How do I run a conflict check in Clio before opening a matter?

A new client calls, the work sounds straightforward, and someone is keen to open the matter and start. The conflict check gets done from memory, or with a quick contact search, or not at all. Most small firms only discover how informal their process is when a near miss forces the question.

The direct answer: on the Essentials, Advanced and Expand plans, Clio has a built-in conflict check that searches Clio Manage and Clio Grow for people, companies and keywords. You can start it from the global search bar, the Contacts tab, while creating a matter or from an existing matter. You enter the prospect and every known adverse party, review each result, mark its status, then close the check to produce a PDF report linked to the matter. The tool does the searching; deciding whether a conflict exists is still a lawyer's call, and your firm's rules decide what gets recorded.

Which plans and roles can use it

According to Clio's help article on running conflict checks in Clio Manage and Clio Grow, the feature is available on the Essentials, Advanced and Expand subscriptions, as listed in October 2026. If your firm is on a different or older plan, check your subscription page or ask Clio support before building a process around it.

By default, firm administrators and users with the General Access role can run conflict checks and change the search settings. Firms that use custom roles can adjust who may run checks and who may view the reports. That is worth deciding on purpose: a receptionist taking enquiries may need to start checks, while only partners need to see full reports.

Where to start a check

Clio gives you four entry points:

1. The global search bar, useful when a call comes in and you want a quick first look.
2. The Contacts tab, where completed checks and their reports are also listed.
3. While creating a matter, so the check happens as part of opening the file.
4. From an existing matter, through the matter's conflict checks section, for checks you need to rerun or add later, for example when a new party joins.

For a small firm, the third option is the one to standardize on. If the check lives inside matter creation, nobody has to remember a separate step.

Running the search, step by step

1. Enter everything you know

Add the identifying details you have for the prospective client: name, company, and where you have them, email, phone, address or date of birth. More detail helps you rule out false matches, such as two people with a common surname.

2. Choose flex or exact search

Clio's help article on running conflict checks covers the search preferences, which offer two modes:

• Flex search returns results similar to your terms, which catches spelling variations and near matches. It is the safer default for names.
• Exact search returns only exact matches. It is useful when flex search returns too much noise, for example on a very common company name.

3. Add every party, not just the client

Use "Add another search" to include adverse parties, related companies, directors, spouses or anyone else connected to the matter. Clio lets you run up to ten individual searches before generating one set of results, which also helps with name variations ("Smith & Co", "Smith and Company").

4. Generate and review the results

Clio searches the categories your firm has switched on in its settings. The optional categories listed include calendar events, notes, document names and communication logs. On the Advanced plan and above, selecting document categories searches the full text of documents and calendar event descriptions, not only their titles, as listed in Clio's settings article in October 2026.

For each result, use the "Mark conflict status" dropdown, add a note explaining your reasoning, and acknowledge the disclaimer Clio shows when you change a status.

5. Close the check and link it to the matter

Closing the check produces a report that your firm can download as a PDF, share and associate with a matter. Reports remain available under Contacts, then Conflict checks, through "View report". Link the check to the matter so the record of what was searched, and what was decided, stays with the file.

Set the firm-wide preferences once

Search settings apply to every conflict check across the firm, so an administrator should set them deliberately rather than leave the defaults:

• Default subject type: person, company or keyword, depending on who your typical clients are.
• Search mode: flex for most firms, so misspellings are not missed.
• Search categories: decide whether notes, documents, calendar events and communication logs are included. Including more catches more, but also means more results to review.

Write the chosen settings down in your intake procedure, so a new administrator does not quietly change them.

What your firm should record

Clio records the search and the statuses you set. What it cannot decide is your firm's policy. Before you rely on the tool, agree in writing:

• Who runs the check and at what point (first call, before the engagement letter, before any work).
• Which parties must always be searched, for example adverse parties, their lawyers, related entities and key witnesses, depending on your practice.
• Who decides whether a result is a conflict, and how that decision is noted.
• What happens on a possible conflict: who is told, whether consents or waivers are considered, and how a declined matter is closed out.
• When to rerun the check, for example when a new party is added or when a long dormant matter reopens.

What counts as a conflict, and what must be documented, depends on the professional rules in your jurisdiction. Agree the process with your managing partner or ethics counsel; this article is not legal advice.

A third-party vendor has written that Clio does not natively stop a matter from moving forward until a conflict has been cleared. We could not confirm that either way in Clio's documentation, so test it in your own account. If nothing blocks progress, your procedure (or an automation) needs to.

Make the check hard to skip

A conflict check only finds what was captured. Three habits make it reliable:

• Capture parties at intake. If your intake form asks for the other side's name, the check has something to search. Our guide to automating law firm client intake shows how a form can feed Clio directly, with the conflict decision kept human.
• Keep one client list. If prospects live in a spreadsheet, an email inbox and Clio Grow, the check searches only one of them. Our article on why every firm needs a source of truth covers how to fix that.
• Use a status, not a memory. Hold new matters in a "pending conflict check" stage and only move them on once a lawyer records the outcome. A task assigned to the responsible lawyer, created as soon as the enquiry arrives, keeps it visible.

For more on how intake, conflicts and billing connect in a small practice, see our page for law firms.

How Flow Mesh helps

Every engagement starts with a first call, then a stack audit scoped in writing before it starts. It gives a verdict on every tool, including whether your intake data reaches Clio cleanly enough for conflict checks to work, and a written scope for what to fix. Builds are quoted in writing after the audit, and the work happens inside your own Clio account.

Key takeaways

• Clio's built-in conflict check is listed on the Essentials, Advanced and Expand plans; by default, administrators and General Access users can run it.
• Start checks from matter creation so the step is part of opening every file.
• Use flex search and add every known party; Clio allows up to ten searches per check.
• Close each check to generate a PDF report and link it to the matter as your record.
• The tool searches; a lawyer decides. Write down your firm's conflict policy and check it against your jurisdiction's rules.