A Law-Firm Intake Portal: Has the Matter Passed a Conflict Review or Just a Name Search?

A prospective client's name appearing in your contact database does not decide whether your practice may accept their new matter. If you commission an intake portal, separate searching for relevant relationships from the authorised professional decision about acting. “No matching name found” should not become an automatic legal clearance.

This is software-planning guidance, not advice on whether a firm may act in a particular case. The regulatory example below is the Solicitors Regulation Authority's guidance for SRA-regulated practices and professionals. It does not establish the rules for practices regulated elsewhere. Have your responsible professional define and approve the actual policy before implementing it.

Review the proposed matter, not merely the contact

Ask what the reviewer needs to understand: the prospective client, other relevant parties, their roles and the nature of the proposed work. A contact search answers whether something in your records resembles a supplied name. It does not establish the relationship between the parties or the significance of previous work.

The SRA's conflicts guidance expressly includes prospective clients in its references to clients. It describes both own-interest conflicts and conflicts between duties to clients in the same or related matters. It also treats former-client confidentiality as a separate consideration. Those distinctions explain why a single customer-profile tick cannot represent the complete decision.

For your intake brief, propose a matter-specific review record linked to the version of the parties and work description considered. Keep a previous review visible without assuming it clears every later instruction from that client. This is a proposed control, not a feature tested in a particular practice-management product.

Use possible matches as questions for a reviewer

A matching name can identify someone unrelated to the matter. A differently written name can belong to a relevant party. Decide how staff record the information supplied and which additional identifiers they are authorised to use when clarifying a candidate match.

Do not merge records as part of screening merely to make the results easier to read. Record reconciliation and conflict review have different consequences. A reviewer might establish that two names describe the same entity while still needing a separate professional decision about the proposed work.

Likewise, an empty search result means only that the performed search returned nothing. Show what was searched and when. The responsible professional must determine what other checks are needed, including interests or relationships that may not be represented in the contact list. The application should not invent a complete risk assessment from a text comparison.

Make the professional decision distinct from consent collection

The SRA guidance says client consent does not remove the prohibition where there is an own-interest conflict. For certain client-conflict situations, it describes limited exceptions subject to specific conditions. It does not provide a universal “client agreed, therefore proceed” rule.

Do not translate that guidance into a generic waiver button. Have the responsible professional approve any decision categories, required evidence and authority to rely on an exception. This article deliberately does not provide an exception checklist for readers to apply themselves.

A useful proposed record distinguishes awaiting review, further information needed, a recorded decision not to proceed and a professional decision permitting specified work. Whatever labels your practice chooses, record the decision-maker, time, considered scope and any restrictions. A receptionist completing the form should not accidentally perform the professional approval.

Protect the information revealed by the check

A screening result may reveal that the practice has a relationship with another party. Do not display internal matches or matter descriptions to the prospective client simply because they submitted the intake form. Decide which staff may see detailed results and what neutral acknowledgement the requester receives.

Keep the review evidence in an appropriately restricted location. An email saying “review required” need not repeat the other client's identity or confidential work. These are proposed access requirements, not a complete confidentiality or security assessment.

Decide how a change is handled. A new party, materially different instructions or a restriction no longer fitting the proposed work should route to the agreed professional reassessment. Do not overwrite the earlier decision so that it appears to have considered information supplied only later.

Demonstrate the acceptance boundary

Use fictional people, organisations and matters. Show a similar-name false match, a known client with new work, an unresolved review and changed party information after an earlier decision. Confirm that staff can preserve an enquiry without presenting it as an accepted engagement.

Then test access from the applicant side and from an intake account without approval authority. Neither should receive restricted screening details or be able to change the professional decision. Verify the history identifies exactly what was reviewed.

Put these outcomes in the application acceptance criteria. Bring an approved, non-confidential intake-policy outline to a workflow-app discussion. The deliverable is an accountable professional-review handoff, not a search tool advertised as legal clearance.

Source and limits

SRA: Conflicts of interest, displayed as updated 2 March 2020, supports the scoped regulatory distinctions above. The full guidance includes qualifications and conditions not reproduced as an operational legal checklist here. Matter versions, interface states, permissions and test cases are project proposals. No client matter, professional conclusion or deployed portal was assessed.