Use Clio's AI Search to Run a Conflict Check Before You Take a New Matter

What This Does

Clio's search, layered with Duo's natural-language lookup, checks a prospective client and every party named in a new matter against your firm's entire client and contact history in one pass. Rather than running separate exact-spelling searches for each name, you can ask a plain question and get back related matters, contacts, and entities that share a connection.

Before You Start

• Your firm's full client and contact history actually lives in Clio. A conflict check is only as good as the database behind it, so names sitting in an old spreadsheet or a prior system won't show up
• You have the complete list of party names tied to the new matter, not just the prospective client
• Duo or Clio's AI-assisted search is enabled on your plan. Check with whoever manages your firm's subscription if you're not sure

Steps

1. Gather every name tied to the matter

Write down the new client's name, the opposing party, related businesses, and anyone else mentioned during intake. A conflict can hide in a co-defendant's name as easily as in the client's own.

2. Run the search

Use Clio's global search or the Duo assistant and ask directly, for example: "Search all matters and contacts for any record involving this person or company." Because the search understands plain language, you can check several names and relationships in one pass instead of running a separate exact-match query for each.

3. Review every result, not just the exact matches

Clio's AI search is built to surface near-matches and related-entity connections that a plain keyword search would miss, but it isn't infallible. Read each result rather than trusting a clean "no matches" screen on its own, and manually check for common misspellings or a maiden name or former business name if the client mentioned one during intake.

Real Example

Scenario: A prospective client wants representation in a landlord dispute, and the opposing party is a property management company.

What you type: "Search all matters and contacts for any connection to this property company or its known principals."

What you get: A list of past and current matters touching that name, including one from a few years back where the firm represented a different tenant against the same landlord, a conflict worth catching before the consultation even starts.

Tips

• Run the conflict check before the intake consultation, not after you've already discussed case strategy with the prospective client.
• Add new parties to the search as they surface mid-representation. A conflict can appear well after a case opens if a new witness or co-defendant turns out to be a past client.
• Treat a clean AI search result as a starting point, not a final answer, especially for common names.

Because a missed conflict is itself a professional responsibility problem, don't treat a "no results" search as the end of your diligence. Cross-check unusual and common names by hand, and keep a record that you ran the check. This is one of the few AI features on this list where the cost of a false negative outweighs the time it saves, so verification matters more than speed here.

Tool interfaces change. If a button has moved, look for similar AI, Duo, or search options near the client or matter list.