Migrate from Smokeball to HighLevel

Smokeball contacts (clients, opposing parties, attorneys, vendors, and witnesses) map directly to HighLevel Contacts with all standard fields preserved including names, email addresses, phone numbers, postal addresses, and contact types. Contacts with no firm affiliation receive a default Company record in HighLevel to maintain referential integrity. Duplicate detection runs on email address during import to prevent creating multiple records for the same individual across different matters.

Smokeball matters map to HighLevel Opportunities using a legal-matter custom field layer that preserves legal-specific metadata. The matter number becomes the opportunity name prefix, and matter type maps to the opportunity Stage within a dedicated Legal Pipelines setup that mirrors Smokeball's matter lifecycle stages. Matter-stage automation rules do not transfer and must be rebuilt as HighLevel Workflow triggers by the firm's admin after migration completes.

Legal-specific matter fields — debtor information, opposing attorney, other-side party, matter responsible attorney, person assisting, and internal reference numbers — have no HighLevel native equivalent. We create a Legal Matter custom object with up to 10 unique fields and associate it to the corresponding Opportunity via a many-to-one link. This preserves the complete legal context for each matter without requiring staff to reference external Smokeball records.

Smokeball staff (attorneys, paralegals, admins, and billing coordinators) are matched by email to HighLevel users where possible. Staff without a HighLevel login — such as departed attorneys or historical assignees — are stored as a Staff_Record__c custom field on relevant Opportunities so historical attribution is preserved. Active staff receive HighLevel user seats and appear as Opportunity Owners on matters assigned to them.

Smokeball activity entries — tasks, document work, memos, emails, and matter admin activities — map to HighLevel Tasks with original timestamps, assigned staff, and matter linkage preserved. The activity type maps to the Task Type pick-list in HighLevel, and each task retains its parent matter association through the Opportunity link on the related Legal Matter custom object record.

Smokeball documents cannot be transferred as binary files due to platform API limitations. We re-upload document metadata (document name, matter association, document type, author, creation date, and Smokeball document ID) to HighLevel Attachments on the relevant Opportunity. The firm uploads actual files post-migration using HighLevel's document upload interface, guided by a document re-upload checklist ordered by matter number.

Smokeball time entries (date, hours, billing rate, total amount, and descriptive notes) have no native HighLevel equivalent since HighLevel lacks a billing module. We create a Billable Time custom object linked to the parent Opportunity, preserving the complete financial record for reference and reconciliation against the firm's standalone accounting software. Time entries remain accessible for historical reporting without requiring manual re-entry.

Smokeball trust accounting ledgers (funds held, transaction history, client-matter association, and running balances) have no HighLevel equivalent. We create a Trust Accounting custom object with fields for ledger balance, transaction type, transaction date, and matter reference. The firm reconciles against their dedicated trust accounting tool post-migration to ensure compliance with legal accounting requirements.

Smokeball contact tags (client type, matter involvement, staff role, referral source, and billing status) map directly to HighLevel Tags with values preserved exactly as they appear in Smokeball. Tags on matter-associated contacts are preserved at the contact level in HighLevel, allowing firms to filter and segment their contact database using the same taxonomy they established in Smokeball. Multi-word tags with spaces are supported.

Smokeball matter types (Family Law, Personal Injury, Real Estate, Estate Planning, Criminal Defense, and other practice-area classifications) map to a Matter_Type__c custom pick-list on the Legal Matter custom object, with values mapped one-to-one from Smokeball. If a firm uses fewer than five matter types, we may use HighLevel Pipeline stages instead for simpler pipeline reporting and visualization across the CRM dashboard.

Smokeball hard costs (court filing fees, expert witness fees, medical record retrieval charges) and soft costs (photocopying, postage, courier delivery, long-distance calls) have no HighLevel equivalent. We create a Disbursements custom object linked to the parent Opportunity, capturing cost type, amount, supplier/vendor name, and whether it is billable to the client as a pass-through expense. Disbursement records allow firms to track case-related expenses separate from professional time charges.

Smokeball workflow templates auto-generate tasks, assign staff, and advance matter stages — this logic cannot transfer to HighLevel because HighLevel Workflows use a different trigger-action architecture and are scoped to contacts and opportunities, not matters. We export workflow definitions as a structured reference document for the firm's HighLevel admin to rebuild using HighLevel's Workflow builder with the original Smokeball logic as a specification.