Robert Ambrogi Blog
Law practice management company Smokeball has now partnered with 28 state bar associations to offer its trust accounting and billing software free to their members — a milestone that extends the offer to more than 900,000 lawyers, or roughly two-thirds of the 1.4 million lawyers in the United States.
The latest additions are The Florida Bar and the North Carolina State Bar, two of the country’s largest, with Florida having announced the program just yesterday. Their inclusion pushes the program past the halfway mark among U.S. jurisdictions and past two-thirds of the active U.S. attorney population.
“The Florida Bar has long been committed to equipping our members with practical tools that help them serve clients effectively and meet their professional responsibilities,” said Terry Hill, division director, Programs Division at The Florida Bar. “By expanding our free trust accounting software offerings to include Smokeball Bill, we are providing attorneys with greater choice and flexibility in selecting the technology that best fits their practice.”
I last wrote about this program back in February 2025, when the number stood at around 500,000 lawyers across 10 bar partnerships. The program launched in June 2024 with the State Bar of Texas.
The product at the center of the program is Smokeball Bill, Smokeball’s standalone trust accounting and billing tool for small and solo firms (which is distinct from its full practice management platform). Under the bar partnerships, members get free unlimited access to Smokeball Bill regardless of whether they ever become paying Smokeball customers.
Emma Raimi-Zlatic, who leads strategic partnerships at Smokeball, told me in an interview that the usage data has revealed a striking finding. Roughly 60 to 70 percent of members who signed up for Smokeball Bill through the bar offers reported that they were not previously using any technology for trust accounting — suggesting that there remains a gap between the tools available to small firms and their actual adoption.
Smokeball declined to disclose exact signup figures, citing competitive reasons, but Raimi-Zlatic confirmed the number is in the thousands of firms across the participating bars.
Raimi-Zlatic pointed to a notable aspect of the North Carolina partnership. Smokeball has now signed with three state bars — Virginia, Oregon and North Carolina — where membership is mandatory for lawyers and that function primarily as regulatory bodies rather than voluntary membership associations.
Those bars generally do not offer affiliate member benefits, such as discounts on products, as their focus is attorney discipline and compliance. But providing access to trust accounting software is one of the few third-party benefits those bars offer their members, because it ties directly to the compliance function those bars exist to perform.
For voluntary bars, on the other hand, Raimi-Zlatic noted that the free software offer can serve as a membership recruitment and retention tool, providing a tangible benefit that, for smaller firms in particular, can tip the decision on whether to join or renew.
“Access to modern legal technology shouldn’t depend on firm size, location, or budget,” said Jane Oxley, CRO and cofounder of Smokeball, in a statement provided by the company. “By working with state bars across the country, we’re helping ensure that hundreds of thousands of attorneys have the tools they need to manage their practices more effectively.”
It is worth noting that lawyers already running full practice management platforms with built-in trust accounting are probably not candidates for this offer. Those who sign up are likely those with the greatest need — solo practitioners and small firms that have been handling trust accounting manually.
Smokeball expects to see the program continue to expand to other state bar associations.