Kent | Pincin Law is a California-based plaintiff firm focused on employment law, personal injury, and mass actions, dedicated to providing clients with personalized support and achieving results against wrongful employers and insurers. Smokeball bolsters the firms strategic business growth through automation and efficient case management and efficient case management.

No organization, lost work, and room for error without case management software

Founding attorneys Michael Kent and Emily Pincin came from a law firm that had no form of legal software. After losing 80 hours of work because of an unsaved document, Michael knew this outdated approach would only cause more lost work, room for error, and staff burnout.

Michael needed a tool that would modernize his independent law practice but also take on the admin work he once passed to paralegals or assistants. He knew Smokeball could:

• Track all time spent on cases automatic time tracking providing insightful reports on time spent per case
• Develop custom workflows, establishing processes for staff specific to each case type
• Integrate seamlessly with tools like InfoTrack and YoCierge for court eFiling and record retrieval
• Enhance client communication through the client portal, where case updates can be sent with a quick text

Smokeball as the comprehensive solution for an employment focused firm

When Michael opened Kent | Pincin, the firm needed legal software to scale their business and take the tedious admin work off their plates. Smokeball’s automatic time tracking, known as AutoTime, immediately impacted the employment side of the business. "In California employment cases, attorneys are entitled to their fees and costs as a remedy. Smokeball's automatic time tracking ensures we accurately capture all our billables with minimal effort on our part,” Michael states.

He was also drawn to the InfoTrack integration that streamlines e-filing and auto-syncs expenses into case records. Kent | Pincin leans heavily on InfoTrack to eFile with the courts without ever leaving Smokeball. Yet another way his staff modernized their operations and found efficiencies with Smokeball.

Additionally, Smokeball's client portal enables Michael to maintain personalized client communication and still dedicate time to new client acquisition. “Thanks to Smokeball's embedded communication features, we can continuously keep our clients updated on their case status,” says Michael. With the immediate impact of Smokeball's time-saving tools like AutoTime and InfoTrack, Michael shifted his focus to transforming his firm's operations.

Transformed operations and focused allocation of staff time

As a practicing attorney and strategic business owner, Michael is always looking for ways to optimize his staff’s time and take on more cases. Smokeball’s workflow automation  provides a structured framework allowing Michael visibility into the status of all cases. “I like the workflow processes where, as the attorney, you can set up workflows that get automatically assigned to your staff and other attorneys… all you have to do is check on their assignments and tasks and know if they’re falling behind,” Michael mentions. Establishing process and automation, from logging time to checking on case statuses, has freed up staff time to focus on expanding the business.

Michael notes that this extra time has left room for advertising and SEO, making his firm discoverable and the first-choice firm for clients in his area. When prospects find his website, they fill out a simple Smokeball intake form. The provided information auto-populates into Smokeball  so all relevant information is at Michael’s fingertips. “Smokeball's intake forms integrate directly into our website and Google profiles. This saves us time and errors on client intake and makes it more convenient for the prospect,” says Michael.

Strategic business expansion powered by reporting, AutoTime analysis and reduced case resolution time

In addition to using AutoTime to automatically capture staff's billable time, Michael additionally uses it to analyze time spent on different case types. He uses Smokeball’s reporting capabilities to evaluate relative profitability of the different cases they serve, allowing him to prioritize intake accordingly. “When you can grow without extra staff, profits rise — and those profits fuel reinvestment, driving even more growth,” states Michael.

By using Smokeball’s detailed time tracking reports to prioritize high value cases, and by leveraging Smokeball automation, the firm’s average case resolved in 5 months—or 60% faster. A stark difference from the industry average of over a year. Additionally, Smokeball supported Kent | Pincin’s growth from a two-person firm to a multi-state practice with roughly 200 cases. Impressively, this growth doesn’t come at the expense of work life balance. “I can’t remember the last time that I’ve had to work past 5:30 or 6:00. And it’s not that we don’t have work. We have close to 200 cases right now,” Michael notes.

By combining powerful features like AutoTime, InfoTrack integration, and client communication tools, Smokeball has given the team the confidence to grow strategically, reinvest in their business, and deliver faster, better outcomes for their clients. For Michael, the result is simple: “more cases, more profit, and more time back.”