Migrate from Aderant Expert Sierra to Twenty CRM

Expert Sierra Client records map directly to Twenty People. Client name becomes the Person's display name. Primary contact email and phone transfer as standard fields. If the Client has multiple associated attorneys or contacts, secondary contacts are created as additional People records linked via the same Company.

Expert Sierra Client organization details including firm name, registered business address, and industry classification map to Twenty Company. The Company record serves as the umbrella entity for all People records associated with that client firm, establishing the standard CRM Company-to-Person relationship model that Twenty uses as its primary account hierarchy.

Expert Sierra Matter maps to Twenty Opportunity — the closest structural equivalent in Twenty's schema. Matter name becomes Opportunity name. Matter status (Active, Pending, Closed) maps to Opportunity stage pick-list values. The matter number or ID is preserved as a custom field (Matter_Number__c) for cross-system traceability.

Twenty's standard Opportunity lacks legal-matter fields (practice area, court jurisdiction, opposing counsel, litigation status). We create a 'Legal Matter' custom object in Twenty and map Expert Sierra Matter fields to it, linking each Matter to its parent Opportunity for full matter context in one view.

Expert Sierra billing rate tables (attorney hourly rates by matter type) have no native Twenty equivalent. Rates are migrated as a JSON-formatted custom field on the relevant Company or Opportunity record, preserving rate tier information for reference. Rebilling rules and rate-overrides require manual rebuild in Twenty's workflow builder.

Expert Sierra time entries (date, hours, attorney, matter, billing description) are too granular for Twenty's standard objects. Each time entry becomes a Note record attached to the related Matter-Opportunity, capturing the full entry text. For high-volume time histories, a custom 'Billable_Hours_History__c' field stores a summary string.

Expert Sierra invoice records carry invoice number, amount, status, and line items — financial data that Twenty's CRM model cannot natively represent. Invoice summaries migrate as read-only custom fields on the associated Opportunity for historical reference; actual invoicing must be handled by an external billing system post-migration.

Expert Sierra contact records for attorneys, paralegals, and billing contacts map to Twenty People. Role designation (Attorney, Paralegal, Billing Contact) migrates as a custom pick-list field (Role_Type__c) on the Person record. Email addresses enable user-matching when inviting team members to Twenty.

Expert Sierra document attachments (briefs, contracts, billing PDFs) have no direct Twenty equivalent. We export documents to a named storage location and create Twenty Note records containing a reference URL. The Note links to the document location; your team manages the file store independently after migration.

Expert Sierra custom fields on any object map to Twenty custom fields on the corresponding object. All custom fields must be pre-created in Twenty's Settings → Data Model before the migration run. We provide a custom field creation plan as part of the migration package based on the Expert Sierra field inventory.

Expert Sierra billing approval workflows, matter-stage automation, and trust-account rules are tightly coupled to the financial engine and do not map to Twenty's workflow builder. We export workflow definitions as a configuration document; your Twenty admin rebuilds them using Twenty's workflow and webhook tools post-migration.