When a personal-injury firm changes its intake software, the records may arrive before the team can resume the work attached to them. Staff might find a person’s details and notes but still need to reconstruct which matter a conversation concerned, whether a requested document arrived and who should make the next call.
Before approving the switch, the owner needs to know whether staff can continue working on open inquiries. If some work needs to be restored by hand, the firm also needs to know how much time that will take alongside the calls still coming in.
Follow an inquiry that is still open
Consider a fictional example. Alex has an older matter in the system and a separate, recent inquiry that came through a referral. Alex has returned a signed form for the new inquiry, the firm’s review is still pending and an intake coordinator has promised a follow-up call.
After migration, a contact search finds Alex. Both matters appear, along with the signed form and a note saying “call Alex.” A record-count check could pass. The more revealing part of the trial is whether the coordinator can continue the current inquiry: find its referring contact and last conversation, open the correct document and see the follow-up in the responsible person’s worklist.
A form stored against the person may be difficult to distinguish from a document belonging to the older matter. Staff need to see that the form arrived and is still awaiting review. A copied note saying “call Alex” preserves the instruction, but it does not necessarily create an assigned reminder.
Decide what must work on the first day
Start with the services the vendors actually provide. The receiving vendor should explain what its migration service will preserve, what it will transform and what the firm must set up separately. An export screen shows one route out of a product, rather than the full scope of an assisted migration.
For example, Lawmatics’ export guide distinguishes contact exports, which exclude matter fields, from matter exports containing both. Its documented bulk path also does not download every matter’s documents together; it provides a per-matter download option. These are limits of that export route. They leave the scope of vendor assistance or other supported retrieval methods to be established.
For an open inquiry like Alex’s, the team needs the right matter, its history and document, the pending review and a clear next owner. The new system does not need to reproduce the old screen, but the coordinator must be able to pick up the work without guessing.
Older material may be suitable for a controlled archive, provided the people who need it can find and retrieve it under the firm’s access requirements. That can reduce the amount to rebuild, but access still needs to be maintained. If an intake coordinator needs the history during a call, an export that someone else must search may not be practical.
Some work may have to be recreated. A migration might bring across the text of a task without creating its assignment or reminder. The firm then needs to know how many assignments remain, who will restore them and when. “Staff will tidy up after launch” does not account for that work.
What can a trial tell you?
Choose a representative trial sample that can expose the remaining work. A straightforward contact with one matter can show that basic information arrives. A person with two matters tests whether their histories remain distinct. A returned document and unfinished review test whether staff can interpret the current position and carry out the next action.
Automated follow-up needs the same attention. Lawmatics’ import guidance advises deactivating automations before importing so they do not trigger accidentally on past clients or leads. It describes choosing “Future Matches Only” when appropriate on reactivation. This is specific product behavior, but it illustrates why importing history and restarting follow-up are separate decisions. In a controlled trial, show how the required follow-ups will resume without repeating requests already completed.
Suppose the trial shows that history and documents are usable, but follow-up assignments need to be recreated. The next question is how much unfinished work has that problem. If the affected set is manageable, the firm may choose to have staff recreate and check those assignments before switching. That makes staff time part of the migration scope.
If the team cannot recreate the assignments in time, ask whether the vendor offers a more complete migration service. A supported integration or additional technical work may address the remaining gap. The switch may need to be staged or delayed. Custom development becomes worth assessing when the gap is demonstrated and existing services do not meet it.
A successful trial supports an approach; it does not certify every record. Before committing to a date, the migration team still needs to establish how many records require each treatment and how it will check the final result. Otherwise, a workaround that looked reasonable for a few examples can become a substantial unfinished job at launch.
When can the team work normally again?
If an import finishes overnight but staff spend the next several days reconstructing follow-ups, the intake team has not yet regained its working queue. That may be an acceptable temporary arrangement if the firm has agreed who will handle incoming inquiries, who will restore existing work and how progress will be tracked.
The trial and workload estimate should therefore inform the expected interruption: which activities will be unavailable, which can continue through a temporary process and how much staff capacity that process requires. The relevant period extends until the necessary work is usable, including any reconstruction.
The final move also has to account for changes after the trial or export. Alex may return another document, receive a call or be assigned to a different person while migration work is underway. The plan needs a way to capture and reconcile those updates. Vendors and staff can determine the technical method; the owner needs to know where new inquiries and changes will be recorded, who will reconcile them and when the team can rely on the new system.
If the team cannot restore the remaining work while handling new inquiries, the migration service, sequence or date needs to change.
