cpm21 News

2021 - The State of the Solicitors Profession - A Year in Review

As is traditional for us at CPM21 at this time of year, we reflect on the last 12 months for our clients in the solicitors’ profession. At the time of writing this article, the new Omicron variant was spreading throughout the UK. Unfortunately, apart from Beta, Gamma, Delta, Eta, Ioata, Kappa and Lambda which have already been identified as variants, there are another 16 letters left in the Greek alphabet for the scientists to use up.

The Legal Aid Agency launch it's 2021 Crime Tender

Back in June 2021 I wrote an article setting out the history and pitfalls of LAA Tenders. On 16th June the LAA had published the schedule for its Crime Tender confirming that the new Crime Contract would commence on 1st October 2022.

Well yesterday, the LAA published its IFA v1, firing the starting pistol for the tender. The start date for the contract is confirmed as 1st October 2022.

COLP and COFA SRA Service and Transparency Declarations 2021

Solicitors will recall that from the 6th of December 2018, SRA regulated legal firms must publish their fee information on their websites (or in alternative format easily available if they don’t have a website). To go with this, firms must publish the process for each of the different services offered, and the names, status and experience of the fee earners providing them.

SRA Diversity Reporting Deadline looms

As we approach the deadline for firms to report their diversity data to the regulator, we thought a reminder right about now might be timely, as in our day-to-day cpm21 interactions with Solicitors firms, we have been surprised about how many don’t realise this needs to be done, or that submissions have to be completed by the 30th of July 2021.

Crime firms face an uncertain future as the LAA launch it's 2021 crime tender

Yesterday, 16th of June 2021, the LAA published the schedule for its crime tender.

The new contract will commence on the 1st of October 2022.

Anti-Money Laundering and Diversity - what you should be doing now

(A Welsh Language version of this article follows the English language version.)

Issue 92 of the SRA’s Compliance Bulletin would have appeared in Solicitor Firms’ email inboxes last week, and there were some warnings of what is to come from the SRA over the coming year.

Brace Yourselves -The SRA are now carrying out Desktop Anti-Money Laundering Audits.

With the intense focus by the SRA on Anti-Money Laundering over the last year or so, it should not be any surprise that the regulator has decided it can’t wait for lockdowns to be over and it wants to get a picture of how firms are managing their Money Laundering obligations, especially as this time last year their AML Directorate Team were carrying out on-site audits, but for obvious reasons that stopped.

SRA Issue firm with 2,000 pound fine for breach of Transparency Rules on their website!

On 18th November 2020, I wrote a news article reminding firms that the SRA were actively monitoring compliance and setting out the information etc. that needed to be on your website.