Migrate from Dibcase Legal Case Management to Nutshell

Direct map: Dibcase clients map to Nutshell People. Nutshell People store name, email, phone, address, and title. Dibcase stores billing contacts and court contacts in separate contact databases — these map to Nutshell People as well, with the contact role recorded in a custom field. Dibcase's client status values (Active, Deferred, Inactive) map to a custom field on Person since Nutshell does not have a native client lifecycle model.

Direct map: Dibcase stores associated law firms and opposing counsel organizations in its contact database. These map to Nutshell Companies. Firm name, address, and domain transfer directly. Dibcase does not enforce a strict organization record — some Dibcase clients may have no associated firm — in which case a placeholder Company record is created to satisfy Nutshell's optional Company-Person link.

Direct map with transformation: Dibcase matters are the primary case record and map to Nutshell Deals. Matter name becomes Deal name. Dibcase's representation status (SSA Representative, Claimant, etc.) and SSA stage (Initial, Hearing, Appeals Council, Federal Court) map as custom fields on the Deal. Nutshell's Deal pipeline stages are configurable and we map them to match Dibcase's SSA stage progression after aligning with your team.

Direct map: Dibcase stores representation fee and fee percentage on the matter. These transfer to Nutshell Deal.Amount. Where Dibcase records contingency fee percentages rather than fixed amounts, we preserve the percentage in a custom field and record the expected fee value as Deal.Amount per your specification.

Direct map: Dibcase supports a customizable lead stages workflow. Prospects and referred leads in Dibcase with no active matter map to Nutshell Leads. Dibcase's lead status values and referral source field migrate as Nutshell custom fields. Dibcase leads that have an active matter route to a Deal in Nutshell — the mapping decision is based on whether a Dibcase record has an open matter.

Nutshell requires custom fields to be created before data loads. We create matching custom fields on the Nutshell Person object for every Dibcase custom client field (representation status, SSA status, disability onset date, SSA/VA case ID). Field type is inferred from Dibcase field type — pick-lists become Nutshell choice fields, dates become date fields, text remains text. Notes on Dibcase's SSA merge fields document are used to name and label fields accurately.

Same as custom client fields: Nutshell Deal objects support custom fields. Every Dibcase custom field on matters — appeal denial date, denial reason, disability onset date, representation fee tracking — is created as a matching Nutshell Deal custom field. Multi-select pick-lists in Dibcase with multiple values per field are preserved as comma-separated text in Nutshell unless your team specifies a different handling rule.

Dibcase's multi-step task templates define complex, conditional case workflows (e.g., 'SSN verification → medical records request → hearing scheduled → post-hearing brief'). Nutshell Tasks are individual records with no native template inheritance. We map each template step as a Nutshell Task linked to the Deal, and preserve the template structure as a custom field (Task_Template_Name__c) so your team can use it as a rebuild reference in Nutshell's automation tools or a separate template system.

Transformed: Dibcase files are stored in Dropbox or Google Drive integrations. During migration we re-link files to their Nutshell records if your Dropbox/Google Drive integrations are preserved post-migration. Files without an active cloud link are re-uploaded directly to Nutshell's file storage. Nutshell enforces a 10 MB per-file limit — files larger than 10 MB are flagged and re-uploaded manually or linked via cloud storage reference.

Direct map: Dibcase activities on clients and matters (call logs, email records, meeting notes) map to Nutshell Tasks. Task.Subject carries the activity type. Task.notes carries the activity body. Original timestamps, owners, and linked Person or Deal are preserved. Nutshell does not support activity-only records unattached to a Person or Deal — activities without a linked record are attached to the primary Person record.

Transformed: Dibcase employee records (attorneys, paralegals, admin staff) are resolved to Nutshell users by email match. Unmatched users are flagged before migration — your team either invites them to Nutshell first or assigns their records to a fallback Nutshell user. Dibcase's employee roles and access limits are preserved as a custom field on the Nutshell User record for your admin to configure in Nutshell's permission settings.

Dibcase's hundreds of SSA and VA PDF form templates with merge fields have no Nutshell equivalent. Nutshell has no template editor, PDF merge, or SSA form library. We export the complete list of Dibcase form templates and their merge field configurations as a structured reference document so your team can evaluate third-party document generation tools (Docassemble, Smokeball, or LawPay-integrated forms) post-migration.