Anyone hoping for a return to the days before law firms and barristers’ chambers became deluged with reams of regulatory compliance and weighed down under a mountain of risk management policies and procedures is going to be disappointed. Whilst regulation in the form of the SRA Standards and Regulations and the BSB Handbook set out the relevant standards for the different strands of the profession, practitioners will also need to have regard to the UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation, the Bribery Act 2010…we could go on (and that’s even before we start looking at the people who make your business what it is and the employment legislation relevant to them).

For many legal businesses their compliance officers and those responsible for regulation and risk management are also busy Partners, Heads of Chambers and others in fee earning roles, trying to meet monthly billing targets whilst also ensuring that their practices stay on the right side of the regulator and the law.

So how can Linwood Consulting help? We provide a bespoke consultancy service in a range of different compliance areas, including regulatory compliance, risk management, data protection, anti-money laundering and Solicitors’ Accounts Rules. With experience in human resources we can also offer advice and assistance in the area of people management.

If you don’t need help understanding your obligations but need help fulfilling them we can also assist. We offer an outsourced complaint handling and file review service to help take the pressure off your fee earning staff, enabling them to get back to doing what they do best.

For those wishing to pursue the Lexcel quality standard, we have an approved Law Society Lexcel Consultant on hand who can provide new applicants with the advice and assistance they need to help them achieve accreditation. For accredited firms needing help to improve their assessment score or embed their processes, we can offer gap analysis and follow up advice to help focus efforts where they are needed most. If you would like more information about the Lexcel consultancy services we can offer please give us a call or take a look at our separate Lexcel Consultancy page. For more information about Lexcel generally visit What is Lexcel?