Conflict-of-interest checks: a practical guide for growing firms

This article is general information, not legal advice. Your obligations are set by the Rules of Professional Conduct in your jurisdiction — consult them.

A conflict discovered after you've signed a client is expensive in every way that matters: fees, reputation, and sometimes disqualification. The good news is that conflict checking is one of the most automatable parts of intake.

Why conflicts get missed

They get missed because the check depends on someone remembering to run it, against a memory of past matters rather than the actual record. As a firm grows, that stops scaling.

What to screen against

• Existing and former clients.
• Opposing and adverse parties across all matters.
• Other contacts on a matter — insurers, co-defendants, experts, witnesses.
• Open intakes that haven't converted yet.

Make it part of intake

The reliable pattern is to run the check inside the intake workflow — before a matter can be opened — searching your entire contact and case history, and recording the result on the intake so it can't be skipped.

Document the result

Whether a screen comes back clear or flags a potential conflict, record the finding and the resolution. That record is what protects the firm later.

DocketGate runs conflict checks and statute-of-limitations verification as part of intake. See intake & compliance or the full feature list.