LawMaster migration guide

LawMaster has no end date.
That is the problem, not the reprieve.

Actionstep acquired LawMaster in September 2022 and the product is reported to be winding down, with no end date announced publicly. FilePro firms at least have something to work backwards from. LawMaster firms have the harder version of the same situation, and the advantage of time if they use it.

LawMaster is being wound down. No end date has been announced Owned by Actionstep since 13 September 2022

Last reviewed

Is LawMaster being discontinued, and when?

LawMaster was acquired by Actionstep in September 2022 and is reported to be winding down, with no end date announced publicly. That leaves firms without a deadline to plan against. The practical response is to set your own migration timeline now, while you still have a choice of destination and room to negotiate.

What we know, and how we know it

Where these facts come from.

We are a competitor of Actionstep, so you should not take our word about their plans. Here is every claim on this page with its source attached, including where our best source has an interest of their own.

Claim Published by How confident
Actionstep acquired LawMaster on 13 September 2022 Actionstep, "Actionstep Acquires Legal Software Company LawMaster" the company concerned Primary source
LawMaster had close to 4,000 daily subscribers at the time of acquisition Actionstep, "Actionstep Acquires Legal Software Company LawMaster" the company concerned Primary source
At acquisition, Actionstep said it would continue to operate as separate businesses Actionstep, "Actionstep Acquires Legal Software Company LawMaster" the company concerned Primary source
LawMaster is being wound down, with no end date announced publicly Law Support Australia, platform comparison a vendor that sells a competing product Reported

Facts checked on 29 July 2026. Anything marked "reported" we could not find stated publicly by Actionstep. Ask them to confirm it in writing before you plan around it.

What is known about LawMaster's position
When What happened How well established
13 September 2022 Actionstep acquires LawMaster, then serving close to 4,000 daily subscribers across Australian firms Actionstep announcement
September 2022 Actionstep says the businesses will continue to operate separately and commits to continuity of service Actionstep announcement
31 August 2023 Actionstep also acquires FilePro, bringing a second Australian platform into the group Actionstep announcement
2026 LawMaster reported to be winding down and not recommended for new implementations Reported by a competing vendor
No date announced No public end-of-life date for LawMaster, unlike FilePro Absence of any announcement we could find

The last row is the important one and it is a negative finding: we searched for an announced LawMaster end date and did not find one. That is not proof none exists. Ask your account manager directly, in writing, and ask for notice period as well as date.

The part that is not optional

Your trust records outlive your software.

Trust records must be kept for seven years after the last transaction entry in the record, or after the matter is finalised, whichever is later.

Legal Profession Uniform Law, section 147

A practice with a general trust account must keep a trust account ledger with a separate trust ledger account for each person, in each matter for which trust money is received.

Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015, rule 47

What this means for a migration. The obligation attaches to the records, not to the system holding them. A vendor switching off its product does not discharge it, and neither does moving to a new one. Whatever you choose, you need the trust ledger history to land somewhere you can produce it from for an external examination, in a form an examiner will accept. Settle that before you settle anything else.

The Uniform Law applies in New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia. Other states and territories have their own legislation with broadly similar obligations. Confirm the position with your own regulator rather than relying on a software vendor's summary. This is not legal advice.

Before anything is switched off

Do the extraction audit now, not when a date appears.

The work below takes weeks and can be done calmly today. Done under a deadline it becomes the reason a migration slips. LawMaster firms tend to be larger, which means more of everything below and more people whose work depends on it.

  • Establish what your export actually contains. Before choosing anything, find out what comes out of LawMaster and in what format. This single fact constrains every option you have, and most firms discover it far too late to act on it.
  • The full trust ledger, per matter, at transaction level. Seven years of it, readable without LawMaster. For a firm of this size the volume is the difficulty, so test the extract on a sample before you assume the whole thing will work.
  • General accounting, if you run it here. LawMaster firms often keep more of the practice's accounting in the system than a small firm would. Work out what is in there and where each piece is going, because not every destination covers it.
  • Matter records including the archive. Open matters are the easy part. Closed and archived files carry the retention obligation and are usually the larger number.
  • Documents with their matter association intact. Verify on a sample that the link back to the matter survives. At mid-market volumes, an export that loses the association is not recoverable by hand.
  • Precedents, templates and any bespoke configuration. Years of refinement, rebuilt rather than migrated in almost every case. Get the rebuild estimated in hours by whoever will actually do it, early, because it is usually the longest pole.
  • Reporting your partners actually rely on. List the reports that get run monthly and who reads them. Reports are the thing firms forget to specify and then miss immediately after go-live.

Take this to every vendor

Questions to ask, including of us.

These are the questions that separate a migration that works from one that runs out of road in December. Ask all of them, of everyone, and get the answers in writing.

  1. 01

    Is there an end-of-life date for LawMaster, and what notice will we get?

    Ask for both. A date with two months of notice and a date with two years of notice are completely different planning problems, and you are entitled to know which one you have.

  2. 02

    What happens to our support and compliance updates in the meantime?

    A product being wound down usually stops receiving investment well before it stops running. The compliance updates are the part that matters for a trust account.

  3. 03

    Does our trust ledger history come across, at transaction level?

    The question that separates real answers from marketing across every vendor, including us. "We support trust accounting" does not answer it.

  4. 04

    What does implementation cost, all in, for a firm our size?

    Mid-market implementations carry configuration and training costs that dwarf the licence. Ask for one number covering migration, configuration, training and any parallel run.

  5. 05

    What is the contract term, and what does leaving look like?

    You are moving because a vendor decision was made for you. It is a reasonable moment to ask what the exit looks like before you commit to the next multi-year term.

  6. 06

    Can we run in parallel, and for how long?

    At your size, a parallel run is not a luxury. Establish it as a requirement while you still have the time to insist on it.

  7. 07

    Where is our data hosted, and can we choose the region?

    Checkable rather than a matter of opinion. Ask which region, and whether onshore is the default or an option you have to request.

  8. 08

    Who else our size has this vendor moved, and can we speak to them?

    A reference from a firm with your matter volume and your accounting complexity is worth more than any feature list. If nobody can be named, that is information too.

Where MatterFirst honestly fits

What we can take on, and what we cannot.

We are an Australian-built platform hosted in the AWS region you choose. Here is what imports today and what is still being built, separated out, so you can check it against your own deadline rather than take a summary on trust.

What we migrate today

  • Contacts, matters and documents, imported from CSV with a staged review before anything is committed
  • Time entries, invoices and billing codes
  • Lead and enquiry records
  • Matter workflows rebuilt in the visual builder, which is design work rather than a data import

What is still in build

  • Trust ledger history is in active development, targeted ahead of the FilePro close date. MatterFirst has full trust accounting today, but the importer for prior trust transactions is not shipped yet. Ask us where it is up to before you plan around it
  • PEXA and InfoTrack as self-serve connections. Both are set up with us rather than switched on by the firm, so start that conversation early rather than late

Everything on that first list works today, and the trust ledger importer is in active development. Having no deadline is the one real advantage you have here, and it is worth spending some of it getting a straight answer from every vendor, including us, about what actually happens to seven years of trust ledger.

FAQ

Questions firms are asking

Is LawMaster being discontinued?
LawMaster is reported to be winding down following Actionstep's acquisition in September 2022, and independent comparisons describe it as not recommended for new implementations. No public end-of-life date has been announced that we could find, which is different from there being no plan.
When does LawMaster shut down?
No date has been announced publicly. That is why this guide exists: without a date, firms tend to defer the decision, and the cost of deferring is that the choice narrows as more of the market moves at once.
Should I wait until Actionstep announces a date?
Waiting hands the timing to someone else. A firm that chooses its own timeline picks its destination, negotiates properly and runs a parallel period. A firm that waits for an announcement does all three under pressure, alongside everyone else in the same position.
Do I have to move to Actionstep?
No. Actionstep owns LawMaster and is the default path, which is convenient rather than compulsory. With no deadline in force, LawMaster firms currently have more freedom to run a genuine evaluation than FilePro firms do.
What happens to our trust records if we migrate?
The obligation follows the records rather than the software. Under the Legal Profession Uniform Law, trust records must be kept for seven years after the last transaction entry or the finalisation of the matter, whichever is later. Settle where that history will live, and what your external examiner will accept, before you choose a platform.
Can MatterFirst take a LawMaster firm?
Contacts, matters, documents, time entries, invoices and leads import today, and MatterFirst has full trust accounting. The importer for historical trust transactions is in active development, so ask us where it is up to. The other honest constraint is size: we are a better fit for small and mid-size practices than for the largest firms in the LawMaster base.
Where is my data stored?
In the AWS region your firm chooses. Sydney (ap-southeast-2) is the default for Australian firms. Matter data, documents and Document AI processing all stay in that region: documents are not moved to another region to be OCRed or analysed.
How much does MatterFirst cost?
Pricing is per workspace rather than per seat, starting at $149 per month for Solo. Each plan includes a set number of users, a monthly pool of Document AI credits, the client portal and automations. Extra users are billed only past the included seats. Full plan inclusions are on the pricing page.
Can I get my data out if I leave?
Yes. Your matters, contacts, documents and time records are exportable on request, and there is no lock-in contract. We would rather you were able to leave and chose not to.
Is there a free trial?
Yes, a seven-day guided trial on Solo, Practice or Firm. It is guided rather than self-serve because a practice management system tells you very little until it has your real matters in it, and we would rather help you load them than leave you looking at an empty workspace.
Who builds MatterFirst?
NorthCape Technology, a Melbourne-based software company. MatterFirst is built in Australia for Australian legal practice, which is why trust accounting and Xero are first-class rather than regional add-ons, and why PEXA and InfoTrack are on the roadmap rather than absent from it.
Is MatterFirst suitable for a firm of my size?
It is designed for solo practitioners up to firms of roughly twenty seats. Below that, Solo carries the full platform for one user. Above it, the platform works but you should expect to talk to us about migration and rollout rather than signing up online.

MatterFirst is a legal practice management platform for Australian law firms, built by NorthCape Technology, covering matters, documents, trust accounting, billing and a client portal, with data hosted in the AWS region the firm chooses.

This guide suits an Australian firm on LawMaster that has not set a migration timeline, particularly mid-size practices where the extraction audit is a genuine piece of work. It is less relevant if you have already agreed a move to Actionstep, where the useful sections are the extraction checklist and the trust records obligation.

Sources

Set your own timeline while you still can.

Happy to walk through your extraction audit whether or not MatterFirst ends up on your list. We will tell you where we are the wrong fit.

Book a demo Talk to us