Many providers to law firms treat their customers with honesty and integrity, however, occasionally you may encounter hostile / predatory providers.

A hostile provider is one that will actively work to make it difficult for the client to leave.  This may include them taking actions like the following:

• Refusing to provide free backups of the firm's data
  
• Refusing to provide free API access to the firm's data
• Refusing to allow firms to make automated backups of their data
• Throttling backup speeds so backups will take excessively long
• Providing incomplete backups of the firm's data
  
• Providing encrypted backups of the firm's data and not sharing the password/encryption keys
• Disabling user accounts
• Blocking IP addresses
• Actively interfering with the firm's ability to transition to a new provider

Unfortunately, most hostile providers are not savvy enough to understand that, short term, their actions might enable them to hold on to a few extra clients, but long-term, their actions will cause a significant detriment to their brand.

If you are working with a potentially hostile provider, both the migration consultant and the law firm should read this article to understand the best practices for dealing with these situations.  Please note that while these are best-practices, there is no silver bullet for these scenarios: it will likely be unnecessarily time consuming.
 

1.  Never Mention You are Migrating until You are Done

Many providers, even ones that aren't hostile, will start treating the firm differently once they think you're leaving.  Never mention that you are migrating until you have all your data in-hand. 

2.  Never Mention your Consultant, Universal Migrator, or Other Tools

Similar to the above, never mention Universal Migrator or any tools, consultants, or other partners that are assisting in the migration.  Some hostile providers are even known to send "cease and desist" notices to consultants who are helping firms leave.

3.  Pick a Good Project Start Date

You should review your contract and determine your automatic renewal date and the last date you can give a notice of non-renewal.  You should start your migration at least 90 days before you must give notice of non-renewal and you should provide your notice 7 days prior to the contractually obligated date.

4.  Use an On-Premise Migration Workstation

Even if you are doing a migration from a cloud-based system, you should use a migration workstation that is physically located within the client's offices.  This is done so that the IP address of your migration workstation is the same as normal traffic and will not stand out as a brand new IP accessing the firm's data from a new location.

6.  Use a "Named" Login

Always use a login that is associated to the law firm that has been used in the past.

Do not use logins like Migrations@SmithConsulting.com or SmithConsulting@LawFirm.com as these will stand out.

7.  If you encounter resistance, fight ferociously right away

Many law firms make the mistake of simply shrugging when a provider refuses to allow them access to their data.  This sets them up for a long-term hostage situation.

In many jurisdictions, technology providers must enable law firms to have unencumbered access to the data they are housing.  It is often against bar regulations and either illegal or unethical for technology providers to withhold access to your firm's own data.

You should do the following:

• Report their actions to your local/national bar associations
• Threaten to publicly disclose their actions
• Formally demand they unblock your ability to create backups of your own data
  

In your demand, you should make the following points:

• They are willfully obstructing your firm's operations
  
• The export they (may) have offered is not in an industry standard format and is lacking key data
  
• Universal Migrator already has a pre-built backup connector for their system; they have taken deliberate actions to prohibit you from using this tool.
• Universal Migrator is the industry-standard tool for transferring legal data between technology platforms and it creates non-proprietary industry standard backups.
• Their conduct may constitute an unfair business practice, a violation of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and an interference with contractual and professional obligations.
  
• Digital data and electronic client files are recognized forms of property, and wrongful control or withholding of such data is actionable as conversion. (See Kremen v. Cohen (9th Cir. 2003) 337 F.3d 1024, 1033; Fremont Indemnity Co. v. Fremont General Corp. (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 97, 119.)
  
• Their actions satisfy the standard for injunctive relief under Cal. Civ. Code § 3422, as its continuing obstruction directly threatens our firm’s property and contractual rights and causes ongoing, irreparable injury. Moreover, by withholding functional access to our own client data, they are exercising unauthorized control over proprietary digital property; conduct California courts have recognized as actionable interference with data ownership interests.
  
• Their Term-of-Service like state something like "Your data is always yours and always accessible" and they are not being consistent with it.
  

8.  Never Pay a Ransom Fee

Some hostile providers will offer to provide firms with a copy of their data if the firm pays a ransom fee.  Never pay a ransom fee.  In our experience, nearly 100% of the time these backups have something wrong with them such as:

• Data that is missing or incomplete
• Data that is encrypted
• Data that is incorrectly structured
• Data that is old

Most of the time when we've seen a law firm pay a ransom fee, they end up having to pay it multiple times and then not actually being able to use the backup they are provided with.