The Law Society is to roll-out its new 'safe-harbour' compliance
initiative to the whole profession, providing advice to COLPs and
COFAs via its Risk and Compliance Service.
The move follows the Society's launch earlier this month of the
Compliance Reference Group (CRG) pilot to enable Compliance
Officers of Legal Practice (COLPs) from the top 100 firms to submit
enquiries to the Law Society on regulatory issues. Plans to extend
that scheme to Compliance Officers for Finance and Administration
(COFAs) are well advanced.
Now the Society is offering the service to all firms via the
Risk and Compliance Service. In both initiatives, if an individual
or firm follows advice from the CRG or Risk & Compliance
Service and subsequently finds that action is being considered or
taken against them by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, the Law
Society will stand by that individual or firm.
Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said: 'The expertise
of our practitioners in our Risk and Compliance Service should be
made use of by all the profession. There is clearly a demand for
it. Both schemes harness the 'wisdom of the profession' to equip
individuals with advice and support to help compliance.
'The compliance community who are members of the Risk and
Compliance Service will be able to benefit from the same level of
support that the top 100 firms within the Compliance Reference
Group receive. This new initiative enables that to
happen.'
Risk and Compliance Service members who are COLPs or COFAs will
be able to submit queries to the Service, which will then be
considered by Law Society regulatory compliance experts, together
with a panel made up of practitioners. The Society says that
measures are in place to ensure consistency between the advice
given by both the CRG and the new Risk & Compliance Service
initiative.
This latest service is in addition to a range of guidance and
support to members on outcomes focused regulation and wider
compliance issues including practice notes, online training,
diagnostic visits and more.
The new service is due to go live on May 8 2012.
Find out more about the Law Society's Risk & Compliance
Service
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