Your firm is moving to Filevine and the implementation kickoff is on the calendar. Filevine's team will handle the load, but the quality of the files, mapping and decisions you hand them determines what your paralegals see on day one. This checklist is what to have ready, and what to check afterward.
The pair pages cover source-specific quirks: Clio to Filevine, SmartAdvocate to Filevine, CasePeer to Filevine. The overview of every pair is at migrations.
Filevine is project-shaped, and that changes the mapping
Filevine calls a case a Project, and every Project belongs to a Project Type. A Project Type defines the Sections (tabs) the case has, the fields in each section, the Phases the case moves through, and the task templates that fire. That is the strength of the system and the reason a migration cannot start with the data.
Most legacy systems have one flat matter record with fields bolted on. Filevine wants those fields distributed into sections that make sense for the case type. So the first migration task is deciding: how many Project Types, what sections each has, what fields live in each section and of what type (text, date, dropdown, person link, currency, and collection fields for repeating items like medical providers or vehicles). If you migrate before this is settled, you migrate twice.
Build the Project Types before you import anything
Lay out the Project Type for your top three case types on paper: sections in the order a paralegal works the file, fields per section, phases, and the task templates that should trigger on phase change. Then compare every field in your old system's export against this layout. Each old field gets one of three fates: it maps to a new field, it is dropped, or it becomes a note.
Contacts in Filevine are people and organizations with contact types, and they attach to projects with roles (client, adverse party, insurer, provider, opposing counsel). The old system probably stored some of these as text on the matter. Decide which ones become real contact records with roles and which stay text. Err toward real contacts for anything you will merge into a document.
Your old statuses ("Intake," "Treating," "Demand sent," "In litigation," "Settled") need one-to-one Phase destinations; a Project with no phase confuses everyone.
The record types and where each one lands
Have these exports ready, one file per type, with row counts recorded on export day:
- Contacts, with type and every phone, email and address.
- Matters, with the case type (to choose the Project Type), status (to choose the Phase), open date, close date, responsible attorney and paralegal.
- Custom fields, in a wide format with one column per field, keyed by matter identifier.
- Notes, with author, timestamp and matter identifier, in chronological order. These become activity entries on the project.
- Tasks, with assignee, due date, completion status and matter.
- Calendar and deadlines, including recurrence rules and statute of limitations dates. Filevine tracks deadlines distinctly from calendar events, so flag which is which.
- Time entries and expenses if you bill hourly; many contingency firms skip time and migrate only costs.
- Trust and cost ledgers per matter, if the old system held them.
Field-level transformations go in the mapping sheet: date formats, name splitting (one "Client" field into first and last) and value maps for dropdowns.
Documents: the folder tree problem
Documents are the largest volume and the slowest part of a Filevine migration. The old system either exports a folder tree keyed by matter or, in older on-premise systems, just holds paths to a network share.
Get the document export as a tree, one top-level folder per matter, named or indexed with the matter identifier that appears in the matter export. Decide the destination folder scheme for each Project Type (Correspondence, Medical, Pleadings, Discovery, Billing is a common set) and write the rule that maps old folder names to new ones. Files with no matter association go to a holding project, not the trash. Strip duplicates and system files before upload.
Email is a separate decision. Our page on migrating documents and email goes through the choices between migrating historical mail, forwarding going forward only, and leaving the archive in the mailbox.
Proving the import worked
Ask for a test load into a sandbox Filevine org before the production load, with a sample from every Project Type. Then open real cases and check the things that break: notes attributed to the right person and date, deadlines showing as deadlines and not events, dropdown fields showing values and not codes, contacts attached with the right role, documents in the right project and folder with their original filenames and dates.
For the production load, reconcile: projects per Project Type, contacts, notes, tasks, deadlines and documents, source count against destination count, with every gap explained. Sum the cost ledgers per matter and compare. Pick five cases per paralegal and have them walk the file end to end.
Plan the cutover for a weekend, with a data freeze in the old system on Friday, a delta load, and Monday morning in Filevine. Keep the old system read-only for a quarter. The time the whole thing takes depends mostly on Project Type design and documents; see how long a case management migration takes for realistic ranges. Once the cases are in, the task templates you designed are the foundation for Filevine workflow automation. Firms that want help with the design side rather than the load often start with Filevine consulting.
Questions we get
Does Filevine's team do the migration or do we?
Filevine's implementation team typically performs the load from files you supply and a mapping you approve. The preparation, the Project Type design, the cleanup and the verification are the firm's job or a consultant's. The load is the fast part; the preparation is the migration.
What if our old system will not export notes or documents?
Some older systems require a database-level extract, and cloud systems sometimes limit bulk export. Find out early, in writing, what the old vendor will give you and in what format.
Should we migrate closed cases?
Migrate them as projects only if you need them searchable and reportable in Filevine. Otherwise archive them as PDF and a spreadsheet index. Many firms migrate closed cases from the last two or three years and archive the rest.
If you want a review of your Project Type design or your export files before the load, tell us what you are working with.