Today’s law firm depends on electronic information. From e-mail, which has almost replaced the telephone call in importance, to documents, to client billing, to legal research, lawyers constantly use electronic information in their practice. One sure thing about electronic information is that the type and delivery of that information changes. Only a few years ago law firms used third party hosts such as AOL to handle their e-mail and basic FTP between servers to handle data transfers. Word processing was either Word or Word Perfect and time and billing was handled by a basic database system.  Not any more.  Software vendors have completely rewritten their systems so that the information they process can be used by other “partner” vendors.  The term SQL and .Net have become the basis of application data no matter which vendor you use.  Moving your data from old applications to new applications can present some formable problems as well as security concerns.  Unfortunately your firm will be forced to migrate sooner or later because of support issues. Your old software will no longer be supported. New support agreements for existing software include language that requires the licensee to load and maintain the latest release of the licensed software.  This may require new equipment to run the latest release.  The old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” does not apply to a law firm today. Migration can be as simple as changing from one power supply to another or as complicated as changing all your workstations operating systems but most migration deals with changing application software. New software is designed to work on new equipment so as you consider your change such as upgrading to a new e-mail package that includes lots of features for calendaring and supported devices like PDAs and wireless networks also consider what equipment you will need to run the software.

Planning is the key to successful migration.  Software companies are adamant about not supporting old software and not running their applications on old equipment but they are just as committed to supporting successful migration programs.  They want everything to work properly so that they can use you as a reference but more importantly they do not want continuing support calls about missing information or parts of the new application that are not working properly. Word processing applications and time and billing applications lead the list of application that law firms change. 

Word processing migration concerns have dropped as Word has released newer versions that can convert more Word Perfect functions and Word Perfect has moved up to version 11 that is more compatible with Word.  Also, there has been so many firms move from Word Perfect to Word that most formatting inconsistencies can be provided for by discussing your conversion with another firm that has converted.  A brief search on the web or a visit to The Association of Legal Administrators web site can direct you to other firms that have made the conversion.   

Time and billing applications have moved from proprietary software to standards based software.  Even though this should ease the conversion of your data the time and billing migration can be a challenge.  Working with the software vendor and talking to other firms that have migrated to that software gives you the first part of the plan. Sitting down and detailing what you want the software to do is the second and critical part. This includes how you want your bills to look, how you want your accounting and trusts to integrate and how you want your activity to be reported. After you know what you want to accomplish, work with the vendor by viewing samples of what the application can produce and compare that to what you have decided you need.  The software vendor should have several references and a history of converting your current type of software to theirs. The vendor should be able to develop any special requirements you have and the new database should be compatible with other applications that you use such as case management of document management.  In some cases basic accounting information is not converted because it is easier to input the data than convert it.  All the areas your time and billing will touch should be part of your migration plan.

Backup is the part of the plan that should be relatively easy but is most important.  If the conversion is not successful for whatever reason you must be able to go back to your pervious working condition immediately.  With today’s large local drives and network attached storage you do not have to use the slow tape systems as the backup media. By using disk drives you can copy entire applications with the associated databases or complete word processing inventories in a very short time without backing up your entire system.  The disk back system should be used in conjunction with a regular complete tape backup system for complete protection from lost data.

One area that has almost stopped the migration cycle is web based applications such as legal research.  These applications are hosted by the vendor and run at your computer through the internet. Once you change to the web based system all upgrades are done at the vendor’s site and any new software that you need is automatically downloaded to you when you sign on.  The key is changing to this type of application.  If you decide to move your time and billing to a web based application you will still have the same migration issues for the initial change.  It is also expensive in that you pay a monthly fee for using the software and usually a database fee for the amount of data you store on the vendors system.  The good part is that the vendor runs your backup and maintains the server. This software does change and you may have to upgrade your equipment to run the newest version of the web application but this is much easier that changing to a new application.

As computer equipment continues to advance and software companies continue to change their applications for the new equipment, law firms will always be faced with migration issues.  Whatever system or software your firm decides to change the more time you plan and talk to others that have made the change the easier the change will be. 

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