Clio to Filevine
Clio to Filevine is the classic move for a personal injury firm that has outgrown a general practice system. We design your Filevine project types around the workflow you actually run, then migrate matters, contacts, documents and custom field data into them without losing history.
Clio is very good at recording what happened on a matter. Filevine is built to control what happens next. For a personal injury or volume litigation firm, that distinction is the whole argument. A Clio matter stage gives you a status label, while a Filevine phase carries required fields, automatic tasks and deadline chains that calculate from an anchor date.
The second reason is field structure. Clio custom fields are a flat list attached to a matter. A plaintiff file needs grouped and repeating data: several providers, many treatment dates, multiple insurance policies, a running negotiation history. Filevine sections handle that natively, including list-style sections that hold many rows. Firms running spreadsheets beside Clio are already paying for this gap.
You give up billing maturity and integration breadth. Clio billing and trust accounting are stronger than what most Filevine configurations deliver, and the Clio marketplace is larger. Filevine also expects continuing configuration ownership inside the firm. Firms that move for the workflow and then leave the configuration untouched end up worse off than they were in Clio.
Clio
The broadest general practice management platform in legal, covering matters, billing, trust accounting and a large integration marketplace.
- Largest integration marketplace in legal software
- Mature billing and trust accounting
- Clio Grow for intake and CRM
- Well documented open API
- Deep training, support and consultant network
- Less phase-driven than PI-specific systems
- No native medical records or treatment module
- Matter custom fields are flat rather than sectioned
- Heavy plaintiff reporting usually needs add-ons
Filevine
A project-based case management platform that firms configure heavily around their own phases, sections and custom fields.
- Deep configurability per project type
- Phases and deadline chains drive the work
- Strong document automation and templates
- Lead Docket for intake and marketing attribution
- Reporting across the fields you configure
- Configuration-heavy to build and maintain
- Billing and trust accounting are lighter than general practice tools
- Needs an internal owner to stay clean
- Cost of change grows with the configuration
What moves, and where it lands
How Clio records map to Filevine. Every row is reviewed with your team before anything is imported.
| Clio | Filevine | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Matters | →Projects | Project type determines the fields, so finalize project types before mapping anything. |
| Contacts | →Contacts and Org Contacts | Clio person and company contacts split along different lines in Filevine. |
| Matter Custom Fields | →Sections and Custom Fields | Grouping flat Clio fields into sections is a design decision, not a mapping. |
| Documents | →Docs | Recreate the folder template in Filevine first, then load files by path. |
| Activities | →Filevine time entries or archive | Migrate time history only if Filevine will carry your billing. |
| Bills and Client Funds Accounts | →Case balances plus PDF archive | Keep trust in a billing system; bring balances and archive bill PDFs. |
| Notes | →Notes and Activity Feed | Preserve author and timestamp so the feed reads as real case history. |
| Tasks and Calendar Entries | →Tasks and Calendar | Open items only; rebuild Clio task templates as Filevine automation. |
| Clio Grow Leads | →Lead Docket Leads | Only when Lead Docket is in scope; otherwise export leads and archive. |
What to watch for
- The Clio custom field to Filevine section mapping is the core of this project. A firm with sixty flat Clio fields usually ends up with six or eight Filevine sections, several of them repeating lists. Get the section design signed off before anyone builds a mapping spreadsheet, because redoing it after data loads is expensive.
- Filevine deadline chains need reliable anchor dates. Date of loss, date of filing and date of service are often stored inconsistently in Clio, sometimes in a custom field and sometimes in a note. Normalize those dates during the migration or your deadline automation will quietly produce nothing.
- Trust accounting is a genuine downgrade. Clio client funds accounts with three-way reconciliation are stronger than most Filevine setups, so plan to keep trust in Clio, in your accounting system, or in a dedicated platform, and migrate balances only.
- Document volume is usually larger than firms expect, because Clio has been holding medical records. Get a file count and total size early and decide whether documents load before, during or after the case data. Document loads commonly take longer than everything else combined.
- Clio matter stages do not map one to one onto Filevine phases. Stages are labels; phases carry required fields, tasks and automation. Expect to redesign rather than translate, and expect the phase list to end up longer and more specific than your stage list was.
- Integrations need a written inventory. Court rules calendaring, e-signature, accounting sync, phone systems and any Zapier work built on Clio triggers all have to be rebuilt against Filevine, and a few will have no direct replacement.
Eight to sixteen weeks is realistic, and the split is usually two thirds configuration and one third data. What stretches it is the number of project types, document volume, whether Lead Docket is in scope, and how much case data has to be lifted out of Clio notes into structured fields. Do not set a go live date before the section design is agreed.
Questions about this move
Should we keep Clio for billing after moving to Filevine?
What happens to our Clio custom fields?
Do Clio Grow leads move into Lead Docket?
Will our documents keep their folders?
Move from Clio to Filevine.
Tell us how many matters, users, and documents are involved. We will come back with a plan, a field map, and a realistic timeline.