There are plenty of offerings out there for ‘off the shelf’ compliance documents or IT systems. However, there is a real danger with these as each legal business is different and does things in a different way. Indeed, the SRA have stated as much in relation to anti-money laundering documents as you may have seen reported in The Law Society Gazette: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/sra-concerned-at-firms-cut-and-paste-approach-to-aml/5101968.article
To properly protect your practice and your clients, it is necessary to invest time in creating or adapting such documents to match your business. Therefore, what seems like a cost-effective option works out as a false economy once you have factored in your precious time – which frankly, you know would be better spent fee earning or managing your business.
For this very reason and as a matter of professional ethics, we will not provide ‘off the shelf’ documents or solutions. We have the skill, experience and knowledge to get the necessary information from your systems, COLP and COFA and other key personnel quickly and painlessly and put this into a personalised package that will make you compliant with the necessary regulations.
If you want to go further, we can also help to obtain LEXCEL, CQS or any other type of accreditation and maximise your business opportunities – and therefore profits!
What does it involve?
Our services truly are bespoke so we will work with you to provide the solution best matched to your business needs, style and personality.
Whether you need:
- One or twenty policies/procedures drafting
- An entire compliance manual/plan
- Staff training
- Simple guidance on what policies are needed
- A regular reliable compliance update/monitor on the latest provisions
we will work with you to deliver exactly the service you want – and beyond! So, let us take the pain out of compliance for you.
Cost
Given that these services are bespoke, it’s not possible to put an upfront cost on it but once the parameters of the project are agreed, a fixed fee will be set. And we guarantee that it will be more cost effective than your hourly rate if you were to do it yourself!
If you were to spend 15 hours each month* on compliance matters and your hourly rate is £175.00 per hour this equates to £2,625,00 per month.
*We would estimate that this time allocation is a fair assumption for a small 1-5 partner firm.
Case Study
A two-partner firm with 7 fee earners in one office felt it wasn’t cost effective for one of the partners to spend a substantial amount of time developing a compliance manual to bring the firm’s policies and procedures in line with the regulatory requirements. This decision was also made as neither partner felt that they had the up to date knowledge or expertise in compliance.
The Result
An entire compliance manual and all the necessary policies, procedures, processes and documents were either updated or created for a total cost of £2,500.00.
This would have probably taken the partners at least 40 hours to develop by themselves at a cost of around £7,000.00 worth of fee earning and management time.
The client said:
“Beyond Compliance worked with us to help us to ensure we comply with the multitude of regulations and legislation, in such a way as to make it practical for our business. They took the time to really understand what our business was about, what our client’s needs were and who we were as a business. The end result was a comprehensive Compliance Manual and systems of work which were highly applicable to our business.
Michaela was refreshing to work with as she really listened to what we needed and came up with a solution to match rather than telling us how we should change. This allowed us to continue working in our own way with the security of knowing that by doing so, we are complying with all of the necessary regulations.”