Legal Files vs Smokeball
Smokeball scores 8.2/10 vs 6.2/10. Best for: Small firms that want automatic time capture and a massive document template library so they can bill more hours without manual tracking.
Smokeball scores higher overall at 8.2/10 vs 6.2/10. Smokeball's automatic time tracking genuinely captures revenue that other tools miss. If your firm leaks billable hours because attorneys forget to start timers, this pays for itself. The catch: you need the $149/user Grow plan to get it.
Legal Files 
Smokeball Rank
#35 of 39
Rank
#2 of 39
Features
12/18
Features
17/18
Starting at
Custom
Starting at
$29/mo
User reviews
3.8/5 (20)
User reviews
4.8/5 (500)
What they cost
| Legal Files | Smokeball | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting at | Contact for pricing | $29 /mo |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Number of plans | Custom | 3 |
What the pricing really means
Smokeball publishes their pricing upfront, which is a good sign. Legal Files requires you to contact sales for a quote. When a company hides pricing, it usually means the cost is high enough that they want a salesperson to justify it before you see the number. Always ask for total year-one cost, not just the monthly subscription.
Where Legal Files wins
- Purpose-built for in-house legal departments with matter management, spend tracking, and outside counsel management
- Litigation hold and legal hold management for e-discovery compliance
- Contract lifecycle management included
- Trusted by government agencies and universities
Where Smokeball wins
- Automatic time tracking runs in the background and captures billable activity you'd otherwise forget to log — firms report 20-30% more captured time
- 1,000+ built-in document templates for common legal forms, which saves hours compared to building templates from scratch
- G2 and Capterra ratings (4.8/5 on both) are the highest in the category, and reviews back it up with genuine praise
- Bill plan at $29/user is one of the cheapest entry points if you just need billing and time tracking
Where Legal Files falls short
- No billing or trust accounting — this is for in-house teams, not billable-hour firms
- No public pricing and enterprise sales process
- No client portal, mobile app, or eSignature
- Very limited reviews make it hard to assess independently
Where Smokeball falls short
- No free trial — you have to commit based on a demo, which means trusting the sales pitch
- The Grow plan at $149/user is expensive and you need it for automatic time tracking, which is the main differentiator
- Smaller integration ecosystem than Clio — about 50 integrations vs 250+
- No mobile app — desktop-first architecture means attorneys can't access cases from their phone
- Originally built for Australian and UK markets, so some US-specific workflows feel bolted on
Who is each product built for?
Legal Files
Target: 10-500+ users
Legal Files serves a different market than most legal PM tools — in-house legal departments, not law firms. If you're corporate counsel managing outside legal spend and litigation holds, it's worth a demo. Law firms should look elsewhere.
Smokeball
Target: 1-30 attorneys
Smokeball's automatic time tracking genuinely captures revenue that other tools miss. If your firm leaks billable hours because attorneys forget to start timers, this pays for itself. The catch: you need the $149/user Grow plan to get it.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Legal Files | Smokeball |
|---|---|---|
| Case Management | ||
| Case / matter management | ||
| Contact management | ||
| Conflict checks | ||
| Client intake forms | ||
| Client portal | ||
| Documents & Automation | ||
| Document management | ||
| Document automation | ||
| E-signatures | ||
| Email management | ||
| Billing & Accounting | ||
| Time tracking | ||
| Billing & invoicing | ||
| Trust / IOLTA accounting | ||
| Scheduling & Deadlines | ||
| Calendar management | ||
| Task management | ||
| Court rule deadlines | ||
| Platform | ||
| Reporting / analytics | ||
| Mobile app | ||
| API access | ||
Common questions
Smokeball scores 8.2/10 vs Legal Files's 6.2/10 in our ranking. Smokeball is the better pick for 1-30 attorneys. Legal Files is better if you need corporate legal departments and government agencies that need matter management, contract tracking, and litigation hold capabilities across large teams.
Legal Files uses custom pricing (contact sales). Smokeball starts at $29/month. Watch for add-on costs — the base price often does not include all features. Pricing last verified 2026-04-11.
Legal Files: No free trial. Smokeball: No free trial. Always test with your actual workflow before committing to an annual plan.
Legal Files covers 12 of 18 features we track. Smokeball covers 17 of 18. Smokeball has broader feature coverage, but more features does not always mean better — pick the tool that covers what your business actually needs.
No, Legal Files does not have a mobile app. Smokeball does not have one either.
Yes. The main effort is migrating your data (customer lists, job history, invoices). Plan for 1-2 weeks of overlap where you run both. Most legal practice management tools can import CSV data. Ask both vendors about migration support before you sign.
The bottom line
Pick Legal Files if...
Corporate legal departments and government agencies that need matter management, contract tracking, and litigation hold capabilities across large teams.
Pick Smokeball if...
Small firms that want automatic time capture and a massive document template library so they can bill more hours without manual tracking.