Conflict of Interest Check Register (Law Firms)

About the Conflict of Interest Check Register (Law Firms)

Before a firm accepts a new matter it has to know whether it already acts for, or against, anyone in it. This register keeps your matters on your own device, each with the people and organisations in it and the role of each: client, opposing party, someone connected to either, co-party, witness. A check takes the names of a new enquiry and compares every one with every name in the register, in the ways one name is really written twice: in another order (Smith, John and John Smith), with initials (R. K. Sharma and Rajesh Kumar Sharma), with or without a title or Ltd, as a known short form (Bill and William, Mohd and Mohammed), spelled another way that sounds alike, or under an alias you recorded.

Every match says what to look at, from the role the person has in the new matter and the role they had before. An opposing party who is a current client is a likely conflict. A former client, someone who consulted you and was not taken on, or a person connected to a client is a point to review. Each check is saved to the log with the decision taken (cleared, cleared with consent, cleared with a screen, referred or declined) and notes, and can become a matter with the same names. The free preview runs the whole check and shows its counts and first matches; a Pro pass shows every match, saves the check to the log and unlocks its PDF report, printing and text. Your register, its imports, exports and backups are never locked.

Common uses

• Small firms and solo practitioners who have no conflicts software and keep their clients in a spreadsheet.
• Intake staff who must check an enquiry before the first meeting and record who decided what.
• Firms taking on a lawyer from another firm: list the clients that lawyer brings as matters, then run their names through a check.
• Chambers, advocates’ offices and in-house legal teams that want a log of every conflict check they ran.

How names are matched

Each name is split into words, lower-cased and stripped of accents and punctuation; titles (Mr, Dr, Shri, Smt, M/s) are taken off the front and company endings (Ltd, Pvt Ltd, LLP, LLC, Inc, & Co) off the end. Two names are then compared word by word, and the kind of agreement is named: the same name; the same words in another order; the same apart from a title or a company ending; a known short form or spelling (a built-in list of common ones, such as Bill and William, Kate and Katherine, Mohd and Mohammed, Laxmi and Lakshmi, and of company words such as Industries and Industry or Traders and Trading); words that sound alike (a rough sound key for English and South Asian spellings, so Bhatt and Bhat, Catherine and Katherine, Smyth and Smith match); initials for the other name’s words, when at least one whole word agrees; the same first words with more words added (a middle name or a suffix); one or two letters different; and, only in broad checks, all the words of a shorter name among the words of a longer one.

A single word of a person’s name (a surname alone) never matches by itself, and words with digits (Fund 2 and Fund 3) match only when they are the same. Names in other scripts match when they are the same or the same words in another order. The check cannot know that two different names belong to one person, such as a married name or a company renamed after a merger, unless you record the other name as an alias; an abbreviation (TCS for Tata Consultancy Services) or a brand name is found the same way.

What a match tells you

The wording follows the structure of conflict rules in general, and Settings can add the rule numbers of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct as a guide. Under Rule 1.7(a), a concurrent conflict exists when a representation is directly adverse to another client, or when there is a significant risk that it will be materially limited by duties to another client, a former client or a third person; Rule 1.7(b) lets the lawyer go ahead if the lawyer reasonably believes the work can be done competently and diligently for each client, the law allows it, no claim is asserted by one client against another in the same proceeding, and each affected client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing. Rule 1.9 covers a former client: no matter that is the same as, or substantially related to, the earlier one, where the new client’s interests are materially adverse, without the former client’s informed consent confirmed in writing, and no use of the former client’s information to their disadvantage. Rule 1.10(a) carries these conflicts to the other lawyers of the firm, with limited exceptions, such as a screen for a lawyer who comes from another firm. Rule 1.18 protects a person who consulted the firm about a possible matter, even if no client relationship followed.

Every country, state and bar has its own rules (for example the SRA Standards and Regulations in England and Wales, and the Bar Council of India Rules for advocates in India), and a firm’s own policy can be stricter. The register points to the entries you recorded; whether they make a conflict, and whether consent or a screen can cure it, is for a lawyer to decide.

The log, the decisions and what is printed

A saved check keeps the names searched, what was found, how closely the search was run, how many matters and names the register held at that time, who ran it and who decided what, and when. The decisions are not decided yet, cleared, cleared with informed consent (a waiver), cleared with an ethical screen, referred to the partner or conflicts committee and declined because of a conflict. A check keeps its result as it was: changing the register later does not rewrite it, and running the check again gives the new result. Matters that were declined stay in the register, so a later check can find a person who consulted the firm.

The PDF report of a check has the names, the matches with what to look at, the decision, the notes and the signature lines for the person who checked and the partner or conflicts officer who approves. The register PDF lists every matter and every name, and the names that are a client in one matter and the opposing party in another. Reports follow the same unlock as the result they come from.

Where your register is kept

The register is kept in this browser’s storage (IndexedDB) on this device and is never uploaded. With a passcode, every record is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key that only your passcode opens (PBKDF2-SHA-256, 600,000 iterations, as the OWASP Password Storage Cheat Sheet recommends), and the register locks itself after the minutes you choose. The encrypted backup moves it to another device. A lost passcode or passphrase cannot be recovered by anyone. Clients’ names are confidential: use a device and a browser profile that only the people who may see the register can open.

Limitations

• It searches only what you entered. A person or company that is not in the register, or is there under a name you did not record (a former name, an abbreviation, a brand), is not found.
• A match is a pointer, not a finding. The register does not decide whether there is a conflict, whether consent can cure it or what your rules require.
• Names are matched by name alone (no dates of birth, addresses or registration numbers), so common names return matches that are different people.
• One device: the register lives in one browser and does not sync between people or devices. Move it with the encrypted backup.
• The ABA Model Rules are a model, named only as a guide. The tool does not read your practice-management system or any court or company register.

Privacy

On this device; its files download once

Matters, names, aliases and checks stay in this browser on your device (IndexedDB), encrypted when you set a passcode. Matching and reports are made on the device, and backups are encrypted on the device. Nothing is uploaded.