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I recently got an offer at a great firm contingent on a conflicts check. I was just compiling my matter list the other day and remembered that in a previous job I worked on a case against a company that my prospective employer has represented in at least one unrelated matter. I would be working in a completely different practice group. What does it take to be conflicted out? I can't remember anything from the many ethics tests I've taken.

I don't think so under the model rules because they are unrelated matters. Even if it was the same or a substantially related matter you could be screened. The rules in your state may differ, so you should probably look them up.

I had this happen with a large Fortune 50 client on a bigtime litigation. new employer was directly adverse to the old employer. I had to (personally) go to the old firm's client (the F50 company) to get a waiver signed (which the new employer provided me). I had to jump through a few hoops but basically just needed to navigate to the correct person in the in-house counsel and getting it signed was nbd. I was just chinese walled off at the new firm

OP here. Thanks.

Nah. I was at a federal agency workign directly against my current firm on a matter.

When I moved over to the current firm, they just set up a screen where I couldn't talk to people working on that matter.

This happens all the time. The new employer could decide it's not worth the headache or that you'd have to be screened from too much work or whatever, but if it's a firm of any size this should not be any sort of problem.

Anonymous User wrote:I had this happen with a large Fortune 50 client on a bigtime litigation. new employer was directly adverse to the old employer. I had to (personally) go to the old firm's client (the F50 company) to get a waiver signed (which the new employer provided me). I had to jump through a few hoops but basically just needed to navigate to the correct person in the in-house counsel and getting it signed was nbd. I was just chinese walled off at the new firm

Same happened to me when I lateraled. My conflicts were LOL. I had to get two waivers signed by my soon-to-be former clients and be screened off, but the others I was just screened off. It took over a month for my conflicts to clear, so.....yeah.

Oh god. Is this really going to take a month