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Technology and Data Risks Related to Conflicts Clearance
Effective conflicts clearance is critical to law firm risk management. The cost of missing a conflict of interest can be significant ' from loss of business to serious reputational damage. That is why enhancing conflict of interest management consistently rates as a top concern in law firm surveys. As referenced by a recent ABA Journal article, law firms are also becoming more wary of hiring laterals due to potential conflicts of interest. See, David Hudson, “Malpractice Concerns Spark Heightened Scrutiny of Lawyers Switching Firms,” ABA Journal, May 1, 2015. This wariness will only increase if law firms cannot be sure that the technology supporting their conflicts of interest process can be responsive and accurate.
Some systems used by firms for searching conflicts of interest are aging rapidly, putting law firms at risk. Also, many firms are unaware of inaccurate data, data anomalies, and inefficiencies that have built up over time. Even if this does not result in a missed conflict of interest, it could be having an impact on a firm's ability to open matters quickly. An inefficient intake process can mean that more attorneys are working on matters prior to receiving conflicts search results, a reluctance to open new matters, and a delay in recording billable hours.
The law firm industry went years without seeing many new entries to the technology space surrounding conflicts of interest searching. This technology must be capable of quickly returning results from very large and rapidly changing databases. A partner looking to meet with a potential client may require relevant results based on just a few keywords (i.e., potential client is ABC Industries, potentially adverse to the State of Pennsylvania). A search across tens of thousands of clients, hundreds of thousands of matters, and possibly millions of historical party records needs to be capable of returning (with the help of a good search analyst) results as different as: ABC Industries; ABC LLC; American Book Collectors; State of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania, State of; and PA. Not only must these results be accurate, but they must be reported in the context of the prior legal engagements with which they were originally recorded.
The search task outlined above is a searching and reporting effort more commonly associated with Google and Twitter than a mid-sized law firm. The risks are huge for a software developer looking to enter this space, and the expectations are extremely high when your user base is a sophisticated group of legal support professionals and lawyers. This perhaps explains the gap in new solutions that is only just beginning to close as new entrants come to this market.
Aging Technology Platforms
One of the most prevalent conflicts systems used by firms today runs on Windows Server versions that have reached end of life for support, or are rapidly approaching end of life. This software was first developed in 1997 and has not had a major new version in 13 years, or a point release in about six years. In the world of software, this is ancient history. The conflicts of interest tools associated with the major legal accounting systems have not seen significant feature enhancements in quite a while, either. They are predominantly focused on billing and typically do not dedicate significant development resources to conflicts of interest searching.
Law firms are quick to utilize fairly modern technology platforms ' because they must. Maintaining dozens of applications simultaneously for hundreds, or thousands, of users is not a simple task. Law firms must employ state-of-the-art security and backup technology to protect client interests. These protocols and software often do not play well with out-of-date operating systems and hardware. Firms forced to maintain out-of-date software often must employ complex workarounds to host, integrate, and back up these applications and databases.
Strategies for maintaining outdated applications might include deploying the application through remote access software like Citrix. Developing integrations is often a complex process, as well. All of these workarounds contribute to an already error-prone process. If analysts cannot easily access the search interface, or new data is not properly updating, search speed and accuracy will be compromised.
Manual Processes and Misunderstood Technology
Large databases often contain a certain percentage of poorly coded data that lurks unseen. This might be misspelled names, old codes for departments and practice areas, or blank entries. These issues sometimes accumulate slowly over time, or may appear all at once through poorly executed conversions or data imports. Often, there are few resources within a law firm that are aware of these anomalies. Memory, or a system of sticky notes, may be all that memorializes a reason for old, inaccurate data. If that resource is unavailable or leaves the firm, often that knowledge is unavailable as well.
Conflicts of interest databases can contain large volumes of duplicate data due to redundant and time-consuming data entry. Across a distributed work force, the care with which data entry is performed can vary widely. The knowledge and familiarity of conflicts system users can vary. The processes surrounding what search operators should utilize and under what conditions is often not universal. There also may be default system settings related to “fuzzy” searching, search term proximity, and implied wildcards that can dramatically affect results.
New business intake and conflict departments often fail to employ a liaison capable of understanding departmental needs, the conflicts of interest theory, and the technology required to cleanly maintain a large database. This data steward and technology liaison is needed because conflicts databases can experience technology problems that affect search results. Corrupt search indexes can impact the results returned by the application's search engine. Scheduled jobs that update indices or move data can fail to run or not restart properly after a server restart. Application code can intermittently fail to properly create the necessary records that facilitate future searches. These technology issues are as important to research and understand as miscoded entities and misspelled client names, as they all may result in a missed conflict of interest.
Black Box Integrations
A serious limitation affecting some conflicts of interest systems is an inability to easily integrate with other firm applications. Conflicts of interest systems are often not the system of record for client and matter information. This information may be synchronized to pull clients and matters from a master data directory or financial system. Often a firm is unaware of just what data is synchronized and on what schedule.
Poor integration technology can encourage manual data entry. The integration may not run frequently, which opens the firm to potential database inaccuracies with disastrous consequences. If integrations fail to run, or fail to run as expected, who is notified and what steps can they take to resolve the issues? These integrations are sometimes sold as packaged offerings ' effectively “black boxes” into which the law firm has little or no insight. Firms are forced to go back to the vendor for even simple updates to these integration processes. The planning required for something seemingly as simple as an overhaul of department codes can cause the load of new matters to your conflicts system to fail completely.
New Technology Emerging
A number of entrants to the conflicts of interest searching space are already offering, or developing, new applications to address these technology concerns. Most have years of law firm experience and are leveraging this knowledge to address common concerns. Their ability to work on modern platforms offers law firms an option for moving away from outdated software and hardware. Ease of integration with core systems and the ability to address modern new business intake challenges offer an attractive incentive to convert. As many firms reach the point where their current systems are no longer supported, there has been a large migration effort to select and implement new solutions across the legal market.
Health Check
Your firm must understand the risks and challenges deep within its current conflicts of interest system. A health check of your firm's current system can be used to inform resource allocation decisions, prompt you to open support tickets to resolve issues, or provide the necessary insight to empower selection of a new vendor. Some things you should look for include:
- What server platform is our conflicts system running on, and is it still supported by the developer?
- Does IT understand how to monitor and report on integrations with other firm applications?
- When was the last time we made updates to key integrations synchronizing client and matter information?
- How often does the integration fail to run as expected and who receives error reporting?
- Does the conflicts searching staff understand how to construct complex queries? Do we have a mechanism for accessing and reporting on our data other than the front-end search interface?
- What volume of client, matter, and party information are we managing?
- How many duplicates of each of these items do we maintain?
- Does the conflicts system contain data that has not been normalized? (For example, “dummy” clients and matters which really represent something else like a note, clients and matters with the wrong length of ID, dozens of unused relationship codes, etc.)
- Have we analyzed our coding schemes for clients, matters, and involved parties, and is it in synch with other firm systems? (For example, Office codes, Departments/Practice Areas, Status codes, Party affiliation/role codes, etc.)
Understanding the answer to these questions and others like it is an important first step toward improving the health, consistency and accuracy of your new business intake and conflicts of interest checking processes.
Effective conflicts clearance is critical to law firm risk management. The cost of missing a conflict of interest can be significant ' from loss of business to serious reputational damage. That is why enhancing conflict of interest management consistently rates as a top concern in law firm surveys. As referenced by a recent ABA Journal article, law firms are also becoming more wary of hiring laterals due to potential conflicts of interest. See, David Hudson, “Malpractice Concerns Spark Heightened Scrutiny of Lawyers Switching Firms,” ABA Journal, May 1, 2015. This wariness will only increase if law firms cannot be sure that the technology supporting their conflicts of interest process can be responsive and accurate.
Some systems used by firms for searching conflicts of interest are aging rapidly, putting law firms at risk. Also, many firms are unaware of inaccurate data, data anomalies, and inefficiencies that have built up over time. Even if this does not result in a missed conflict of interest, it could be having an impact on a firm's ability to open matters quickly. An inefficient intake process can mean that more attorneys are working on matters prior to receiving conflicts search results, a reluctance to open new matters, and a delay in recording billable hours.
The law firm industry went years without seeing many new entries to the technology space surrounding conflicts of interest searching. This technology must be capable of quickly returning results from very large and rapidly changing databases. A partner looking to meet with a potential client may require relevant results based on just a few keywords (i.e., potential client is ABC Industries, potentially adverse to the State of Pennsylvania). A search across tens of thousands of clients, hundreds of thousands of matters, and possibly millions of historical party records needs to be capable of returning (with the help of a good search analyst) results as different as: ABC Industries; ABC LLC; American Book Collectors; State of Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania, State of; and PA. Not only must these results be accurate, but they must be reported in the context of the prior legal engagements with which they were originally recorded.
The search task outlined above is a searching and reporting effort more commonly associated with
Aging Technology Platforms
One of the most prevalent conflicts systems used by firms today runs on Windows Server versions that have reached end of life for support, or are rapidly approaching end of life. This software was first developed in 1997 and has not had a major new version in 13 years, or a point release in about six years. In the world of software, this is ancient history. The conflicts of interest tools associated with the major legal accounting systems have not seen significant feature enhancements in quite a while, either. They are predominantly focused on billing and typically do not dedicate significant development resources to conflicts of interest searching.
Law firms are quick to utilize fairly modern technology platforms ' because they must. Maintaining dozens of applications simultaneously for hundreds, or thousands, of users is not a simple task. Law firms must employ state-of-the-art security and backup technology to protect client interests. These protocols and software often do not play well with out-of-date operating systems and hardware. Firms forced to maintain out-of-date software often must employ complex workarounds to host, integrate, and back up these applications and databases.
Strategies for maintaining outdated applications might include deploying the application through remote access software like Citrix. Developing integrations is often a complex process, as well. All of these workarounds contribute to an already error-prone process. If analysts cannot easily access the search interface, or new data is not properly updating, search speed and accuracy will be compromised.
Manual Processes and Misunderstood Technology
Large databases often contain a certain percentage of poorly coded data that lurks unseen. This might be misspelled names, old codes for departments and practice areas, or blank entries. These issues sometimes accumulate slowly over time, or may appear all at once through poorly executed conversions or data imports. Often, there are few resources within a law firm that are aware of these anomalies. Memory, or a system of sticky notes, may be all that memorializes a reason for old, inaccurate data. If that resource is unavailable or leaves the firm, often that knowledge is unavailable as well.
Conflicts of interest databases can contain large volumes of duplicate data due to redundant and time-consuming data entry. Across a distributed work force, the care with which data entry is performed can vary widely. The knowledge and familiarity of conflicts system users can vary. The processes surrounding what search operators should utilize and under what conditions is often not universal. There also may be default system settings related to “fuzzy” searching, search term proximity, and implied wildcards that can dramatically affect results.
New business intake and conflict departments often fail to employ a liaison capable of understanding departmental needs, the conflicts of interest theory, and the technology required to cleanly maintain a large database. This data steward and technology liaison is needed because conflicts databases can experience technology problems that affect search results. Corrupt search indexes can impact the results returned by the application's search engine. Scheduled jobs that update indices or move data can fail to run or not restart properly after a server restart. Application code can intermittently fail to properly create the necessary records that facilitate future searches. These technology issues are as important to research and understand as miscoded entities and misspelled client names, as they all may result in a missed conflict of interest.
Black Box Integrations
A serious limitation affecting some conflicts of interest systems is an inability to easily integrate with other firm applications. Conflicts of interest systems are often not the system of record for client and matter information. This information may be synchronized to pull clients and matters from a master data directory or financial system. Often a firm is unaware of just what data is synchronized and on what schedule.
Poor integration technology can encourage manual data entry. The integration may not run frequently, which opens the firm to potential database inaccuracies with disastrous consequences. If integrations fail to run, or fail to run as expected, who is notified and what steps can they take to resolve the issues? These integrations are sometimes sold as packaged offerings ' effectively “black boxes” into which the law firm has little or no insight. Firms are forced to go back to the vendor for even simple updates to these integration processes. The planning required for something seemingly as simple as an overhaul of department codes can cause the load of new matters to your conflicts system to fail completely.
New Technology Emerging
A number of entrants to the conflicts of interest searching space are already offering, or developing, new applications to address these technology concerns. Most have years of law firm experience and are leveraging this knowledge to address common concerns. Their ability to work on modern platforms offers law firms an option for moving away from outdated software and hardware. Ease of integration with core systems and the ability to address modern new business intake challenges offer an attractive incentive to convert. As many firms reach the point where their current systems are no longer supported, there has been a large migration effort to select and implement new solutions across the legal market.
Health Check
Your firm must understand the risks and challenges deep within its current conflicts of interest system. A health check of your firm's current system can be used to inform resource allocation decisions, prompt you to open support tickets to resolve issues, or provide the necessary insight to empower selection of a new vendor. Some things you should look for include:
- What server platform is our conflicts system running on, and is it still supported by the developer?
- Does IT understand how to monitor and report on integrations with other firm applications?
- When was the last time we made updates to key integrations synchronizing client and matter information?
- How often does the integration fail to run as expected and who receives error reporting?
- Does the conflicts searching staff understand how to construct complex queries? Do we have a mechanism for accessing and reporting on our data other than the front-end search interface?
- What volume of client, matter, and party information are we managing?
- How many duplicates of each of these items do we maintain?
- Does the conflicts system contain data that has not been normalized? (For example, “dummy” clients and matters which really represent something else like a note, clients and matters with the wrong length of ID, dozens of unused relationship codes, etc.)
- Have we analyzed our coding schemes for clients, matters, and involved parties, and is it in synch with other firm systems? (For example, Office codes, Departments/Practice Areas, Status codes, Party affiliation/role codes, etc.)
Understanding the answer to these questions and others like it is an important first step toward improving the health, consistency and accuracy of your new business intake and conflicts of interest checking processes.
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