The switching playbook

Before day one

Every migration we run follows the same four stages: export, map, check and go live. For a firm of up to 50 lawyers it takes about a fortnight, and the Filebird team does the work at no charge. Your part is to make a few decisions early and name one person who can answer questions quickly.

• Pick a go-live date at the start of a week, away from month end and any trust audit.

• Decide how much history to bring across. Most firms bring every open matter plus closed matters still inside their retention period.

• Name an owner at the firm, usually the practice manager, who signs off each stage.

• Tell the whole team the date at least three weeks out, not three days.

The firms that struggle are rarely the ones with the messiest data. They are the ones where nobody can make a decision quickly. A question about how to map an old matter type should take an hour to answer, not a week.

What we need from you

We do the export, mapping, import and checking. A few things can only come from the firm, and getting them early keeps the fortnight on track.

• Administrator access to your current system, or a contact at your current vendor who can produce a full export.

• A current user list, showing who should have access to trust, billing and firm settings.

• Your trust bank statements for the last three months, so we can check balances against the bank as well as the old system.

• Your matter types and any templates or precedents you want rebuilt.

• One afternoon from the owner and two or three lawyers during the check stage.

If you are moving from spreadsheets or a shared drive, send us everything, including the workbook nobody admits to using. It is easier to leave something out on purpose than to find it after go-live.

Days 1-4: export and map

We take a full export from your current system: matters, contacts, documents, time entries, unbilled work, invoices and trust ledgers. Nothing in the old system is deleted or changed. It stays live, and your team keeps working in it as normal.

Mapping is where most of the thinking happens. Your old matter types become Filebird practice-area templates, custom fields find a home, and each user is matched to a new login. We send you a mapping sheet to approve before anything is imported.

The decisions that take longest are usually about history. Bringing every closed matter across in full detail sounds safest, but it slows the import and fills searches with old files. Most firms bring closed matters across as summary records with their documents attached, which is enough for conflict checks and for answering a client who calls about an old file.

Documents come across with their folder structure and file names intact, attached to the same matters they belong to now. If your current folders are inconsistent, mapping is the moment to fix them, because the matter template you choose decides where documents land from day one.

Days 5-9: check

We import into a staging copy of your Filebird account and check it against the source. I check every trust balance, client by client, before a firm goes live. If a ledger is out by a cent, we find out why before going any further.

1. Trust: every client ledger matches the old system and the bank as at the cut-off date.

2. Money: unbilled time, open invoices and debtor balances agree to the old aged debtors report.

3. Matters: 20 sampled matters are opened side by side, including the three oldest and three largest.

4. Documents: folder structures and file counts match for every sampled matter.

Your owner then spends an afternoon in staging with two or three lawyers. Anything that looks wrong goes on a shared list, and we fix it before the next stage.

We also check the things that are easy to forget: recurring tasks, key dates on open matters, user permissions and the numbering of matters and invoices. A matter number that changes on go-live is a small thing until a client quotes the old one.

Day 10 and the weekend: go live

On the Friday we take a final export of anything that changed since the first one, import it and re-run the trust check. On Monday your team logs in to Filebird with their matters, emails and balances in place. Nothing leaves the old system until you sign off.

Keep read-only access to the old system for at least three months. Anyone can then look up an old record without asking us, and your auditor has a source to compare against if needed.

On the Monday, our team is online from 7am. The most common questions are about permissions, email filing and where a familiar report now lives, and most are answered within a few minutes.

Agree a cut-off time on the Friday for trust entries in the old system, usually the close of business. Anything banked or paid after it is entered in Filebird on Monday morning, so the trust check we run over the weekend is against a fixed position rather than a moving one.

The first fortnight after

Expect plenty of questions in week one and very few by week three. We run short check-ins on day three and day ten, and we review your first month-end trust reconciliation with your bookkeeper.

We kept the old system open for a quarter and looked at it twice. By the second week nobody was asking for it.

Stuart Lowe, Managing Partner, Whitlock Rowe

If something in Filebird works differently from the old system, ask before building a workaround. Most surprises in the first fortnight are a setting, not a missing feature.

Keep a running list of questions in the first fortnight, even the ones that were answered on the spot. Most of them become a short internal guide, and the same questions will come from the next person who joins the firm.

Training without losing a week

Long training sessions before go-live do not stick, because people are learning screens they cannot use yet. We run short sessions by role in the week before go-live, then a second round on day three, once people have real questions.

1. Lawyers: opening a matter, filing email, recording time and finding documents. About 45 minutes.

2. Assistants and paralegals: templates, key dates, documents and the client portal. About an hour.

3. Bookkeeper and billing: trust receipts and payments, the daily reconciliation, invoicing and debtors. About two hours, plus a review of the first month end.

4. Practice manager: users, permissions, templates and reports.

Record each session and keep it with your migration records. A new starter six months later can watch the same session before their first day.

What can go wrong

Most migrations run to plan. When one does not, it is usually for one of three reasons.

• The export is incomplete. Some older systems cannot export everything, especially document details. We find this in the first few days and agree a workaround before mapping starts.

• A trust balance will not agree. We do not go live until it does. If a difference predates the migration, we document it so the firm and its auditor can resolve it, rather than carrying it forward silently.

• A key person is unavailable. If the owner is away during the check stage, we move the date rather than skip the check.

A go-live date that moves by a week is an inconvenience. A go-live with an unchecked trust balance is a problem that lasts.