Migrate from Legal Files to Pipedrive

Legal Files matters map to Pipedrive Deals as the primary container. Matter title becomes Deal name, and the matter description migrates to the Deal's summary field. Pipedrive's pipeline and stage model replaces Legal Files' matter status workflow. Each matter maps to exactly one Deal unless your firm splits multi-party matters into separate deal records by party.

Legal Files parties include individuals (plaintiffs, defendants) and entities (corporations, insurers). Individual parties map to Pipedrive Person records. When a party is a company, we create both a Person (the contact within the company) and an Organization (the company itself), linking them via the Person's organization_id field in Pipedrive. Party role (plaintiff, defendant, co-counsel) is preserved as a custom field on the Person record.

Attorney records in Legal Files typically include firm name and bar number alongside personal contact info. We extract the attorney's law firm as an Organization record and the individual attorney as a Person record linked to that Organization. Bar number and attorney registration state migrate as custom fields on the Person record for compliance reference.

Courts and judges map to Pipedrive Organization records with a custom field indicating the entity type (Court, Judge, Mediator). This allows filtering and reporting by tribunal. Judge names stored as Person records linked to the Court Organization when the judge is tracked individually in Legal Files.

Documents attached to a matter in Legal Files are downloaded, assigned a filename reflecting the document type (pleading, contract, correspondence), and re-uploaded as Pipedrive Files attached to the corresponding Deal. Folder hierarchy from Legal Files is flattened — the document title carries the original folder path as a prefix so your team can reconstruct the structure in Pipedrive's activity feed.

Legal Files deadlines and court dates migrate as Pipedrive Activities with type = 'Meeting' for court appearances and type = 'Task' for filing deadlines. The original due date and time are preserved. Recurring deadlines (e.g., discovery cutoffs) require manual scheduling in Pipedrive since the recurrence pattern does not transfer automatically. Owner is resolved by email match against Pipedrive users.

Attorney-client calls and meetings logged in Legal Files become Pipedrive Activities with type = 'Call' or type = 'Meeting'. Original timestamps, duration, and attendees are preserved. The linked Matter → Deal association is created in Pipedrive so the activity appears in the deal's activity feed. Notes from the call migrate as the Activity's subject and body.

Legal Files billing entries (hours, rates, amounts) do not map to any native Pipedrive object since Pipedrive has no time-tracking. We migrate total billed hours and total billing amount as custom currency fields on the Deal record. Itemized time entries are exported to a CSV held for reference — rebuilding time entry tracking in Pipedrive requires the Time Tracking beta feature or a third-party app.

Any custom fields defined on the Matter object in Legal Files — such as case_type, jurisdiction, statute_of_limitations, or court_proceedings — are created as Pipedrive Deal custom fields. Field type mapping: text → varchar, picklist → set, date → date, currency → currency. Pipedrive's 40-character hash-based field keys are generated at creation time; we update the mapping spreadsheet with the actual Pipedrive field keys before import runs.

Referral sources tracked in Legal Files (e.g., client referrals, professional contacts) split based on whether they are existing contacts in Pipedrive. Warm referrals with deal potential route to Pipedrive Leads via the Lead Inbox. Pure referral sources without immediate pipeline potential become Person records tagged with a referral source custom field.

Legal Files user accounts are matched to Pipedrive users by email address. Unmatched users are flagged before migration — your firm either creates the Pipedrive user account first or reassigns their records to a fallback owner. The Legal Files internal user ID is preserved as a custom field on migrated records for audit traceability.