Small firms comparing practice management software almost always end up staring at MyCase and Smokeball side by side — both target solo and small-firm attorneys, both promise to kill the billable-hour leakage of manual time entry, and both have loud affiliate marketing pushing them from every legal tech blog. That noise is exactly why a straight comparison matters: the two products solve overlapping problems in fundamentally different ways, and picking wrong means re-migrating your matters, contacts, and billing history a year from now.
MyCase, owned by AffiniPay (the same company behind LawPay and CASEpeer), is built around a case-centric hub: messaging, client portal, billing, and document storage all live in one browser-based dashboard designed to be self-served — sign up, import your contacts, start billing. Smokeball takes the opposite starting point: it's a Windows-native-feeling layer that sits on top of Microsoft Word and Outlook, auto-generates time entries from whatever you're actually doing on your computer, and leans hard into document automation with a built-in forms library.
Neither is objectively "better" software — they're built for different workflows. This review breaks down pricing, time tracking, client communication, and document handling so you can match the tool to how your firm actually works, not to whichever one has the flashier demo.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | MyCase | Smokeball |
|---|---|---|
| Feature | MyCase | Smokeball |
| Starting price | ~$39/user/mo | ~$59/user/mo |
| Free trial | Yes | No (demo required) |
| Mobile app | Yes | Yes |
| Time tracking | Good | Strong |
| Client portal | Yes | Basic |
| Integrations | 20+ integrations | 15+ integrations |
| Document storage | Included | Included |
| Support | Phone+chat | Phone+chat |
Time tracking: manual precision vs. automatic capture
MyCase's time tracking is solid but conventional — timers you start and stop per task, manual entries, and time tied to specific matters and activities. It works, and it's easy to audit line by line, but it still depends on the attorney remembering to hit the timer, which is where most firms leak billable hours.
Smokeball's AutomaTIME is the product's headline feature and the reason many firms switch to it specifically. It runs in the background and logs time against every application window you touch — a Word document, an Outlook email, a PDF — then lets you convert that passive log into billable entries after the fact. For attorneys who bill by the hour and jump between five matters in an afternoon, this alone can recover meaningful revenue that manual timers miss. The tradeoff is that AutomaTIME only tracks desktop activity comprehensively; on mobile it reverts to manual entry like MyCase.
If your firm's billing loss is "we forgot to start the timer," Smokeball solves that directly. If your firm's workflow is already disciplined about timers and you care more about a clean client-facing billing summary, MyCase's simpler system is easier to train new staff on.
Client communication: MyCase's portal is the more mature product
MyCase built its client portal as a core differentiator from the start — clients log in to message their attorney, view case status, upload documents, e-sign, and pay invoices online, all through an interface designed for non-lawyers. It integrates with LawPay for payments (same parent company, so the handoff is seamless) and has been iterated on for years.
Smokeball's client portal exists but is noticeably thinner — basic document sharing and status updates rather than the full messaging-and-payment hub MyCase offers. Firms that lean on Smokeball tend to route client communication through Outlook (which Smokeball integrates with tightly) rather than the portal itself. That's a reasonable workflow for firms already living in email, but it's not a real substitute for a dedicated client portal if your clients expect a self-serve login.
If reducing "where's my case at" phone calls is a priority, MyCase's portal does more of that work for you. If your clients already expect email and you don't want to train them on a new login, Smokeball's lighter approach won't feel like a gap.
Document handling: Smokeball's Word-native automation vs. MyCase's storage-first approach
This is where Smokeball pulls ahead for document-heavy practices. It maps a virtual drive directly into Windows Explorer and Word, auto-files every document by matter without manual saving, and ships with a legal forms/template library that auto-populates matter and client data into pleadings, letters, and contracts. For litigation, family law, and estate planning firms that generate a high volume of similar documents, this cuts real drafting time.
MyCase treats documents more like case-file storage: upload, organize by matter, share via the portal, e-sign. It's clean and reliable, but it doesn't auto-generate documents or integrate as deeply with your word processor — you're working in MyCase's interface or uploading finished files from Word, not drafting inside a Smokeball-style unified environment.
Firms that draft constantly (litigation, transactional) will feel Smokeball's document automation as a genuine time savings. Firms whose document needs are mostly "store and share the final PDF" won't miss it.
Pricing structure and buying experience
MyCase publishes its pricing tiers and lets you sign up and start a free trial without talking to a salesperson — Basic, Pro, and Advanced plans scale up with e-signature limits, reporting, and automation features. That transparency matters for solo attorneys comparison-shopping on a weekend.
Smokeball is less transparent: entry pricing is published, but higher tiers (Prosper, and add-ons like flat-rate billing modules) typically require a sales call, and there's no true self-serve free trial — you book a demo instead. That's a heavier sales motion, which tracks with Smokeball skewing toward small-to-midsize firms rather than pure solos, but it does mean more friction before you can actually kick the tires.
Who Should Choose Each
Choose MyCase if you…
- Solo attorneys who want to sign up, start a free trial, and be billing clients the same day without a sales call
- Family law and general practice attorneys who prioritize a strong client-facing portal to cut down on status-update phone calls
- Firms already using LawPay for payment processing and want native billing integration
- New firms with less-experienced staff who need an interface that's simple to train on without much onboarding
- Firms whose billing loss comes from disorganized client communication, not forgotten timers
Choose Smokeball if you…
- Litigation firms drafting pleadings and correspondence constantly who want documents auto-filed and auto-populated from templates
- Attorneys who consistently forget to start timers and lose billable hours as a result — AutomaTIME captures it passively
- Firms deeply embedded in Microsoft Word and Outlook that don't want to switch to a browser-first workflow
- Estate planning and transactional practices that benefit from a built-in legal forms library
- Firms willing to sit through a sales demo in exchange for deeper document automation, even without a self-serve trial
Final Verdict
For most small firms, MyCase is the safer default: transparent pricing, a real free trial, and a client portal that's had years more investment than Smokeball's. If your firm's biggest pain point is client communication or you want to evaluate the software on your own schedule without a sales call, start there.
Smokeball earns its place specifically for document-heavy, Word-native practices — litigation, family law with high filing volume, estate planning shops churning out similar documents repeatedly. AutomaTIME alone can justify the switch for firms that chronically underbill due to forgotten timers. Don't choose Smokeball for the client portal or the buying experience; choose it because your firm's real bottleneck is document drafting and passive time capture, and be ready to book a demo rather than self-serve a trial.