As your firm prepares to migrate to Law App, one of the most important early steps is organizing your document templates and preparing your financial records. These actions will streamline the migration process and help ensure your team is ready to operate smoothly in the new system.
1. Start with Your Document Templates
Your firm will receive a base set of customized templates as part of onboarding. These include documents such as your own cost agreements and other firm-specific forms. These become part of your firm’s intellectual property within Law App.
Beyond the templates provided during onboarding, you’ll need to decide whether:
- Law App’s document team will be engaged to build your additional templates (note: this is a billable service), or
- A team member from your firm will be trained to manage and build templates using Law App’s merge fields.
Even if your firm chooses to outsource template work to Law App, we recommend that at least one person learns how to create and update templates internally for future flexibility.
Even if your firm chooses to outsource template work to Law App, we recommend that at least one person learns how to create and update templates internally for future flexibility.
Law App does include a host of included standard templates and court forms for each Australian and New Zealand Region
Template Preparation Checklist
- Save each template as a standalone Word document (.docx)
- Remove templates from your current system and store them externally
- Organize templates in a shared folder or drive with clear naming conventions (e.g. “Client Retainer Letter”, “Family Law Costs Agreement”)
- Only include templates that are current and in active use
2. Archive Unused or Closed Files
Now is an ideal time to archive closed or inactive matters. Doing so will ensure that your new Law App environment contains only relevant, active data and will make your system easier to navigate post-migration.
- Archive all files that no longer need to be active
- Clearly identify any files that require special handling
- Review your file structure to streamline your migration footprint
3. Prepare for End-of-Month Reconciliations
As part of your migration, financial data will be transferred in a specific sequence, beginning with trust balances. To support this process, your firm must be ready to finalize key financial processes at the end of the month.
Make sure your bookkeeper is prepared to:
- Complete trust account reconciliations
- Finalize the general ledger and bank reconciliations
These reconciliations ensure that trust balances and other financial data are accurate before they are carried into the Law App system.
4. Suggested Early Action Steps
Before the technical migration begins, focus on:
- Organizing and cleaning up your document templates
- Deciding who will manage document merge field setup
- Archiving files you no longer need
- Confirming that your bookkeeper is ready for month-end reconciliations
By getting started on these items early, your firm can help reduce stress during the migration and set up a clean, effective foundation within Law App. If you need guidance on any of these tasks, our support team is ready to assist.
