Conflict check form for business clients

Tellbrief · November 1, 2026

For education only. Not legal advice. Tellbrief is not a law firm.

A conflict check is only as good as the names that go into it. A short form asks for each one before the client tells you anything else.

Why ask for names first

The comment to ABA Model Rule 1.7, as Minnesota adopted it, asks for a procedure:

“To determine whether a conflict of interest exists, a lawyer should adopt reasonable procedures, appropriate for the size and type of firm and practice, to determine in both litigation and nonlitigation matters the persons and issues involved.”¹Rule 1.7, comment [3]

Timing matters too. Rule 1.18(b) says: “Even when no client-lawyer relationship ensues, a lawyer who has consulted with a prospective client shall not use or reveal information obtained in the consultation, except as Rule 1.9 would permit with respect to information of a former client.”² Asking for names alone first keeps the rest until you know you can help. The Rule 1.18 intake checklist covers that rule in full.

And the check covers the whole firm. Rule 1.10(a) says: “While lawyers are associated in a firm, none of them shall knowingly represent a client when any one of them practicing alone would be prohibited from doing so by Rule 1.7 or 1.9, unless the prohibition is based on a personal interest of the prohibited lawyer and does not present a significant risk of materially limiting the representation of the client by the remaining lawyers in the firm.”³ So run each name against every lawyer’s current and former clients.

The names a business matter involves

• The person you’re talking to, and any other names they use.
• Their company: its legal name, any trade names, and any new company being formed.
• Its owners: founders, co-founders and anyone else who owns part of it.
• Related companies: any company that owns theirs, or that theirs owns.
• The other side: the buyer, seller, landlord, customer, investor, lender or employee across the table, and their company.
• Anyone else involved: a guarantor, a broker, a former co-founder or an insurer.
• Other lawyers: anyone already advising someone in the matter.

What to leave off the form

• The story. What happened and what they want can wait until the names clear.
• Attachments. Don’t ask for documents yet.
• Anything confidential. Add a short caution line, like the one in the consultation confirmation email.

The intake form template splits the whole intake the same way: names at booking, the rest once they clear.

What to do with the results

• No match: go ahead, and send your engagement letter if they hire you.
• A current client: Rule 1.7 applies. The conflict waiver letter template covers informed consent.
• A former client: check whether this is “the same or a substantially related matter” and whether the interests are “materially adverse,” the words of Rule 1.9(a).⁴
• A conflict you can’t resolve: decline without saying why. The guide to declining on a call has a script, and there’s a non-engagement letter template for the written no.

Keep a record of each check either way. The conflict check guide covers the search and what to write down.

Let the booking ask for the names

Tellbrief does this part for you. When a client books, you see only the names: the client, their company and anyone else involved, with “Copy names” to paste into your conflict check. Their brief stays locked until you clear them, and if you decline, it’s deleted unread. Start a free pilot; your first three briefs are free.

A conflict check form you can copy

Before we talk: names for our conflict check

Before you tell us about your matter, we need to check that we’re free to help. Please list the names below, and don’t include any details about the matter yet. Booking a call doesn’t make you our client.

1. You: [your full name, and any other names you use]

2. Your company: [its legal name, any trade names, and the state it’s formed in]

3. Its owners: [everyone who owns part of it]

4. Related companies: [any company that owns yours, or that yours owns]

5. The other side: [each person or company across the table, if there is one]

6. Anyone else involved: [for example a guarantor, a broker, an investor or a former co-founder]

7. Other lawyers: [any lawyer already advising anyone in this matter]

We’ll confirm whether we can help before we ask about the matter itself.