Migrate from LawPracticeZA to Mailchimp

LawPracticeZA's Client record maps to a Mailchimp Member. The client's email address is the primary key for Mailchimp deduplication — if two clients share an email in LawPracticeZA, they collapse to one Mailchimp member with both matter references merged as tags.

LawPracticeZA stores a single client name field; we split it into first name and last name merge fields in Mailchimp. If the source name contains a company name (e.g., 'Smith & Partners'), the entire string maps to the LNAME field and FNAME is left blank.

Email is the unique identifier for Mailchimp membership. Mailchimp enforces strict syntax validation during import, blocking malformed addresses, misspellings of known domains (such as 'gamil.com' or 'gmai.com'), and unsupported Unicode characters. Invalid emails are flagged in the migration report with clear error codes for manual correction before re-submission.

LawPracticeZA's telephone field maps directly to Mailchimp's PHONE merge field without transformation. Mobile and landline numbers are not distinguished in Mailchimp's standard schema — both land in the same field. If both telephone and cellphone are present in LawPracticeZA, they are merged with the first non-empty value retained.

LawPracticeZA stores structured address components; Mailchimp uses its standard five-field address merge block. We map each component to its corresponding merge field. If LawPracticeZA stores address as a single text blob, we split it by line breaks into ADDR1 and ADDR2.

Each Matter record linked to a Client becomes a Mailchimp Tag on the corresponding member. Tag format is 'Matter: [matter_number] — [matter_type]'. Matter types like 'litigation', 'conveyancing', and 'corporate' enable Mailchimp Segments for targeted campaigns. Multiple matters per client produce multiple tags on one member.

LawPracticeZA billing status values ('current', 'overdue', 'on-hold') map to Mailchimp Tags: 'Billing: Current', 'Billing: Overdue', 'Billing: On Hold'. These tags enable a law firm to segment communications by account standing before sending statements, payment reminders, or status updates to specific client groups based on their billing history.

The fee earner (lawyer) assigned to each matter is stored as a tag on the client member: 'FeeEarner: [full_name]'. This lets the firm segment contacts by assigned attorney for matter-status updates, practice group announcements, or personalised communications directed to specific client portfolios managed by individual lawyers.

LawPracticeZA departments (e.g., 'Corporate', 'Dispute Resolution') map to Mailchimp Tags using the format 'Department: [name]'. Tags are additive — a client with matters in multiple departments receives multiple department tags. Mailchimp Segments can filter by these tags to target practice-area newsletters, departmental updates, or cross-department client communications.

Invoice amounts, trust balances, and WIP records have no Mailchimp contact property equivalent and cannot be stored as Mailchimp merge fields (they are financial records). We export these as a supplementary CSV linked by client_id for the firm's records and future use in a billing-adjacent system.

Trust account balances, transfers, and reconciliations are legal accounting records with no Mailchimp analogue. They fall outside the scope of the email marketing migration. We provide a structured trust-account export CSV keyed by client_id for compliance documentation, audit trail purposes, and future import into accounting-adjacent systems.

LawPracticeZA allows custom fields on client records. We map each to a Mailchimp merge field if it is a scalar value (text, number, date). If the custom field is a long-text area, it is truncated to 255 characters or converted to a tag. Arrays or multi-select values become multiple tags. Fields exceeding Mailchimp's 30-field standard limit require Mailchimp Premium or a tag-only strategy.