The problem
Before instructing a medical expert, a fee earner has to work through GP and hospital records to find the entries about the injury and any earlier problems. If two fee earners review records for 15 claims a month and each review takes 2 hours, that's 30 hours a month.
What the AI does
Smokeball's Archie add-on works inside a matter and, Smokeball says, gives document or matter summaries with every finding linked to its source, flagging anything ambiguous. The fee earner asks for a summary of the records on file, focused on the injury and relevant history, opens each linked entry to check it, and builds the chronology for the expert from the checked entries. Smokeball says Archie runs under zero-data-retention agreements and that data is never shared for training. The fee earner, not Archie, decides what is relevant.
A worked example
A two-fee-earner PI firm in Plymouth already uses Smokeball Prosper+ with Archie. For about 15 claims a month, each fee earner asks Archie for a records summary, checks every entry and prepares the chronology sent with the expert's instructions.
Before
2 hours to review records for each of 15 claims: 30 hours a month
After
About 80 minutes with a linked summary to check: 20 hours a month
What it's worth
About $798£600€714A$1,152C$1,128 a month of fee-earner time, if it is worth $80£60€71A$115C$113 an hour: 40 minutes saved on each of 15 claims is 600 minutes, 10 hours. Prosper+ $118£89€106A$171C$167 plus Archie $39£29€35A$56C$55 is $157£118€140A$227C$222 a user, $314£236€281A$453C$444 for two; if you already pay for Archie for letters of claim, there is no extra cost. The 40 minutes is an assumption to test.
How to set it up
- Confirm with Smokeball where UK data is hosted and how Archie handles health records, and record the answers for your COLP and data protection lead.
- Test it on records you have already reviewed and compare Archie's summary with your own chronology.
- Ask for a summary focused on the injury, treatment and relevant earlier history, then open each linked entry.
- Build the chronology for the expert only from entries you have checked yourself.
- Keep a rule that nothing from Archie goes to an expert, insurer or the client without a fee earner's check.
What goes wrong
- A summary can miss a pre-existing condition buried in the records. The defendant's insurer will find it, so read the relevant records yourself.
- Medical records are special category data under UK GDPR. Use only the records the client has authorized, and check hosting and access controls.
- Handwritten or poorly scanned records may not read well. Check those pages by hand.
- Prosper+ and Archie are priced per user, so each extra fee earner adds $157£118€140A$227C$222 a month.