Take an illustrative firm of twelve fee earners with eleven years of matters in its case management system. A landlord rings wanting possession against a tenant named Patricia Holroyd, the receptionist searches that name, the screen comes back empty, and the file opens that afternoon.
Three weeks later a partner notices that the firm acted for Pat Holroyd on her divorce two years earlier, and holds a third record for P. Holroyd-Smith from a probate matter. None of the three records points to the others. The search did what the receptionist asked of it. It looked for one spelling and found nothing, because the person the firm already knew sat under other names.
Companies split in the same way. Northgate Property Lettings Limited is an existing client on a commercial lease, entered under its registered name. The new enquiry comes from a tenant with a complaint against Northgate Lettings, the name on the sign above the office, and a search for that phrase misses the registered record. The firm is now acting against its own client, and nobody in the building knows it.
Why records split, and how to search them
Records split for ordinary reasons. A client marries and returns under a new surname. A company trades under one name and registers under another, or the front desk enters it under its director's name because that is who rang. Initials stand in for forenames, hyphenated surnames lose half their length, and a receptionist with a queue at the counter creates a fresh record rather than hunting for the old one. Each choice looks harmless at the time, and each leaves the firm unable to recognise someone it already knows.
A search that relies on one typed name will miss them. Search on surname variants and on forenames with initials, and on former and maiden names where the client gives them. For companies, search by the Companies House number as well as by name, since the number stays fixed when the name changes. For individuals, pair a date of birth with a postcode, which separates two people of the same name and joins one person entered twice. Then search the related parties on the new matter, such as directors, spouses, guarantors and the other side's former names, because a conflict often sits one step away from the person named on the enquiry.
A careful search still leaves the duplicates where they sit. Set a date each quarter to review likely duplicates, merge those that prove to be the same person or company, and name one person who owns the task and answers for it.
Record every search on the file, with the names and numbers searched, the date, who ran it and what it returned. A note reading “no conflict” tells a later reviewer nothing about how the firm reached that view.
What the rules expect
The SRA Code of Conduct forbids you from acting where there is a conflict of interests or a significant risk of one, subject to narrow exceptions, and imposes a separate duty where you hold confidential information for one client that is material to another whose interests are adverse. A firm cannot meet either duty if it cannot see who it already acts for. Data protection law also expects personal data to be accurate, and three records for one client, each holding different details, fall short of that expectation. Split records carry a further risk. The identity checks for Pat Holroyd sit on her divorce file, the new matter opens under Patricia with nothing attached, and the fee earner either repeats the checks or proceeds in the belief that someone has done them.
The Bracton AI Assistant works inside the case management or client system your firm already runs. It reads the contact and party records and puts in front of a fee earner the records that look like the same person or company, with the reasons side by side, such as a matching date of birth with a shared postcode, or a company number appearing under two names. The fee earner decides whether they are the same and makes any merge in the firm's own system. At matter opening the assistant runs the conflict search across name variants and related parties, and leaves the result on the file for a qualified fee earner to sign off. A firm that moves to Bracton itself finds the same conflict searching built into the platform. In both cases the assistant proposes and a person decides.
Your own records make the best test. Pick ten clients you have acted for over several years, search each one under a second spelling or a former or trading name, and count the records that come back which you did not expect. If you would like us to run that exercise with you across the whole system, book a client account review.