What a pre-matter intake record should hold
Picture a Tuesday morning at a small firm. A prospective client calls about a dispute with a commercial landlord. The receptionist writes the caller's name on a notepad, an attorney searches that one name in the practice software, finds nothing, and the consultation goes on the calendar. Two weeks later, someone notices that the landlord's parent company is a current client, listed under a different trade name. Nobody skipped the check. The check was only as good as the names it was given.
That scene is an illustration, not a TwoQM client. But it shows a common gap: most practice software organizes everything around a matter number, and the conflict check has to happen before that number exists. The information captured in that window is often the least structured in the office: phone notes, forwarded emails, and a free-text box. TwoQM builds custom software, CRM workflows, and connected systems for law firms that want that pre-matter record to be complete and searchable.
TwoQM builds the tooling. It does not give legal or ethics advice. Your firm's rules of professional conduct, your conflict policy, and your ethics counsel decide what gets checked and who clears it.
Here is an original example, not a measured result. Instead of one notes box, the intake record holds separate, structured fields:
Prospective client. Full legal name, other names used (former names, nicknames on documents), and for a business: entity name, trade names (d/b/a), and any parent or affiliated companies the caller mentions.
Adverse or opposing parties. One row per person or entity, each with a role, not a comma-separated list.
Other related parties. Spouses, co-owners, guarantors, employers, insurers, or any other roles your firm's policy says to search.
Matter type and a short, neutral description. Enough to judge whether matters are related, not the full story.
Source and intake details. Date, channel, and the staff member who took it.
Check status. Pending, possible match under review, cleared, or declined, with the responsible attorney's name and the date of the decision.
One person or entity per row, each with a role, is the difference between a list you can search and a paragraph you have to reread.
Collect what the check needs first
How much to ask before a check clears is a policy question for your firm, not a software default. For reference, the ABA's Model Rule 1.18 on duties to prospective clients addresses information learned from prospective clients and refers to taking reasonable measures to avoid exposure to more information than reasonably necessary to decide whether to represent someone. States adopt their own versions of the model rules, so your state's rule and your counsel govern.
Whatever line your firm draws, software can follow it. The intake form can ask for names and roles first and hold back the detailed narrative fields until the check is marked cleared, if that is the policy you choose.
Make the search match how names really appear
A conflict search that only finds exact spellings misses the names that matter most. A few design choices help:
Match with and without accents and punctuation, so Muñoz and Munoz, or O'Brien and OBrien, both surface.
Search each surname separately when someone uses two, which is common in many Spanish-speaking families, and search hyphenated names both ways.
Ignore business suffixes such as LLC or Inc. when comparing entity names, and search trade names alongside legal names.
Search every place your policy covers: current and former clients, adverse parties from past matters, and prior prospective clients your firm keeps on record.
The software shows possible matches. A person reviews each one and records the decision. Software never clears a conflict on its own.
Where the record goes after the check
When a check clears, the intake fields should flow into the new matter instead of being retyped, and the matter number should link back to the intake record so the history is easy to find. When a prospect is declined, the record can stay searchable for future checks for as long as your retention policy says.
Whether your practice management software accepts that hand-off through an integration or an import is confirmed during scoping. Sometimes its built-in conflict and intake features are enough once the fields are set up well, and nothing custom is needed. After clearance, the next stage is scheduling and documents, covered in consultation intake and matter document collection.
Automation first, then AI drafts a person reviews
Ordinary business automation handles the routine: notify the reviewing attorney when a search returns possible matches, remind the office when a check stays pending longer than the window your firm sets, and keep a consultation from being booked until the status reads cleared, if that is your policy.
AI can help in narrow, reviewable ways, within information boundaries your firm approves: suggesting spelling variants worth searching, or turning a list of possible matches into a short review note for the attorney. It never decides whether a conflict exists, never clears a check, and never contacts anyone.
Where to start this week
Pull five recent intake notes. For each one, list every person and company it mentions, and mark which ones were actually searched. Then write down the party roles your firm wants captured on every new inquiry, and who records the clearance decision. That short list is the specification for a better intake record.
If you want conflict-check intake that captures every name before a matter number exists, TwoQM can scope a structured intake record and its connection to the practice software you already use. Pricing explains how business apps, systems, and custom software are scoped. Nothing here is legal or ethics advice.
Describe Your Firm's Conflict-Check Intake · Explore TwoQM custom software