Lateral conflicts Forum

[Anonymous User]

Is it common to ask one of the internal groups at a current firm to assist with running conflicts to lateral? I just received a lateral offer and am realizing there is no way I could identify all the client matters I worked on based on memory/filings.

[Anonymous User]

are you crazy? no don’t do that, you aren’t supposed to notice your firm until conflicts clear and asking for a list of everything you’ve done will absolutely tip someone off.

do it manually—your time entry program should be able to spit out a report of every matter you’ve ever billed to. yes this will take a few hours if you’re older but it’s absolutely essential.

[Anonymous User]

Your billing system should have a report you can generate. Shouldn't take hours. Ofc I'm the type to be paranoid they track who generates these reports but that can't be helped.

[papermateflair]

When I lateralled several years ago our (terrible) systems had changed and I had no idea how to pull the old information, so I asked my assistant to pull all of my client matters for me because I was trying to make a deal sheet for an RFP or something. But there's likely a much easier way to do that if your firm has normal billing systems - I know I can go into our time entry program and pull everything, but I can also get a report from a couple of our other systems. You CANNOT do this off of memory unless you've only been at the firm a week.

I wouldn't worry about people being suspicious if you download something - I pull my stuff off the system all the time and I'm not changing jobs. And if you have to ask your assistant and they get suspicious, then what are they actually going to do? If an assistant tells everyone that you asked them to pull your matters for the past few years, then everyone is going to know that that assistant is going to tell THEIR business to everyone, and that's a bad look for the assistant.