Using the contact list as a conflicts register

A large firm runs a conflicts team and a dedicated register. A firm of three runs a contact list and a good memory. The list can do the job properly, and whether it does comes down to one habit at file opening. A conflicts search reads names, so it can only find the names somebody recorded. Everything below follows from that one fact.

The register is only as good as the names in it

A matter recorded with a client and nothing else leaves the other side, the guarantor and the co-owner invisible to every later search. A future conflicts question turns on exactly those names. None of them arrive by accident, because none of them pay the bill or sign the costs agreement. The parties are known at the first meeting and forgotten by the third, so the moment to record them is the moment the file opens. Our guide to opening a matter covers doing that inside a five minute routine rather than as a separate task.

A role beside each name

A name with no role tells a later search that this person appeared somewhere, which decides nothing. Client, other side, agent, expert, guarantor: five words turn a suggestive list into an answerable one. A search returning three names with roles lets somebody make a decision in a minute. The same three names without roles produce twenty minutes of reading old correspondence. Diract CRM stores the role on the link between the contact and the matter. One person can then be a client on one file and an opponent on another.

Search the number, not only the name

A company appears as Acme, Acme Pty Ltd and A.C.M.E. across three matters, and a name search finds one of them. Diract CRM searches the phone number, the email and the address alongside the name, which finds the record a name alone misses. An ACN does more than any of those. A company that changes its trading name is the same entity, and only the number connects an old matter to a new enquiry. Recording it costs seconds, and no corporate party has a more reliable identifier.

Closed matters still count

A conflict does not expire because a file closed. A search that quietly excludes closed matters produces a confident answer that happens to be wrong, which is worse than no answer. Diract CRM keeps an archived contact findable and clearly marked rather than dropping it from the search. Declined matters deserve the same protection. Turning work away because of a conflict creates the most valuable entry in the register, and deleting the enquiry loses it. The name, the date and the reason stay, which is what makes the next search reliable.

Record the search, not only the result

A check nobody wrote down is a check the firm cannot demonstrate, and demonstrating it is half the point. The reasoning matters more than the verdict. A reasonable decision recorded at the time survives a complaint that arrives two years later, and a bare tick does not. Our guide to a conflict check process covers writing the reasoning before the decision. Diract CRM keeps the search and its note against the matter, where the next person to open the file will read it.

Quick, or skipped

A conflicts process taking twenty minutes gets done properly on the matters somebody worries about, and skipped on the rest. A search answering in seconds gets run on every enquiry, which is the only version that protects the firm. Speed is a design decision here rather than a nice extra. One search box over the whole contact list, archived records included, is what turns a written policy into a habit.

One person cannot be the register

A firm where the principal remembers every past opponent has a register that works until they take leave. Writing the names down turns institutional memory into something the whole firm can search. A new lateral makes the same point from the other direction. Somebody joining from another practice carries a history of clients and opponents nobody here has ever searched. Running their former client list against the open matters takes an hour. It also prevents a problem the firm cannot fix after their first day.

Who can search, and who can see

A conflicts search needs to reach every name in the firm. A search result must not reveal a matter somebody cannot open. Those two rules pull in opposite directions, and a system that collapses them either hides names from a check or leaks a confidential file. Our guide to roles and access covers separating them while the register keeps working. Diract CRM answers the check with the fact of a match, and leaves the matter itself behind its own access rule.

Running the search in Diract CRM

A Diract CRM search reads every contact in the workspace, including archived ones and the parties recorded against closed matters. It matches on the phone number, the email and the address as well as the name, which finds a company recorded three ways. Each result carries its role and the matter that produced it. Diract CRM keeps the search and its reasoning on the file, so the firm can show what it checked and when.

What to change first

• Every party on a matter becomes a contact, not only the client
• Each name carries a role beside it
• A search covers the phone number and email as well as the name
• A corporate party records its ACN
• Closed and archived matters stay inside the search
• The search itself gets recorded, with its reasoning
• A declined matter keeps its names, the date and the reason