After the initial intake call, ME Law will ask you to identify the parties involved in your matter so the firm can complete a conflict check before receiving detailed confidential information or moving to a substantive consultation. The purpose at this stage is to establish who is involved, not to conduct a full review of your case.
The conflict check is part of ME Law’s intake and onboarding process. Before a lawyer can proceed with substantive discussions, the firm must determine whether it currently represents, previously represented, or holds confidential information relating to a party whose interests may conflict with yours.
ME Law’s conflict-check obligations arise under the Law Society of Ontario’s Rules of Professional Conduct and form part of the professional duties governing independence, loyalty, and confidentiality.
If you want a fuller explanation of the legal and ethical reason for this process, see Why is a conflict check necessary before a consultation?.
What should you provide?
At this stage, you should provide the names of the relevant parties involved in the dispute or proposed engagement. The objective is to give ME Law enough identifying information to run the appropriate check against its records.
Depending on the matter, there may be several parties whose involvement needs to be identified before the conflict check can be completed. The important point is to disclose the relevant party names accurately so the firm can determine whether a professional conflict exists.
You generally should not use the conflict-check stage to send a large volume of confidential documents or provide an extensive substantive account of the dispute before ME Law confirms that it is able to proceed. The conflict check comes before the detailed legal assessment.
The typical sequence is:
- Initial intake call — ME Law gathers preliminary information about the nature of the matter.
- Party identification — you provide the names required for the conflict check.
- Conflict review — ME Law checks its records for potential professional conflicts.
- Conflict clearance — if no conflict prevents the firm from proceeding, the matter can move to the next stage.
- Consultation — detailed documents, facts, legal issues, strategy, and possible next steps can then be addressed through the substantive consultation process.
This distinction is important because completing a conflict-check form does not itself create a retainer or mean that ME Law has agreed to represent you. It is a preliminary professional safeguard within the intake process.
For the broader onboarding sequence, see How do I become a client of ME Law?. Once the conflict process is complete, What is a consultation at ME Law? explains what happens at the substantive legal assessment stage.
Contact ME Law to begin the intake process and provide the party information required for a conflict check.