Importing an Attorney Database Into Your CRM

A national attorney database is a large file. The USA Lawyer Database has 128,245 records and 33 fields, and getting it into a CRM cleanly takes a little planning. A rushed import creates duplicates, drops fields, and leaves you cleaning data for weeks.

Check the limits before you start

Most CRMs cap how many records you can import at once. Salesforce's Data Import Wizard has handled up to 50,000 records at a time, so a full national file would be split into 3 files. Pipedrive has had a similar row limit. Limits change and vary by plan, so confirm the current number in your account before you split anything. The whole file also fits comfortably in a single Excel or Google Sheets tab, which is useful for cleaning before you import.

Clean before you import

Sort by email and remove repeats first, because a duplicate created on import is harder to fix than one caught in a spreadsheet. Make sure state and country values follow one format, and save the file as UTF-8 so names with accents come through intact. Format phone and zip columns as plain text so a leading zero is not stripped.

Map the fields that matter

Full name, firm, title, email, phone, and address map to standard contact and company fields in almost every CRM. Bar admission, law school, graduation year, and practice areas rarely have a default home, so create custom fields for them before you import. Practice areas are worth keeping because they let you segment by specialty later, and our practice area data guide explains why they behave the way they do.

Tag the batch

Add a field that records the source and import date, such as the list name and month. It helps you measure which segments convert and gives you a clear record of where each contact came from. Assign an owner right away, since unassigned records tend to sit untouched.

Then send responsibly

A record in your CRM is not automatically cleared for every kind of outreach. Read our compliance checklist for B2B email before you launch, and see how to build the outreach list for the process that comes before the import.