This article discusses the increasing difficulty of managing client conflicts as law firms grow, merge and internationalize:
As law firms have consolidated in recent years, conflicts have become a thornier issue. David G. Briscoe of the legal consulting firm Altman Weil in Newtown Square, Pa., says that as firms expand worldwide and as the level of organizational complexity goes "through the roof," some firms have started running conflict checks as often as twice a day.
Busy partners at law firms have a lot of leeway in how they fulfill their administrative duties, Mr. Briscoe said: "If there isn't strong central control and authority, that can be something that gets you in trouble."
But giving lawyers much of the burden of weeding out conflicts "just doesn't work," said C. Evan Stewart, a partner at Brown Raysman Millstein Felder & Steiner in New York, who teaches legal ethics at two law schools in the city. Lawyers are compensated based on the fees they generate, he said, and checking for conflicts does not generate fees. "That's not how law firms make money," he said.
Details here from The New York Times.