents. This helps to improve document accessibility and collaboration among team members.
Time Tracking: Smokeball automatically tracks time spent on a case, eliminating the need for manual time tracking. This results in improved billing accuracy and helps the firm to accurately bill clients for the time spent on their cases.
Email Management: Smokeball integrates with a user's email account and automatically categorizes emails as they come in. This helps users to quickly find and access important emails, reducing the amount of time spent searching for information.
User Interface: Some users have reported that the user interface could be improved to make it more user-friendly and intuitive.
Customer Support: Some users have reported long response times and inconsistent quality of customer support, which could be improved to provide better service to users
Mobile Accessibility: Currently, Smokeball does not have a mobile app, which limits accessibility for users who are frequently on the go.
So Juris and TM are both LexisNexis products. I dislike Juris greatly and the only thing we use it for is billing because we already had it and it was compatible with TM for billing purposes. Juris doesn't allow you any kind of document storage or management. You can make a "note" but what good does that really do me? In my opinion, Juris is good for billing only (not client management) and there are other options like QuickBooks that really outshine it.
We had to spend over $100,000 to customize Time Matters to work correctly with our medical malpractice and mass tort teams because the out of the box solution didn't work for both teams. Consultant costs are then required to maintain the customizations with each version upgrade.
I feel that we did not get any ROI on the licensing renewal costs because support is bundled with it and the Lexis Nexus support team wouldn't support of system because we used SQL replication.
Migration Costs to leave Time Matters for a cloud solution were high because of the complexities of the Time Matters software.
