Lessons · Law foundations · a conflict check
The conflict check, and when it happens
A conflict check compares every name connected to a new matter against the names the office already acts for or against, and it is done before the office takes the matter on.
Hone is a place to practise a career, one idea a day. This is one of its lessons, written out in full and free to read without an account.
What it is for
Acting for two sides of the same dispute, even by accident, can cost the office the matter, the fee and the client. The check itself takes minutes; the reason it fails is almost always that a name was never collected, not that the search was bad.
How to think about it
Collect names first and widely: the would-be client, everybody on the other side, related companies, the people behind them, witnesses who matter. Then search, then look at the matches by hand.
Worked example
Collect every name: the caller, the other side, and the companies behind both.Trading names, former names, directors. A search is only as good as the list.
Search the system for each one.Every name, not the obvious two.
Read the matches: is this the same person or company, and what did we do for them?A match is a question, not an answer. Somebody has to look.
Record the result on the file, with the date and who did it.So that in two years anybody can see the check was run and what it found.
Your turn
Write the word that says when a conflict check is run, relative to opening the file.
A conflict check is run the matter is opened
Solve one, graded on the server
The trap
Searching only the client and the opposing party. Group companies, former names and the individuals behind a small company are where the real match usually hides.