Conflict-of-Interest Checks for Small Firms

A conflict-of-interest check asks one question before you take on a new matter: have we acted for or against any of these people before, or do we have a relationship with them that would stop us acting properly now? In a small firm the temptation is to answer from memory. That works until the day someone has forgotten a matter from six years ago, or a colleague acted for a company under its old name. The check needs to be a search, and the search needs good data.

What you search against

A useful check searches every matter the firm has handled, open and closed, for:

• The prospective client.
• Every other party to the matter, including opponents.
• Related people and entities: directors, parent and subsidiary companies, spouses, guarantors, insurers.
• Previous names and trading names.

The last two are where conflicts hide. Ask the prospective client for related parties at intake, as a standard question on the form, not as an afterthought.

Record everyone in a role

The search only works if past matters recorded the people involved in a structured way, each person or company linked to the matter with a role: client, opponent, witness, other side's lawyer, related party. A name buried in a letter or a note will not be found reliably. This is the same failure described in why spreadsheets break at fifty records: once you have a few hundred matters, a list with a free-text "parties" column cannot be searched with confidence. A case-based system that links contacts to matters by role, and keeps closed matters searchable, is what makes a search trustworthy.

Search generously, decide carefully

Search on partial names and variations. Spellings change; companies abbreviate; people change surnames. It is better to review twenty false matches than to miss one real one. Then someone with authority reviews the hits and decides, for each: no conflict, conflict that can be managed (with consent where your professional rules allow), or conflict that means declining.

Record the check

For every new matter, keep a short record of the check:

• Who ran it and when.
• The names searched.
• The hits found and what each was.
• The decision, who made it and why.
• Any consents obtained, and copies of them.

If a conflict is ever alleged, this record is what shows you acted in good faith. Store it with the matter.

Check again when things change

A conflict check is not only an intake step. Run it again when a new party joins a matter, when a company in the matter is acquired, or when a new colleague joins the firm bringing their own history of clients. Ask new joiners for a list of matters they have acted on that could conflict, within what their professional duties allow them to share.

Declined matters count too

When you decline a matter, you may still have received confidential information from the prospective client. Record the enquiry, the parties, and what information was received, so that it appears in future checks. Professional rules on this vary, so check what applies where you practise.

Keep it proportionate

A small firm does not need a conflicts department. It needs structured party data on every matter, a search it trusts, and the habit of recording the result. Build those three things and the check takes minutes. For what a case record should hold in general, see what is case management.