How do you run a conflicts check before hiring a lateral attorney?

Rule 1.10 of the ABA's Model Rules of Professional Conduct is the imputation rule, and it is why a lateral hire changes your firm's conflicts position.

Under the model text of Rule 1.10(a), "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 Rules 1.7 or 1.9," unless an exception applies.

A conflict that would disqualify your new hire under Rule 1.7 or Rule 1.9 belongs to every lawyer in the firm while the association lasts.

The rules doing that work under the model text: Rule 1.10 spreads conflicts that arise under Rules 1.7 and 1.9 across the firm.

Our research did not verify the text of Rules 1.7, 1.8 or 1.9 themselves, so this page does not summarize them — including whether Rule 1.8's specific conflicts are imputed firm-wide as well; put that to your state bar's ethics counsel.

Treat "who did this lawyer represent at their last firm" as the starting point of the search, not the whole of it.

One framing note before the process: these are model rules.

The ABA writes them; they bind no one until a state adopts them, and every state's version differs in places.

The rule that governs your firm is your state's adopted version — this page describes the ABA's model text as our research captured it, and the last section below says exactly what that research did and did not verify.

Imputation is also not forever.

Under the model text of Rule 1.10(b), after a lawyer leaves a firm, the firm they left may act adversely to that lawyer's former client unless the matter is the same or substantially related to one the departed lawyer handled and a remaining lawyer has material protected information about it.

Both firms in a lateral move therefore have conflicts work to do — the hiring firm before the start date, the old firm after the departure — driven by the same rule.

The check sits alongside bar-status verification, compensation and onboarding in the rest of hiring for your law firm; this page takes the conflicts piece end to end.

A conflicts check needs the candidate's history, and the candidate is bound by duties of confidentiality to their former clients.

That tension is not a flaw in the process — it is the design, and the model rules address it directly.

Rule 1.6 is the confidentiality rule, its paragraph (b)(7) concerns what a lawyer may share when responding to a conflicts inquiry, and the ABA's Formal Opinion 09-455 addresses the same question.

A limit to state plainly: our research could not verify the text of Rule 1.6(b)(7) or of Opinion 09-455 — the ABA's Rule 1.6 page would not load when we researched this page — so this page does not summarize what either one permits.

Which disclosures your state's version of Rule 1.6 allows, and in how much detail, is a question to put to your state bar's ethics counsel before you build an intake form around it.

The practical process works within that limit.

The interview can collect what a search actually runs on — firm names, dates, practice groups, and whatever client or matter identifiers the candidate tells you they may share — without asking for confidential detail.

Treat the candidate's disclosure limits as information in themselves: a candidate who cannot describe enough of their history for a meaningful search is a reason to slow the process and take advice, not to skip the check.

And the duty runs in both directions.

Your firm owes its own clients confidentiality during the interviews too, so keep your active matter list, your client names and your own conflict positions out of the room until the hire is settled.

Run the first pass early and the full check before the offer.

Collect a conflicts-relevant history — every firm the candidate practiced at, with dates and practice groups — at first substantive contact, run preliminary searches as soon as you have names, and re-run the complete search on the finalist before an offer goes out.

Lateral processes take time, and two inputs change while they run: what the candidate is willing and able to disclose, and your own client list.

A search is a snapshot; take a fresh one before you rely on it.

Before, not after, matters on the rule side too.

The model text of Rule 1.10(a) describes lawyers who "knowingly represent a client when any one of them practicing alone would be prohibited" — once the lateral is associated and working matters, every new representation the firm takes runs through their conflicts, and work performed while a disqualifying conflict exists is the exposure the rule creates.

Finding the problem after the start date leaves you managing that exposure; finding it during interviews leaves you with options.

The same timing logic runs through the screen itself.

The model rule's screen requires that the lawyer be "timely screened from any participation in the matter," and Comment [9] to Rule 1.10 expects the notice to the former client to go out as soon as practicable after the need for screening becomes apparent.

A check that surfaces the conflict on the lateral's first day forces the screen, the notice and the compensation arrangement to be built under deadline; a check that surfaces it in interviews lets you build all three before anyone is relying on them.

Keep the interviews themselves low-risk while the check is pending: no active-matter detail in either direction, and no access to client files, document management or the conflicts database until the search comes back clean or a screen is in place.

Sort every hit by which rule it arises under, because the options differ.

The model screen in Rule 1.10(a)(2) is written for a lateral's former-client conflict — the conflict that travels with the lawyer from a prior firm.

A hit against a client your firm currently represents is not that kind of conflict, and the (a)(2) screen is not the mechanism for it; that fact pattern goes to your state bar's ethics counsel before the process moves.

For a former-client conflict, the model text offers the screen.

It works where "the disqualified lawyer is timely screened from any participation in the matter and is apportioned no part of the fee therefrom."

Compensation has its own line: under Comment [8] to Rule 1.10, a screened lawyer may keep a salary or partnership share set by a prior independent agreement, but may not receive compensation directly related to the screened matter.

Does the former client have to agree?

Under the model text, no — Comment [7] to Rule 1.10 says the screen works without the former client's informed consent.

The same comment carries the caution, though: "Lawyers should be aware, however, that, even where screening mechanisms have been adopted, tribunals may consider additional factors in ruling upon motions to disqualify a lawyer from pending litigation."

A screen is a rule-compliance structure, not an immunity from a disqualification fight.

How far that no-consent screen carries you depends on the state, and this is where our research runs out: how many states accept or reject non-consensual lateral screening is exactly what we could not verify.

States differ — check your state's version of Rule 1.10 before you rely on a screen the former client never agreed to.

The waiver route runs through the former client instead: where no screen is available, or the firm prefers a cleaner position, the other door is the affected client's informed consent — but our research did not verify when a client's consent cures an imputed conflict under the model text or your state's rule, so confirm that route with your state bar's ethics counsel before you rely on it.

And the third outcome is a pass — declining the hire, or declining the matter.

If your state's rule does not permit the screen, no consent route is confirmed, and the firm will not drop the matter, those three facts together end the negotiation.

Working that out during interviews costs a conversation; working it out after the start date costs a disqualification fight.

Document the check itself, whatever it finds.

The file should show what the candidate disclosed — every firm, the dates, the practice groups, and the client or matter identifiers they said they could share — which databases and client indexes you searched, the dates you ran them, who reviewed the hits, and the disposition of each hit: screen, consent (with ethics counsel's confirmation of that route), or pass.

A search that comes back clean still gets a record with a decision-maker's name on it; the file is what shows the check happened.

When the disposition is a screen, the model rule names the paperwork.

Rule 1.10(a)(2)(ii) requires prompt written notice to the affected former client that describes the screen, states the firm's compliance with it, notes that tribunal review may be available, and agrees to respond to the former client's inquiries.

Comment [9] fills in the content and timing: the notice should describe the screened lawyer's prior representation, and it should go out as soon as practicable after the need for screening becomes apparent.

Rule 1.10(a)(2)(iii) adds the certifications: compliance certifications from the screened lawyer and from a partner, renewed at reasonable intervals on the former client's written request, and provided again when the screening ends.

Calendar the certifications next to the notice copy so the file shows the screen stayed maintained, not just erected.

The last piece of paper is the compensation record.

Comment [8] permits a salary or partnership share set by a prior independent agreement and bars compensation directly related to the screened matter, so the file should show how the screened lawyer is paid in a way that makes the answer obvious — which fee, which matter, no share.

Staff are different, and the model comments say so twice.

Comment [4] to Rule 1.10 provides that a nonlawyer's conflict — the comment's own examples are a paralegal or a legal secretary — is not imputed to the firm under Rule 1.10(a), but that such persons ordinarily must be screened from the matter anyway.

The same comment covers work a person did before becoming a lawyer, for example as a law student: not imputed, ordinarily screened.

So the firm-wide imputation that drives the attorney process does not apply to staff, but the screening expectation does — which is why the conflicts search takes every hire's firm history, whatever the role.

Contract lawyers are the open question.

What our research verified for this page covers lateral lawyers and nonlawyer staff; it did not verify how any state's rule treats temporary and contract lawyers for imputation purposes.

They are hired to do legal work on client matters, so run the same history collection and the same search before their first assignment, and put the imputation question — whether and how your state's version of Rule 1.10 reaches a contract lawyer — to your state bar's ethics counsel.

What we verified, and what we did not: this page describes the ABA's model text of Rule 1.10 and its comments, as our research captured it.

It did not verify the text of Rules 1.7, 1.8 or 1.9; it did not verify when a client's consent cures an imputed conflict; it did not verify any state's adopted version; it found no verified count of states accepting or rejecting non-consensual screening; and it could not confirm the text of Rule 1.6(b)(7) or Formal Opinion 09-455.

The Model Rules bind no one until a state adopts them.

Before a screen, a consent or an offer letter rests on anything above, confirm the current rule with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Employer information, not legal advice. This page describes the ABA's model rules as researched; your state's adopted version controls, and states differ on non-consensual screening. Confirm current requirements with your state bar's ethics counsel before you act on them.