The contacts and matters will move. Everyone agrees on that. The question that keeps a firm administrator up at night is the fifteen years of documents in a mix of Dropbox, a shared server drive, the old case management system's document tab, and two partners' personal OneDrive folders. And then the email, which nobody has ever filed consistently.
This is the part of a case management migration where the plan has to match how your firm actually stores things, not how the manual says it should. Here is how we approach it.
Where your documents actually live today
Before mapping anything, find every location. The usual list: the old platform's built-in document storage, a cloud drive (Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box), an on-premises file server, a dedicated document management system like NetDocuments or iManage, scanned mail in a copier's output folder, and attachments that only exist inside email.
For each location, record the folder convention (or lack of one), the rough volume, and whether the old case management system holds links to files there or copies of them. Systems like Clio can either store documents natively or link to a connected Dropbox or OneDrive folder, and the difference determines whether you are moving files or re-pointing references. The Filevine data migration checklist has a section for exactly this audit.
How folders map to matters in the new system
Every modern platform wants one container per matter: a Clio matter's documents tab, a Filevine project's docs section, a NetDocuments workspace. Your old folders have to be matched to those containers, and the match is only automatic when the folder name contains something the script can key on, like a matter number or a client last name plus a date.
Run the matching in a spreadsheet first. One column of source folders, one column of destination matters, one column for the match method (exact matter number, fuzzy client name, manual). The manual column is your cleanup list. Folders named "Smith - old" or "MISC 2019" get resolved by a human, and there are always more of them than the firm expects.
Subfolder structure is a separate decision. If you want every matter in the new system to have the same subfolders (Correspondence, Pleadings, Discovery, Medical, Billing), decide the template now and map old subfolders into it. A consistent structure is also what makes document automation work later, because templates need to know where to save their output.
Email: threads, attachments, and the integrations
Email is harder than documents because most of it was never filed anywhere. What you can migrate is what someone previously attached to a matter in the old system. Emails that only exist in individual mailboxes stay in those mailboxes, and the practical goal is to make sure they remain searchable rather than to move them.
For email that was filed, export it as .eml or .msg files with attachments intact, keep the thread grouping if the old system preserved it, and load them into the matter's correspondence folder in the new platform.
Going forward, set up the new platform's Outlook or Gmail integration on day one. Clio, Filevine, and most competitors offer an add-in that lets staff file a message to a matter from inside the mail client, and that is the only realistic way to keep email attached to cases.
Handling the exceptions
Duplicates are the first exception. The same PDF saved to Dropbox, attached to the old matter, and sitting in a partner's downloads folder should land once. Hash-based deduplication catches exact copies; near-duplicates with different filenames need a rule (keep the copy in the most authoritative location) and a person willing to apply it.
Files with no matter are the second. Firm templates, HR records, marketing material, and CLE certificates do not belong in any client matter. Give them a firm-level home in the new system or leave them in the cloud drive and document where they went.
Legacy formats are the third. WordPerfect files, ancient Outlook PST archives, and scans saved as TIFF all open in the new system only if someone converted them. Decide whether to convert or to archive as-is with a note, and do not let the migration script silently skip them because it did not recognize the extension.
Firms leaving Needles or Neos often have a fourth exception: documents referenced by a path on a server that no longer exists. Our page on migrating from Needles or Neos to Filevine covers recovering those links.
Verifying the documents landed
Count first, then sample. The total number of files and the total bytes in the destination should match the source, adjusted for known duplicates and exclusions. Any gap gets explained before cutover.
Then have staff open a sample of matters, ideally the active ones they know best, and confirm the folders look right, the newest file is present, and a random older file opens. A migrated document that opens is not the same as a migrated document that is in the right matter, so the human check is not optional.
Keep the source storage read-only, not deleted, for a defined period after cutover.
Questions we get
Should we migrate documents into the case management system or keep them in Dropbox and link?
Either works if the integration is solid. Native storage gives you one place to search and simpler permissions. A linked cloud drive keeps files accessible outside the platform and can be easier for staff used to working in Finder or Explorer. What does not work is half and half, where some matters have native documents and others have links, because nobody knows where to look.
Can we bring over email that was never filed to a matter?
Not as part of the migration in any useful way. You can archive mailboxes for retention, and you can train staff to use the new platform's email add-in going forward, but retroactively sorting years of unfiled mail into matters is a separate project and rarely worth it beyond the active cases.
How do we handle NetDocuments or iManage if we are keeping it?
Then the case management migration mostly re-points references. The new platform connects to the document management system, matters get linked to workspaces, and the documents themselves stay put. The mapping work is between matter IDs and workspace IDs rather than between folders.
If you want help sorting out where your documents should go, tell us what you are working with.