Who Actually Does the Work During Data Migration?

Data migration to LeanLaw is shared work: a firm doesn’t do the technical loading itself, but it isn’t hands-off either — providing accurate access to the current system and verifying what comes over sits with the firm, and neither side can skip that step.

What LeanLaw’s side handles

The technical work — taking data out of the source system and structuring it correctly inside LeanLaw — happens on LeanLaw’s side, not the firm’s. That’s the part a firm shouldn’t have to staff up for internally or figure out through trial and error, because it’s genuinely a specialized job: mapping clients and matters correctly from what’s already in QuickBooks Online, carrying over current billing rates, and getting open work in progress and outstanding receivables into a state where the firm can bill against them from day one. Historical invoices are handled differently — they stay in the old system rather than migrating over, since recreating a year of past bills is where migration errors tend to hide.

What stays the firm’s job

None of that removes the firm from the process. Somebody at the firm has to grant access to the current system, pull the exports if the source system requires that instead, and — this is the part that’s easy to underestimate — actually look at what comes over and confirm it’s right. A rate that’s slightly off, a matter attached to the wrong client, a receivable balance that doesn’t match what the firm’s own bookkeeper has on record: those are things the firm is positioned to catch and LeanLaw isn’t, because the firm is the one who knows what the numbers should say.

The step nobody can shortcut

That verification step is the one part of migration that can’t be outsourced entirely to either side. LeanLaw can structure the data correctly against what it was given, but it can’t independently know that a client’s matter was miscategorized in the old system to begin with, or that a receivable balance the source system shows is already stale. Catching that requires someone from the firm sitting down with the migrated data and checking it against what they already know to be true — and that’s real, if not extensive, work for the firm’s staff, not a box to check and move past.

A one-time onboarding fee may apply depending on your plan and firm size, which is worth factoring into what actually determines the cost and timeline alongside the staff time above, rather than treating migration as something that happens automatically in the background.

What this depends on

• How much data has to move — how many active clients and matters, and how much open work in progress and receivables are outstanding at the time of the switch.
• How clean and current the source system’s records already are, since a system with stale or duplicate matters creates more for someone to catch during verification.
• Who at the firm is available to do the access-granting and verification work, and how quickly they can turn it around.
• Which plan the firm is on, since that’s a factor in whether an onboarding fee applies.

The question to ask before you commit

The honest question isn’t whether migration requires outside help — it’s who, specifically, at the firm is going to sit down and check the migrated numbers against what they already know before the firm starts billing out of the new system.

Related questions

Will you guys handle the migration of our stuff? The technical structuring and loading happens on LeanLaw’s side; granting access to the current system and verifying the result lands correctly is the firm’s part, and both are needed to get it right.

What about the migration — do you guys handle that, or do we need outside help? It isn’t a self-serve process the firm runs alone, but it also isn’t fully hands-off — the firm still needs someone available to provide access and confirm the migrated data before relying on it. Whether a firm’s existing QuickBooks Online setup needs cleanup first is a related question worth asking early.