Smokeball,
the
cloud-based
practice
management
platform
serving
small
to
mid-sized
law
firms,
and
Thomson
Reuters
announced
a
strategic
partnership
today
that
will
embed
Thomson
Reuters’
CoCounsel
Legal
AI
into
Smokeball’s
practice
management
software
—
a
combination
the
companies
say
brings
together
deep
legal
content
and
advanced
AI
capabilities
with
broad
practice
management
functionality
in
a
way
that
has
not
existed
before
in
the
small
firm
market.
The
partnership
represents
a
significant
move
in
the
convergence
of
practice
management
and
legal
research
—
something
that
the
industry
first
saw
last
year
with
Clio’s
acquisition
of
vLex.
But
rather
than
acquiring
a
legal
research
provider
outright,
Smokeball
has
opted
for
a
partnership
approach
that
allows
both
companies
to
focus
on
their
core
strengths.
Perhaps
more
importantly,
it
also
represents
another
example
of
legal
technology
providers
striving
to
unite
the
business
and
practice
of
law
within
a
single
platform.
The
integration
will
connect
Smokeball’s
practice
management
tools
with
CoCounsel
Legal,
Thomson
Reuters’
agentic
AI
solution
that
provides
legal
research
through
its
Deep
Research
capability,
document
analysis
and
drafting
functionality.
“No
other
combination
of
technology
in
the
small
to
mid-size
law
firm
market
brings
together
this
depth
of
legal
content
and
AI
capability
with
this
breadth
of
practice
management
functionality,”
Smokeball
said
in
its
announcement.
Goal:
One
Seamless
Interface
In
an
interview
with
LawSites
ahead
of
the
announcement,
Smokeball
U.S.
President
Ruchie
Chadha
said
that
the
partnership
is
significant
for
bringing
together
the
business
and
practice
of
law
into
a
single,
connected
experience
for
small
and
mid-sized
firms.
“Smokeball
provides
the
operational
backbone
of
the
firm,
from
intake
through
billing,
with
Archie
AI
embedded
directly
into
matters
to
surface
insights,
draft
work,
and
answer
questions
based
on
the
firm’s
own
data
(in
a
secure
environment),”
she
said.
“Thomson
Reuters,
through
CoCounsel
Legal,
brings
best-in-class
AI-assisted
legal
research,
analysis,
and
drafting
grounded
in
Westlaw
and
Practical
Law.”
For
law
firms,
the
benefit
is
the
ability
to
leverage
AI
across
both
their
own
matter
data
and
trusted
legal
research
in
one
place,
Chadha
said.
“In
practice,
that
means
moving
seamlessly
from
managing
a
matter
to
researching,
analyzing,
and
producing
legal
work,
without
switching
between
disconnected
systems.”
How
It
Will
Work
The
initial
integration,
Chadha
told
me,
will
feature
a
real-time
data
connector
allowing
Smokeball
users
to
push
documents
into
CoCounsel
Legal
in
bulk
rather
than
uploading
them
individually.
“All
of
our
customers
will
have
the
opportunity
to
have
AI
access
all
of
their
key
matter
details
both
in
Smokeball
and
utilizing
the
legal
research,
analysis
and
drafting
from
CoCounsel,”
Chadha
said.
“It
really
takes
the
ability
to
move
the
workflow
through
and
reason
and
plan
and
execute
on
multi-layer
steps
of
legal
tasks.”
The
integration
with
CoCounsel
Legal
will
include
Westlaw
Advantage
and
Practical
Law
Dynamic
Tool
Set.
Initially,
Thomson
Reuters
will
launch
a
real-time
data
connector
that
syncs
legal
documents
across
platforms,
allowing
Smokeball
users
to
push
documents
into
CoCounsel
Legal
in
bulk
rather
than
uploading
them
one
by
one.
Documents
will
flow
directly
from
Smokeball
into
CoCounsel
Legal,
saving
time
and
reducing
the
risk
of
errors
or
version
mismatches.
The
first
phase
of
this
integration
is
targeted
for
late
spring
or
early
summer,
with
deeper
integration
across
additional
Thomson
Reuters
products
planned
throughout
the
year.
The
ultimate
goal
is
to
provide
an
experience
where
joint
customers
can
access
Thomson
Reuters
legal
content,
AI
and
know-how
tools,
combined
with
up-to-date
matter
facts
and
information
in
one
seamless
interface.
“Over
time,
our
teams
are
working
toward
a
more
deeply
integrated
experience
that
combines
Smokeball’s
practice
management
capabilities
with
Thomson
Reuters’
commanding
legal
research,
document
analysis,
and
drafting,”
Chadha
said.
To
take
advantage
of
the
integration,
users
will
have
to
be
customers
of
both
products.
Complementing,
Not
Replacing,
Archie
Smokeball
has
been
developing
its
own
generative
AI
capabilities
through
Archie,
its
matter
assistant
that
provides
document
summaries,
matter-specific
queries,
file
comparisons
and
document
drafting
—
all
within
a
ring-fenced
security
environment
where
client
data
is
never
shared
or
used
to
train
external
models.
Chadha
emphasized
that
the
Thomson
Reuters
partnership
complements
rather
than
competes
with
Archie.
The
key
differentiator
is
the
addition
of
CoCounsel’s
authoritative
legal
research
capabilities.
“The
main
difference
is
being
able
to
access
that
back-end
legal
research,
which
is
not
something
that
Archie
does,”
Chadha
explained.
“This
is
authoritative
legal
research
which
Archie
does
not
have.
There
is
some
overlapping
capability,
but
they’re
not
at
odds
with
each
other.
I
would
say
it
more
enhances
each
other.”
A
Partnership
Built
on
Trust
Smokeball
says
that
the
partnership
reflects
its
careful
approach
to
selecting
technology
partners,
particularly
given
the
high-stakes
nature
of
the
legal
work
its
customers
handle.
“We’re
always
very
thoughtful
about
who
we
partner
with,”
Chadha
said.
“Thomson
Reuters
has
150,
160
years
of
trusted
data.
Our
goal
is
always
to
make
sure
that
our
firms
are
able
to
deliver
outcomes
for
their
clients.
When
those
stakes
are
high
and
the
type
of
law
that
most
of
our
law
firms
do,
you
want
to
make
sure
your
answers
are
trusted,
the
research
is
good,
the
data
is
good.
Thomson
would
probably
have
been
one
of
very
few,
if
not
the
only
company
we
would
have
partnered
with
on
this
aspect.”
In
a
statement
announcing
the
partnership,
Hunter
Steele,
Smokeball’s
CEO,
emphasized
the
operational
angle:
“By
partnering
with
Thomson
Reuters,
we’re
connecting
the
operational
layer
of
running
a
practice
with
trusted
legal
content,
analysis
and
drafting
tools.
Our
clients
will
be
able
to
get,
do,
research
and
bill
their
work
in
one
place
—powered
by
AI
that
understands
both
the
mechanics
of
running
a
firm
and
the
substance
of
legal
work.”
Aaron
Rademacher,
general
manager
of
small
law
firms
at
Thomson
Reuters,
framed
the
partnership
as
filling
a
market
gap:
“CoCounsel
Legal
is
an
agentic
AI
solution
purpose-built
for
legal
professionals,
and
we
partnered
with
Smokeball
because
they
provide
a
premium
practice
management
software
that’s
already
an
essential
part
of
the
operating
stack.
Together,
we’re
creating
a
solution
in
the
market
that
combines
a
premium
business-of-law
platform
with
industry-leading
practice-of-law
content
and
solutions
—
a
combination
that
simply
hasn’t
existed
until
now.”
Addressing
A
Persistent
Challenge
According
to
Chadha,
there
is
already
substantial
overlap
between
the
Smokeball
and
CoCounsel
user
bases,
with
several
hundred
—
possibly
more
—
Smokeball
customers
already
subscribing
to
CoCounsel
separately.
The
integration,
she
said,
will
eliminate
the
friction
of
working
across
disconnected
systems
for
these
users.
The
announcement
comes
at
an
interesting
moment
in
legal
technology,
as
the
small
law
market
sees
increased
competition
among
platforms
seeking
to
offer
comprehensive
products.
The
Clio-vLex
deal
last
year
signaled
that
practice
management
vendors
were
looking
to
expand
their
platforms
into
deeper
capabilities
for
AI
and
legal
research.
The
Smokeball-Thomson
Reuters
partnership
gets
there
a
differnt
way,
through
a
partnership
rather
than
through
an
acquisition.
For
small
and
mid-sized
firms,
the
partnership
addresses
a
persistent
challenge
they
face,
that
of
accessing
enterprise-grade
legal
research
and
AI
capabilities
comparable
to
those
at
larger
firms,
while
also
maintaining
the
operational
efficiency
of
a
modern
practice
management
platform.
“We’re
incredibly
excited
about
what
this
represents,”
Chadha
said.
“Thomson
Reuters’
content
has
long
been
the
gold
standard
in
the
industry
and
combining
that
with
Smokeball’s
platform
and
Archie
creates
a
much
more
complete
and
practical
AI
experience
for
our
law
firms.
“It
also
aligns
closely
with
what
we
stand
behind
at
Smokeball:
making
it
easier
for
attorneys
to
deliver
the
best
outcomes
for
their
clients,
while
reducing
the
burden
on
themselves
and
their
staff.”