Smokeball
Also known as: Smokeball Archie, Smokeball Archie AI, Smokeball AI
Legal practice management software for small and mid size law firms in the US, Australia and the UK, with Archie, an AI matter assistant that answers from the file, drafts in Word and Outlook, and creates tasks, memos and events.
Smokeball sells cloud practice management software to small and mid size law firms, with matters, contacts, documents, email, calendars, time tracking, billing and trust accounting in one system. The company started in Chicago, sells through Smokeball Inc. in the US, Smokeball Australia Pty Ltd and Smokeball UK Limited, and serves more than 34,000 legal professionals. Plans run from Bill, for billing and trust accounting, through Boost, a browser based case manager, and Grow, which adds the desktop app and document automation, to Prosper+, which adds custom workflows, intake and firm reporting.
Archie is the AI matter assistant inside Smokeball. Switched on for a firm, it indexes the 50 most recent matters and ingests others on first use, then answers questions from the matter's details, parties, tasks, events, memos, invoices, emails and documents, showing the files it read and citing sources. It works through harder questions step by step and checks its own answer, turns an answer into a Smokeball task, memo or calendar event that the user reviews before saving, and offers suggested next steps as the matter changes. The same matter context runs in a Word add in, which proposes targeted edits and runs review playbooks, and in an Outlook add in that summarizes threads and drafts replies.
A prompt library holds ready made prompts by practice area with input forms for missing facts. Archie Apps add specialist tools, from Smokeball's bank statement analyzer, legal chronology and transcription to partner apps from CaseMark, Novo AI and Supio whose summaries save back to the matter, and LawY, included with Archie, supplies research set to the matter's practice area with optional lawyer verification. Users pick the model in Archie's settings, from OpenAI's GPT-5.2 to GPT-5.5 and Anthropic's Claude Opus and Sonnet releases. Outside Archie, Smokeball AI writes AutoTime entry descriptions and generates intake forms for a state and matter type.
In Australia, Bill starts at A$59, Boost at A$129 and Grow at A$249 per user a month plus GST, with Prosper+ quoted, and US plans are quoted. Archie is an add on to Boost, Grow and Prosper+ priced on request, and some Archie Apps carry their own charge. Smokeball is certified to ISO 27001:2022, requires two factor sign in, offers SSO through Microsoft Entra, lets firm owners switch Archie on or off per user, and keeps each firm's data in its home region on AWS in the US, Australia or the UK, with Archie running under zero data retention agreements. A public API with webhooks and a Client SDK lets firms and partners build on the platform.
Smokeball suits firms that want their AI inside the system that already holds their matters, with model choice and drafting in Word and Outlook, especially in estate planning, family law, real estate and probate, where Archie's legal research coverage starts. It fits less well for a firm that wants an assistant to run multistep work on its own, a full record of what the AI did on each request, or an AI price it can see before talking to sales.
Vendor details
Canonical URL
https://www.smokeball.com
Category
Enterprise operations agent
Subcategory
Legal practice management with an AI matter assistant
Funding status
Privately held, founded in Chicago, with offices in Australia and London, and funded by private investors and employee shareholders.
Company status
independent
Use cases & customers
Primary use cases
Target customers
Deployment options
Integrations
Archie works inside Smokeball's matters and in Word and Outlook add ins, creates Smokeball tasks, memos and calendar events, calls LawY for legal research, and runs Archie Apps from Smokeball and partners such as CaseMark, Novo AI and Supio, whose outputs save back to the matter as Word or PDF. On Grow and Prosper+, edits made with the Archie Word add in in desktop Word save to Smokeball automatically. The Smokeball Marketplace connects the platform to services such as InfoTrack, and a public API with OAuth, webhooks and a Client SDK lets firms and partners build their own connections.
In practice
A lawyer opens a matter after two weeks away and needs to know where it stands. Archie summarizes the documents, emails, deadlines and tasks with each point linked to its source, then drafts the follow up tasks for the lawyer to save.
A firm wants every lease reviewed against the same checklist. The firm saves its checklist as a playbook in the Word add in, and Archie runs each rule over the document and offers edits to apply.
A family law team has a year of bank statements to trace before disclosure. The Bank Statements Analyzer reads up to 25 statements at a time against the spending the team is looking for and flags unusual expenses without manual tagging.
A personal injury team needs a deposition summary from hundreds of pages. From the matter, a paralegal runs a CaseMark app from Archie Apps, and the summary saves back to the matter as a Word document.
Sources & related URLs
Related / legacy domains
Research sources
Agentic Index coverage score
10.0 / 14 capabilities · 71%
| Integrations & Tool Calling | Full |
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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 |
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| Workflow Orchestration | Partial |
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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 |
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| Knowledge Grounding & RAG | Full |
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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 |
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| Human Oversight & Guardrails | Full |
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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 |
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| Security, Identity & Governance | Full |
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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 |
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| Observability & Auditability | Partial |
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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 |
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| Memory & State Persistence | Partial |
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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 |
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| Deployment & Data Residency | Full |
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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 |
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| Prebuilt Agents / Templates / Packs | Full |
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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 |
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| Triggers & Channel Coverage | Partial |
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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 |
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| Model Flexibility & Routing | Full |
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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 |
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| APIs / SDKs / MCP Extensibility | Full |
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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 |
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| Testing, Debugging & Optimization | Not documented |
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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 |
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| Browser / Computer-use | Not documented |
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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 |
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The Agentic Index coverage score grades every vendor Full, Partial or Not documented against the same 14 buyer facing capabilities, from public evidence only. Each capability links to how all vendors in the index score on it. How this evidence is graded
Pricing
From A$59 per user a month on Bill in Australia. Archie is an add on to Boost and above, priced on request.
Per user per month by plan, plus add ons for Archie, Intake and AutoTime.
Included quota
No AI usage allowance is public. Archie comes with the add on, and some Archie Apps carry their own charge, shown before the app runs.
What is public
Australian plan prices for Bill, Boost and Grow, the Intake and AutoTime add on prices there, what each plan includes in both regions, and which plans can add Archie.
Billing mechanics
Each plan is charged per user per month, and add ons stack on top. At renewal a firm can keep its plan or move up or down a tier.
Cost watchouts
Archie is not part of any plan's base price, and some Archie Apps, including partner apps, charge per use. Intake and AutoTime are separate add ons below Prosper+.
Variable cost rationale
Plans are a fixed charge per user each month. The Archie add on and any Archie Apps that carry a charge are the parts that move with use.
Additional watchouts
Archie is available on Boost, Grow and Prosper+ only, not on Bill. Some Archie Apps add a per use charge.
Overage / add-ons
No overage rate is public. Archie Apps that carry a charge say so when used.
Sales call required
Mixed (some tiers require a call)
Free / trial
Free trial of Smokeball Boost in Australia; no free plan
Lowest paid plan
Bill, from A$59 per user a month plus GST in Australia
Commercial notes
Smokeball places no limit on the number of firm users or clients who can use the software. Migration and training are scoped in the quote.
Key ambiguities
Archie's add on price is not public in any region, and US plan prices come only by quote. Australian prices exclude GST, and the US figure is an approximate conversion of the Australian Bill price.
Missing data
The price of the Archie add on, US plan prices and the per use charges for Archie Apps are not public.
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