How to prepare a law firm's data migration

Moving a firm to new software is like moving house. If everything just gets thrown into boxes, you spend months looking for things in the new place. If you decide before the move what goes, what gets thrown out and where everything will go, the firm works normally in the new system from day one.

1. List all your data sources

A firm's data is rarely held in just one program. Make a list:

• your existing matter and client software, if the firm has one
• spreadsheets of deadlines, hearings or lists of matters
• network folders and drives with documents
• calendars in email clients
• accounting or invoicing software
• paper records, such as a post book or a list of files in the archive

For each source, note who uses it and whether it is up to date.

2. Decide what gets transferred

You do not have to transfer everything. A common and sound practice is to transfer all active matters and clients with their deadlines, and to transfer older closed matters in basic form or leave them in an archive where they can still be viewed. The decision depends on how often the firm needs to go back to old matters.

3. Clean up the data before the transfer

A migration is a chance to fix old problems. Before the transfer it is worth:

• merging duplicate clients, for example the same company entered in three different ways
• filling in missing OIBs (Croatian ID numbers) and addresses
• closing matters that have finished but are still marked as open
• checking that all future deadlines have actually been entered
• agreeing on consistent names for matter types and file locations

4. Mapping: where each piece of data goes

Mapping is the agreement on how fields from the old system correspond to the new one. For example, whether the "case handler" in the old system becomes the "responsible lawyer" in the new one, and what happens to fields the new system does not have. This is a step in which someone from the firm who knows the old data well needs to take part, not just a technician.

5. Test migration and review

Before all the data is transferred, a selected set is moved first, for example around fifty matters of different types with their clients and deadlines. The firm then compares the old and new systems: are clients correctly linked to matters, are deadlines on the right dates, are documents attached to the right matters? Discrepancies are corrected in the process, not by hand after the cut-over.

6. Cut-over day

• Choose a date with fewer deadlines and hearings; this is often the end of the week.
• Agree the point after which nothing more is entered in the old system.
• After the final transfer, check the deadlines for the next two weeks.
• Keep the old system available in read-only mode until the firm is satisfied that everything has been transferred.

Checklist

• A list of all data sources and their owners
• A decision on scope: active matters, archive, documents
• Duplicates cleaned up and key data filled in
• Field mapping confirmed
• Test migration checked
• Cut-over day and freeze of the old system agreed
• Deadlines checked after the cut-over