For the past three years, the team at Smokeball has been working on AutoTime. AutoTime is a total revelation for small law firms whether working on time billed or fixed fee (or as is common, a combination of both) as it performs two key functions.

Prior to COVID when all 70 Smokeballers worked in the office together, organising the social activities was straight forward. As a social bunch something as simple as Friday beer and pizza, or a monthly birthday cake and song went down well. Though in March, when we suddenly all started working from home, our humble social calendar simply didn’t work. Virtual social drinks were a flop, and singing happy birthday online was plain awkward. So, with much trial and error, here are my tips:

2020 was full of unexpected challenges. We redefined where and how we worked, with many lawyers transitioning to remote work. Whatever new challenges await in 2021, we can be sure that the legal industry has been changed forever.

Not only does Smokeball help law firms get their work done faster with industry leading productivity tools, it also makes sure fee earners are paid what they’re worth.

The new and improved Smokeball app for iOS and Android brings Smokeball from your desktop to your pocket, helping you manage your practice whether on the go or in the courtroom.

Any lawyer who has manually tracked their billable hours knows it can be a thankless task. Between constantly setting and resetting timers, compiling that information into timesheets – and trying to calculate how much time was spent on tasks you weren’t able to set a timer for – lawyers need to be meticulous with their billable hours.

We’re hearing a lot about transparency these days. It is a kind of elixir of modern management, widely discussed as a way to build value with every constituency an enterprise may have, including shareholders, communities, regulators, employees, suppliers and customers.