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How ClaireAI screens conflicts under Rule 1.18

ClaireAI runs a Rule 1.18 conflict screen at the start of every legal intake call, before any matter details are captured. The agent captures the minimum information needed to check — caller name and the names of any adverse parties — then queries your conflicts database. If a conflict exists, the caller is politely declined and the call data is sequestered from your intake team.

By Cal Stein, Engineering, ClaireAIUpdated 6 min

TL;DR

  • Conflict screen runs before any matter details are taken — satisfies the Rule 1.18 limited disclosure requirement.
  • The agent collects caller name and any adverse parties named.
  • ClaireAI checks the names against your conflicts database (Clio, Filevine, MyCase, or a CSV upload).
  • Conflicted calls are declined politely. The intake team never sees the call.
  • Audit trail: every conflict screen is logged with the names checked, the database queried, and the decision.
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Why Rule 1.18 matters for intake

Model Rule 1.18 limits how much information a lawyer can receive from a prospective client without taking on conflicts of interest. If your intake captures full matter details before checking for conflicts, you can be disqualified from representing an existing client whose interests are adverse to the new caller. The remedy is to screen for conflicts up front, with only minimal information captured before consent.

How ClaireAI runs the screen

  1. After greeting the caller, the agent asks for their full name and whether anyone else is involved (adverse driver, opposing party, opposing counsel).
  2. Names are normalized (suffixes, hyphenated names, common nicknames) and queried against your conflicts database.
  3. If a match is found above the confidence threshold, the agent politely declines: "I appreciate you reaching out, but we may not be able to represent you on this matter. I'll have to ask you to look for separate counsel."
  4. Conflicted call data is sequestered — visible only to the firm's ethics partner, not to the intake team.

What if the database is wrong?

Garbage in, garbage out. If your Clio conflicts database is stale or misspelled, the screen will produce false positives (declining callers who aren't actually conflicted) or false negatives. ClaireAI surfaces a Conflicts data health report under Settings → Security so you can audit the data quality and clean up stale entries.

Author

Cal Stein

Engineering, ClaireAI

Cal owns ClaireAI's integration platform and security posture, including the HIPAA and SOC 2 programs.

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