Migrate from The Legal Assistant to Salesforce Sales Cloud

The Legal Assistant's client record holds the organization name, primary contact details, and billing profile. We split this: organization name becomes Account.Name, primary contact details become Contact with AccountId lookup. If the client is an individual (sole practitioner as client), we create a Contact with no Account or a household Account depending on your firm's intake model. Billing profile fields (payment terms, trust balance) migrate to custom fields on Account.

The Legal Assistant stores multiple contacts per client (attorney, paralegal, billing contact). Each contact migrates as a Salesforce Contact with the parent's AccountId. Email, phone, address, and role fields map to standard Contact fields. Role pick-list values (Attorney, Paralegal, Billing Contact) migrate as a custom Role__c pick-list on Contact for segmentation and reporting.

The Legal Assistant's matter is the core record — it holds case number, practice area, status, responsible attorney, opposing counsel, court, and judge. We migrate this to either Salesforce's native Case object or a custom Matter__c object depending on whether you want matter management inside or outside the standard Case model. Practice area maps to RecordTypeId so each legal specialty gets its own page layout and stage pick-list. Case number maps to Case.CaseNumber; custom matter_number from The Legal Assistant maps to Matter_Number__c.

The Legal Assistant uses separate modules for personal injury, criminal, family law, etc. Each practice area has its own field set and workflows. In Salesforce, we create one Record Type per practice area on the Matter/Case object. Each Record Type gets its own page layout showing only the fields relevant to that specialty. Stage pick-list values (e.g., Discovery, Trial, Settlement) are scoped per RecordTypeId so attorneys see only the stages applicable to their practice.

The Legal Assistant's per-matter billing records (hourly charges, flat fees, costs, disbursements, invoice line items) have no Salesforce CRM equivalent. We migrate these as a child custom object (Matter_Charge__c) or as custom fields on the Matter record: Custom_Fee_Total__c, Custom_Costs__c, Custom_Trust_Balance__c. If your firm uses trust accounting, Trust_Balance__c and Trust_Account_Number__c are included. Invoice generation logic does not migrate — your billing team uses Salesforce's invoice tools or a connected practice-management billing app post-migration.

The Legal Assistant tracks statute of limitations deadlines per matter and sends email alerts at 30, 60, 90 days before expiration. We map the deadline date to SOL_Deadline__c custom datetime on the Matter record. We create a Salesforce Task with Subject='Statute of Limitations Review' and custom Alert_Type__c='SOL', with the due date set to the original alert schedule (e.g., 30 days before). Recurrence logic does not migrate — your admin rebuilds the alert workflow in Flow using time-based triggers on SOL_Deadline__c.

The Legal Assistant task list per matter maps directly to Salesforce Tasks. Subject, description, due date, priority, status, and assigned user all migrate. Owner resolution happens by email match — The Legal Assistant staff emails are matched against Salesforce user emails. Unmatched owners are flagged before migration so you can create Salesforce users or reassign before go-live.

The Legal Assistant calendar entries (court dates, depositions, filing deadlines, client meetings) migrate as Salesforce Events. Start time, end time, subject, description, location, and associated matter (as WhatId) are preserved. All-day events from The Legal Assistant migrate as Salesforce Events with IsAllDayEvent=true. Attorney and staff assignments migrate as EventWhoIds or as a custom Attendee__c field if the calendar model is more complex.

The Legal Assistant's document management (letters, contracts, court filings) exports as files. We re-upload them to Salesforce as ContentVersion records linked to the corresponding Matter or Contact record via ContentDocumentLink. Original filenames, created dates, and file types are preserved. If The Legal Assistant stores document version history, we attach the most recent version as the primary file and surface prior versions in a custom Version_History__c field for reference.

The Legal Assistant's auto-billing rules, client birthday emails, and reminder alert schedules are automation constructs that do not migrate. We export the rule definitions (trigger conditions, actions, schedules) as a JSON reference file your Salesforce admin uses to rebuild equivalent Flows in Salesforce. Birthday email automations become Salesforce Flow triggered by Contact.Birthdate; billing rules become Flow or Apex triggers on Matter records.

The Legal Assistant practice-area modules contain fields specific to each specialty (e.g., insurance policy number for PI, custody agreement terms for family law). We create Salesforce custom fields with the __c suffix for each. Data type mapping follows the source type: text fields become Text(255), pick-lists become pick-lists, date fields become Date. Long-text fields (case notes, filing descriptions) become Long Text Area. All custom fields are included in the field-level diff during the sample migration phase.