At Intapp, we specialize in streamlining the entire client and matter lifecycle, helping law firms navigate complex compliance challenges with ease. Whether your firm is conducting a conflict review or considering whether to take on a new client or matter, your firm must evaluate multiple risk factors while maintaining a delicate balance between speed and regulatory compliance.
Below we look at why manual, homegrown processes are inadequate for achieving this balance and how Intapp compliance solutions enable your law firm to efficiently assess and manage risks.
The risks and shortcomings of manual, homegrown processes for conflicts checks
Manual and homegrown processes for checking conflicts create several risks.
The risk of missing conflicts
When your professionals check for conflicts by looking in your firm’s finance system to see if any existing clients are adverse parties to the potential matter, they aren’t necessarily seeing the corporate trees of either existing or prospective clients. As a result, your professionals might miss a conflict, such as an existing client’s subsidiary that is being sued by the prospective client.
Similarly, your firm may be bound by an outside counsel guideline from a global company that prohibits your firm from acting adversely against any of your global client’s subsidiaries. Do you know all the subsidiaries of your global client? Chances are that there are some you don’t know. As a result, your conflict check won’t evaluate the new matter against the full list of subsidiaries.
The risk of missing such conflicts also exists if your firm checks for conflicts by simply emailing all its partners the name of a prospective client and the potential matter. Your partners won’t have comprehensive knowledge of corporate trees in their head, and they may not know how to reliably check corporate tree data.
The risk of oversharing information
Emailing all the lawyers at your firm about prospective clients and matters also creates the risk of sharing sensitive information with lawyers who shouldn’t have that information. Those lawyers then need to sort out the ethical implications of the information they’ve inadvertently learned.
The potential of missing other risks
A manual process for conflict checking also makes it difficult to see whether a prospective client is a politically exposed person (PEP) or on a sanctions list. Such checks are valuable during the conflict review stage before further time is invested in moving forward with the client. That is, there would be no point in moving on to client intake if your firm cannot take on the work because there are PEPs or sanctions involved.
A shortcoming of manual conflicts checks
In addition to these risks, manual processes for conflict review have a significant shortcoming: They do not automatically create an auditable record. Having such a record of your decision is important because it can save you time. If you’re working on a conflict review similar to one you conducted previously, a record of that prior review can guide you and save you from redoing all your work.
In the case of manual conflict searches within your firm’s finance system, for there to be an auditable record, the person conducting the search would have to document in some way all their searches, what parties they reviewed, and what their reasoning and decision was for each potential conflict. This would be a burdensome task.
Likewise, while emailing all your partners as a means of reviewing conflicts creates email records, a long email chain is not necessarily an ideal record and would need to be saved somewhere central.
The software that enables effective conflict reviews
With Intapp Conflicts, your firm can avoid the risk of missing a conflict or oversharing sensitive information. Intapp Conflicts integrates corporate tree data from trusted third-party sources so that when you check prospective clients against existing clients, you’re reviewing each side’s complete corporate tree.
In addition to integrating with corporate tree data, Intapp Conflicts integrates with PEP and sanctions list data so your firm can make a preliminary determination of whether a client presents other risks.
Another advantage of Intapp Conflicts is that analysts can clear conflicts faster using AI to flag potential issues. Moreover, analysts can conduct a conflict search on Intapp Conflicts without having to share prospective matter or client information with other firm members.
Intapp Conflicts also creates an audit-ready record of the conflict review and decision. These conflict check records help your partners, associates, and professionals quickly see how they handled similar conflict issues in the past. An audit trail also helps if a client claims you had a conflict.
Intapp Conflicts goes beyond these essential features, providing additional functionalities that make conflicts review even more convenient. For example, your professionals can conduct a preliminary, fast conflicts search on their mobile device, when they are outside of the office talking to a new potential client, and want an initial sense of whether they can work with the client.
The elements of an effective client intake process
Once a client has passed conflicts review and a high-level, initial risk assessment, the overall workflow should move seamlessly into client intake. When your firm integrates Intapp Conflicts with Intapp Intake, that connected workflow is possible, and you can ensure that conflict checks are carried out before a matter is opened.
The intake process should involve standardized collection of information in a way that is convenient for both the client and firm. Having a technology-driven intake process is also critical to make the right impression in our digital-first age. For example, your digital intake process should offer clients multiple options for providing information.
An effective intake workflow also has clear instructions and support resources, walking both the client and the professional reviewing the client’s information through every step of the process.
A law firm intake system must also collect information needed to assess any risks the client or matter poses, including the risk of money laundering.
Intapp Intake has all these capabilities. It offers a convenient, digital process for submitting and reviewing information, using dynamic forms and workflows that change based on different answers. These forms and workflows are also configurable to your law firm’s specific needs.
When combined with External Forms, Intapp Intake enables the secure collection of information and documentation needed for anti-money-laundering (AML) review and generates an AML risk score.
Once a client is approved, Intapp Intake automatically generates an engagement letter, saving your professionals from an otherwise rote task. This engagement letter also forms part of the audit trail.
The advantages of digital processes for conflicts checks and intake
Ready to implement efficient digital processes for conflicts review and client/matter intake? The return on investment is substantial: Your law firm will save time, reduce risk, and increase client satisfaction.
Intapp Conflicts and Intapp Intake provide firms with powerful compliance tools, including:
- AI-powered conflicts assistance for faster, more accurate conflict resolution
- Seamless integrations with third-party data providers to verify corporate structures, ultimate beneficial ownership, and client identities
- Built-in risk assessments tailored to firm policies and regulatory requirements
- Automated engagement letter generation and compliance tracking
- Ongoing monitoring to ensure continued regulatory adherence
- Configurable workflows and forms that allow firms to define specific data fields, documentation needs, and approval steps — ensuring alignment with evolving policies and standards
By leveraging Intapp’s compliance solutions, hundreds of firms mitigate risk daily while automating critical processes. Our configurable technology enables professionals to focus on high-value tasks because Intapp’s automation and integration capabilities will handle the rest.
With Intapp’s compliance tools creating a single source of truth and a comprehensive audit trail, firms can optimize client and matter data management across the entire lifecycle.
Contact us to learn how Intapp can help your firm configure an effective conflicts and intake workflow that meets your specific goals.