The Conflicts Analyst: What the Job Is, How a Search Works, and Where It Is Heading

A conflicts analyst runs and reviews the conflict of interest searches a law firm performs before it takes on a new client, matter, party or lateral hire. They check that the request is complete, research the parties and their corporate families, search the firm’s records for every name and variant, review what comes back, ask the attorneys behind any real hit for context, and prepare the report the requesting attorney relies on. The analyst does not decide whether the firm can take the matter. They make sure the lawyer who does has the whole picture.

What a conflicts analyst does

Real postings describe the job in consistent terms. A typical week covers:

• Validating requests. Catching missing information on the new business request form before the search runs: an adverse party left off, a related entity not named.
• Corporate research. Building the family tree of each entity from research databases and the internet: parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, former names.
• Running searches. For new business, lateral hires and matter updates, across advisory, transactional and litigation work.
• Reviewing hits. Separating the common-surname noise from the real relationships, against the client, matter and time history each hit came from.
• Working with attorneys. Sending questions to the lawyers responsible for related matters, analyzing their responses, and following up when they do not answer.
• Reporting. Preparing and finalizing the conflicts report and summary for the requesting attorney.
• Keeping the data clean. Correcting inconsistent party information in the conflicts database so the next search finds what it should.
• Waivers and walls. At many firms, drafting and tracking conflict waivers and supporting ethical screens.

Conflicts does not stop for weekends. Many departments rotate after-hours coverage, because a deal or an emergency filing cannot open until the check clears.

How a conflict search works

1. The request comes in with the client, related parties, adverse parties, and other interested parties such as co-defendants, lenders or guarantors.
2. The analyst expands the list with name variants, former names, individuals behind entities, and the corporate family.
3. Every name is searched in the conflicts database and the client and matter records, open and closed, including matters where the party was adverse. Some firms also search time narratives and document text.
4. Hits are reviewed and sorted: no issue, needs attorney input, potential conflict.
5. Attorneys are asked about the hits on their matters.
6. The report goes to the requester, and a lawyer decides whether to clear, seek a waiver, screen, or decline.

The full process, including the rules behind each step, is in how a law firm conflict check works.

The rules an analyst works under

An analyst does not need to be a lawyer, but they need to know what the search is for. The ABA Model Rules at the center of it: Rule 1.7 (current clients), 1.9 (former clients), 1.10 (imputation across the firm, and screening laterals), and 1.18 (prospective clients). Each state adopts its own version, and the firm’s conflicts policy translates them into what the department actually checks.

The tools

Skills that matter

• Attention to detail across hundreds of hits, most of which are noise.
• Research instinct for the subsidiary nobody mentioned.
• Judgment about what to escalate, and confidence asking a senior partner a direct question.
• Discretion. A conflicts request is often the first place confidential information about a deal or dispute appears in the firm.
• System fluency in the firm’s conflicts platform, which is why postings so often ask for years of Intapp experience.

Conflicts analyst vs conflicts attorney

The analyst runs the search and prepares the analysis. The conflicts attorney is a licensed lawyer who reviews the harder results and advises the firm: whether a conflict exists, whether it can be waived, how a screen should be structured. Some firms have been adding conflicts attorneys, centralizing decisions that used to be spread across practice group partners, which makes the analyst’s report the document a specialist lawyer works from.

The career path

Conflicts assistant or coordinator, then conflicts analyst, senior conflicts analyst, conflicts manager, and director of conflicts and new business intake. Analysts who go to law school can move into conflicts attorney roles or the wider risk management function under the General Counsel. What a director of conflicts owns at the top of that path is its own page.

How the job is changing

Volume is going up. AmLaw 200 firms took on 13,214 lateral lawyers in 2025, including 3,009 partners, a five-year high for partners, according to Firm Prospects’ annual lateral report. Every one of them brings a matter list to check. Clients’ outside counsel guidelines keep widening the definition of the client to its affiliates. And firms are moving from on-premises conflicts systems to the cloud, which is a natural moment to rethink the procedure around them.

The part of the job that automation takes on is the part analysts like least: running every variant of every party in every system, searching document text, assembling hits, and chasing attorneys for answers. The part it does not take on is the part that makes a good analyst: knowing which hit matters, and making sure the lawyer who decides sees it. Conflict check automation is built around that split, and the conflict check how-to film shows a run end to end.