The Conflict Check That Didn't Happen: How Small Firms Miss What Spreadsheets Can't Catch

A litigation partner at a four-person firm once described his conflict check process to me as “I search in Clio, I think really hard, and I ask the other partners if the name rings a bell.”

He was joking, but only slightly. That firm had been operating for eleven years and had accumulated over 2,000 matters. The “think really hard” step was genuinely load-bearing — he relied on his memory of past cases to catch the relationships that a keyword search in Clio wouldn’t surface.

This is how most small firms handle conflicts. And it works, mostly, until it doesn’t.

When Manual Checks Fail

The problem with manual conflict checks isn’t that lawyers are careless. It’s that the task is fundamentally harder than it looks.

A conflict check isn’t just searching for a name. Under ABA Model Rules 1.7, 1.9, and 1.10, you need to identify:

• Current client conflicts — are you already representing someone whose interests are adverse to this new client?
• Former client conflicts — did you previously represent someone whose matter is substantially related?
• Imputed conflicts — did any attorney or staff member at your firm previously work at a firm that represented an adverse party?
• Entity relationships — is the new client’s company a subsidiary of a company you’re suing in another matter?
• Related parties — is the opposing party’s spouse someone you represented in an unrelated matter three years ago?

A keyword search catches the obvious matches. It does not catch the entity that changed its name, the spouse who uses a different last name, the company that merged with another company, or the opposing party from a seven-year-old case that was entered with a typo in Clio.

What Your PM Software Misses

Clio’s conflict check is a text search across contacts, matters, and related parties. It’s useful as a starting point, but it has real limitations:

It only searches what’s in Clio. If you adopted Clio three years ago but your firm is eleven years old, eight years of matters aren’t in the database. Those matters live in old files, spreadsheets, or — most dangerously — the memory of the partner who handled them.

It doesn’t understand relationships. A search for “Smith” will find all Smiths, but it won’t tell you that John Smith of Smith & Associates is the same entity as the John T. Smith who was a witness in the Ortega matter.

It doesn’t check imputed conflicts. When you hire a new associate who previously worked at another firm, Clio doesn’t know what matters they worked on at their prior firm. That information needs to be manually obtained and entered.

It doesn’t run automatically. Someone has to remember to run the check before accepting the matter. In the rush to bring in a new client — especially in a small firm where every new engagement matters for cash flow — the check sometimes happens after the engagement letter is already signed.

Building a Real Conflict Check System

The approach I recommend for small firms is a multi-layer system that goes beyond what any single tool offers:

Layer 1: Intake-triggered check. When a potential client submits an intake form, the names of all parties are automatically cross-referenced against your entire client and matter database. This happens before you’ve had a consultation, before you’ve spent any time on the matter, and before you’ve created any ethical obligations.

Layer 2: Email history scan. Names from the intake form are searched across your email archive. If “Henderson” appears in your email in a different context than the new inquiry, you’ll know before the consultation, not after.

Layer 3: New party alerts. When opposing counsel discloses new parties in discovery, those names are automatically checked against your database. Conflicts that weren’t apparent at intake can emerge as cases develop.

Layer 4: Staff onboarding checks. When a new attorney or paralegal joins, their list of prior matters is cross-referenced against your active cases.

The Documentation Defense

Here’s an aspect of conflict checking that most small firms overlook: it’s not enough to check for conflicts. You need to document that you checked.

If a conflict surfaces after you’ve accepted a matter, your defense isn’t “I didn’t know.” Your defense is “I conducted a reasonable conflict check using these search terms, on this date, against this database, and the conflict was not detectable at that time.”

Without documentation, you have no defense. With a manual process, documentation is sporadic at best. With an automated system, every check is logged with timestamps, search terms, database coverage, and results. That log is your proof of due diligence, and it’s the difference between a bar inquiry that ends with an explanation and one that ends with a finding.

The cost of implementing automated conflict checking is trivial compared to the cost of missing a conflict. But the real benefit isn’t financial — it’s the confidence of knowing that when you accept a new client, you’ve done more than search and hope.