Relationship data comes across, while privileged content stays behind and ethical walls are enforced in Salesforce before any migrated record becomes visible.
Legal migrations usually consolidate relationship data that has grown in several places: an older CRM used by business development, partner contact lists, intake spreadsheets, seminar attendee lists and referral tracking. We load clients, prospects, referral sources and contacts into Salesforce, reference matters from the practice management system, and carry over intake history, pitches and experience records that marketing uses in proposals. Privileged content stays in the document and practice management systems. Contacts shared among several lawyers are merged into one record with relationship owners listed, so the firm sees who knows whom without losing individual lawyers' connections.
Law firms protect information differently from most businesses. Matter details, adverse parties and privileged communications can carry ethical duties, so a CRM migration has to decide carefully what stays out. Ethical walls restrict which lawyers may see certain clients, and those restrictions must follow the data into Salesforce. Relationship ownership is personal: partners often keep their own contacts and are cautious about sharing them, which affects both cleanup and adoption. Intake data is also connected to conflict checking, so a migrated prospect or adverse party record must not be mistaken for an authoritative conflicts source. Getting those boundaries right matters more than migrating every field.
Partner lists, assistant-maintained address books and the old CRM are matched into one contact per person, with each lawyer who knows that person recorded as a relationship. Titles and employers are refreshed where possible, and private notes a partner does not want shared are handled through visibility settings or left out. Holiday card and gift lists are reconciled at the same time, since they often hold the most current addresses.
Intake inquiries, consultation outcomes and declined matters are migrated as records showing source, practice area, status and responsible lawyer. Details that could reveal confidential information about prospective clients are reviewed with the general counsel's office before they are included, so intake reporting survives the cutover without creating new confidentiality risk for the firm. Declined matters keep the reason category only, not the narrative that intake staff originally recorded.
Referring attorneys, accountants, financial advisors and other introducers are loaded with links to the clients and matters they sent, drawn from intake and billing records. Business development can then measure which relationships produce work, plan thank-you and follow-up activity, and stop depending on partners' recollection of who referred whom. Referrals with no identifiable matter are flagged for review by the intake team.
Pitches, RFP responses and representative matters used in proposals come across with practice area, industry and outcome. Client-approved descriptions are kept distinct from internal ones, so marketing can assemble experience lists quickly without risking disclosure of work a client has not permitted the firm to mention publicly or in competitive pitches. Lateral hires' prior experience is tagged separately, since it may need its own approval before use in firm materials.
We work with business development, the intake or conflicts team, IT security and the general counsel's office from the start. The first task is a data classification: what is relationship data, what is matter data and what is privileged. Ethical walls and restricted clients are mapped to sharing rules and tested with sample users before any production load. Partner contact lists are handled in small groups, with each partner reviewing matches before they are merged. Reconciliation compares client and contact totals to the source, and marketing verifies experience records against approved descriptions.
Client and matter numbers, responsible lawyers and open or closed status are referenced for matching, while time, billing and trust accounting data stay in the system that governs them.
New business intake can feed Salesforce, but the conflicts database remains the authority. Migrated prospect and party records are labeled so no one treats them as a conflicts check.
Links to proposals and approved experience documents can be stored against records, with access still controlled by the document system rather than copying files into Salesforce.
Restricted clients and screened lawyers must be reflected in Salesforce sharing before migrated records become visible. Test with real user roles, and include new data sources in the wall process so future imports do not quietly expose screened relationships or restricted client names.
CRM value comes from relationships, activities and experience, not from privileged communications or matter documents. Exclude those sources explicitly during mapping, and have the firm's risk team approve the field list so nothing sensitive slips in through notes or email logging.
Partners will not rely on a system that merged their contacts wrongly. Let them review their own lists before and after loading, respect requests to keep some relationships private, and treat the period right after go-live as a window for rapid corrections.
It should not. Conflicts checking remains in the dedicated conflicts or practice management system, and Salesforce is set up as a relationship and business development tool. We label migrated party and prospect records clearly and avoid any design that encourages lawyers to search Salesforce in place of the formal check run by the conflicts team.
We start by asking what worries them, which is usually visibility or careless outreach. Salesforce can restrict some notes and relationships, record the partner as the owner, and require approval before marketing contacts sensitive people. When partners see that controls exist, they are often more willing to add contacts they previously kept private in personal address books.
Yes, with review. Intake spreadsheets frequently contain descriptions of legal problems, opposing parties and personal details. We classify those columns, bring across what intake reporting needs, and exclude or summarize free-text descriptions that could reveal confidential information. The general counsel's office approves the final mapping before anything is loaded, and the original spreadsheets are then secured or retired.
Seminar, webinar and newsletter lists are merged into contact records with subscription status and consent preserved. Duplicate subscribers are resolved, bounced addresses are flagged, and attendance history is kept so business development can see which clients engage with thought leadership. Lists imported without clear consent are reviewed before anyone is emailed from Salesforce, which protects the firm's sender reputation as well.
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