Patent ID: 7158944
Filing Date: 2007-01-02
Classification: G06Q

Abstract:
1. A computer system for facilitating clients engaging subscribers to provide legal and legal-related services that protects the client's confidential information and avoids creating conflicts of interest, comprising: a host site computer; a client computer in communication with the host site computer; a subscriber computer in communication with the host site computer, wherein the host site computer, the client computer, and the subscriber computer are configured to operate as follows: a client's request for proposal (RFP) is created on the client computer, wherein the client's RFP includes information about a legal-related need that prompted the client to seek to engage a subscriber to provide services to assist the client with respect to that need and screening criteria for determining whether a particular subscriber can view the client's RFP; a client's conflict of interest protocol is created on the host site computer; a subscriber profile is created on the subscriber computer, wherein the subscriber profile includes qualifications of the subscriber and conflict information which can be used to screen for possible conflicts of interest regarding the subscriber's representation of the client with respect to the client's legal-related need; the client's RFP is transmitted from the client computer to the host site computer; the subscriber profile is transmitted from the subscriber computer to the host site computer; the client's identity is transmitted to the subscriber computer; the result of a conflict of interest check conducted by the subscriber is transmitted from the subscriber computer to the host site computer; and allowing the subscriber access to the client's RFP on the host site computer and to respond with a proposal to provide services to the client regarding the client's legal-related need as described in the client's RFP if the host site computer receives an affirmative confirmation from the subscriber computer that the subscriber does not have a conflict of interest.