Clio vs Smokeball (2026)

The Clio App Directory lists more than 300 apps, alongside native Gmail and Outlook, QuickBooks, Xero and TrustBooks accounting, court e filing and online payments, and a public API lets partners and firms build their own connections.

SourceClio, clio.com/app-directory and clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

In chat, Archie turns an answer into a Smokeball task, memo or calendar event, each prepared as a draft the user edits and saves.

Archie Apps run specialist jobs on a matter's files with no extra login, some built by Smokeball, such as the Bank Statements Analyzer and Legal Chronology, and some by partners, with CaseMark, Novo AI and Supio producing deposition summaries, medical narratives and demand letters that save back to the matter as Word or PDF. LawY, included with Archie, answers legal questions from inside the matter.

Around the AI, the Smokeball Marketplace connects the platform to services such as InfoTrack, and a public API lets a firm build its own connections, though Archie itself calls only the tools Smokeball provides.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/32304670869399-archie-appsread 2026-10-12

Clio Work runs multi step legal work from a matter. It reads the whole file, builds a timeline, surfaces authority through a citator, pressure tests arguments and drafts motions grounded in the result, and Clio Manage adds automated workflows on Signature and above that draft bills on schedule, turn documents into tasks and events and draft client updates from matter activity.

SourceClio, clio.com/work and clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

Archie works through a question step by step, pulling in matter details, documents, emails, tasks and invoices, checking its own answer and carrying on until the answer is complete, and Advanced thinking lists that process on complex prompts.

Archie Apps run fixed multistep jobs, such as a chronology built from documents of up to 200 pages against the event types a user ticks, or an analysis of up to 25 bank statements against the spending a user is looking for, and Smokeball Workflows automate matter tasks on the higher plans. Archie handles one request at a time and cannot yet run a whole workflow end to end.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/24407844681751-getting-started-with-archie-the-smokeball-ai-assistantread 2026-10-12

Work reaches Clio's AI on schedules, events and inbound channels. AI drafts bills on a set billing schedule, documents are turned into calendar events and tasks as they arrive, performance reports are scheduled to the inbox, and Grow AI runs phone, web chat and email agents that engage and screen every inbound lead.

SourceClio, clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

Archie Suggestions read a matter's documents, emails, tasks and deadlines as the matter changes and offer next steps as tiles, such as a task, an event, a memo, an email draft, a ready made prompt or a relevant app, each with the reason behind it. Archie is reached from the matter view, the Word add in and the new Outlook add in, which summarizes long threads and offers quick replies drawn from the matter, and prompts can be spoken through voice dictation. Archie never starts work on its own, so each suggestion runs only when a user clicks it.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/40283902464151-using-archie-suggestionsread 2026-10-12

The AI is grounded in the firm's own matters, contacts, documents and billing records held in Clio, and Clio Work extends that with a maintained legal library matched to the jurisdiction, returning cited results with a built in citator that confirms every authority is current. Both the matter corpus and the legal library persist and can be queried.

SourceClio, clio.com/workread 2026-09-06

Once switched on, Archie indexes the firm's 50 most recent matters and ingests others on first use, covering matter details, parties, tasks, events, memos, invoices, emails and the full text of documents. Knowledge sources add firm wide reference documents in PDF, DOCX, TXT or Markdown, such as a statute or a tone guide, scoped by matter type and switched on for one user or for all staff.

Each answer shows what Archie looked at and cites its source. Legal questions go to LawY, set to the matter's practice area across estate planning, probate, elder law, family law and real estate, with its sources and follow up questions under each answer. Images, image only PDFs and spreadsheets are outside what Archie can read.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/33653315990423-upload-knowledge-sources-to-use-with-archieread 2026-10-12

Clio Work is a conversational workspace over a matter, which carries session state, and the AI processes data in real time and does not store or reuse it. No memory layer with a stated scope and lifetime is described. The matter record is the application's data model.

SourceClio, clio.com/work and clio.com/securityread 2026-09-06

Each Archie conversation sits inside one matter and reads that matter's own records afresh, so context carries over through the file, and Archie never mixes matters or firms. Knowledge sources hold reference documents for the whole firm, and prompt inputs ask for the facts a matter lacks before a saved prompt runs. Archie does not carry a user's preferences from one conversation to the next, and tone profiles that will apply a firm's writing rules by audience are still to come.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/41226626717079-how-smokeball-ai-keeps-your-data-private-and-secureread 2026-10-12

The user reviews and approves everything before it reaches a client or the court, with the AI handling the first pass. The Core plan turns documents into calendar events and tasks confirmed against the source.

SourceClio, clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

Every task, memo and calendar event Archie prepares is a draft the user edits and then saves, and a suggestion produces output the user confirms or dismisses. In Word, Archie proposes targeted edits that are previewed before they apply, and in Outlook it drafts replies the user sends. Legal answers from LawY can go to a lawyer for verification, and settings make Archie ask follow up questions on vague prompts and confirm which file a prompt refers to.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/39618100098967-creating-tasks-memos-and-events-with-archieread 2026-10-12

Clio undergoes annual SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1 Type II examinations, with reports at trust.clio.com, and annual third party penetration tests. The access surface includes SAML single sign on through Clio Identity, MFA, role based permissions with unlimited custom roles on the Signature plan, password and login policies, and per user session and activity logs. AI is bound to the firm's existing user permissions.

SourceClio, clio.com/security and clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

Smokeball holds ISO 27001:2022 certification, runs annual external penetration tests, encrypts data with AES 256 at rest and TLS 1.2 or later in transit, and makes two factor sign in compulsory. Firms can sign in through Microsoft Entra SSO over SAML, and firm owners set role based permissions per user, including one that switches Archie on or off for each person. Archie only works on matters a user can already open, never crosses firms or matters, and runs under zero data retention agreements with its model providers.

Sourcesmokeball.com/securityread 2026-10-12

A firm can see a log of every action taken by AI within the firm, alongside session logs recording the IP address and actions of every user, with active sessions reviewable and terminable. That per action AI log lets a firm reconstruct what the AI did.

SourceClio, clio.com/securityread 2026-09-06

Authorized users can review a log of the questions staff put to Archie, which shows how the firm prompts it. Advanced thinking lists Archie's reasoning while it works on a complex prompt, each answer shows the files Archie read, and the tasks, memos, events and app outputs it produces land in the matter once saved. Beyond the question log and those saved items, a firm cannot replay what Archie did on a request.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/41226626717079-how-smokeball-ai-keeps-your-data-private-and-secureread 2026-10-12

Firms choose where their data is hosted, in Canada, the United States, Europe or Australia, on AWS. Clio states that all data used by its AI is processed in the customer's region (US, Canada, EMEA or APAC).

SourceClio, clio.com/securityread 2026-09-06

Smokeball runs separate stacks in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom, each with its own sign in and API hosts, on AWS across several availability zones. Data stays in the firm's home region, Australian data in Australia, UK data in the UK and US data in the US, and the cloud and AI providers work under data processing agreements that cover any international transfer. Smokeball runs only as its own hosted service.

Sourcedocs.smokeball.com/docs/api-docs/z2q8vla6b77g8-base-urlsread 2026-10-12

Packaged assets come several ways, including Grow AI's named prebuilt phone, web chat and email agents, which each work alone, document templates and matter templates on Core and above, a court forms library and court calendaring rule sets, and a 300 plus app directory. The agents inside Clio Manage and Clio Work run as functions of those products.

SourceClio, clio.com/pricingread 2026-09-06

Archie Apps is a marketplace of ready made tools a firm runs on a matter, from Smokeball's Bank Statements Analyzer, Legal Chronology and audio transcription to partner apps from CaseMark, Novo AI and Supio for deposition summaries, medical narratives and demand letters, some at extra cost.

A prompt library carries out of the box prompts by practice area, such as an estate plan summary or a response to a dissolution petition, with prompt inputs that collect missing facts before a prompt runs, and the Word add in offers review playbooks built by the Smokeball team beside the firm's own. Smokeball AI also generates an intake form for a chosen state and matter type, or converts a paper form.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/32304670869399-archie-appsread 2026-10-12

The model provider behind Clio's AI is not named. Clio Work processes client files under zero data retention agreements, which implies external providers without identifying them, and there is no customer or admin model selection.

SourceClio, clio.com/work and clio.com/securityread 2026-09-06

In Archie's settings a user picks the model for their own work, from OpenAI's GPT-5.2, the default, through GPT-5.3, GPT-5.4 and GPT-5.5, with thinking versions of GPT-5.2 and GPT-5.5, to Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6, 4.7 and 4.8 and Claude Sonnet 5. A model joins the list only after Smokeball's own privacy and security review, under agreements that stop the provider storing or training on firm data. Firms cannot connect their own provider account.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/35181898764951-configure-archie-settingsread 2026-10-12

API reference documentation is published for Clio Manage and Clio Grow, listing endpoints, data and actions, alongside two developer portals with free developer accounts, a private app route for a single firm's own integrations, and guides including single sign on with Clio Identity. The API covers the core platform; no API specific to the AI layer is described.

SourceClio, docs.developers.clio.comread 2026-09-06

Smokeball's public API covers matters, contacts, events, documents and other practice data, with OAuth through the authorization code or client credentials grant, separate base URLs for the US, Australia and the UK, rate limits, webhooks and a Client SDK. A firm can build apps for its own use straight in production through the Developer Console, while partners go through staging and a security review before listing in the marketplace. The API reaches the practice management platform, and Archie has no API or MCP server of its own.

Sourcedocs.smokeball.com/homeread 2026-10-12

Pressure testing of arguments and gap identification in Clio Work evaluate the customer's legal position, not the agent, and there is no evaluation harness, test cases, quality gate or optimization loop for the AI.

SourceClio, clio.com/work and docs.developers.clio.comread 2026-09-06

Playbooks run a firm's review checklist over a document rule by rule and offer an action where they can, and users rate Archie's answers with a thumbs up or down. A firm can rate answers but cannot run test questions against Archie before rolling out a new model or knowledge source to staff.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/43694624466455-using-archie-playbooks-to-review-documentsread 2026-10-12

There is no browser, desktop or computer control. Clio for Word is an add in running inside Microsoft Word, and the mobile apps are the product's own surfaces, neither of which is an agent operating an interface.

SourceClio, clio.com/workread 2026-09-06

Inside Smokeball, Word and Outlook, Archie works through Smokeball's own add ins, and an Archie App transcribes uploaded audio. AutoTime records time from activity in Smokeball's desktop app, and Smokeball AI writes descriptions for those entries from the user's last 100 description edits. Archie does not operate websites or other applications for the user.

Sourcesupport.smokeball.com/hc/en-us/articles/24407844681751-getting-started-with-archie-the-smokeball-ai-assistantread 2026-10-12