Solicitor’s Office Manual
Solicitors Office Manual for law firms
Our ever popular law firm office manual covers SRA risk and compliance, anti-money laundering, GDPR, cyber security and much more.
Our template law firm office manual is perfect for ensuring that you meet your Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) obligations to put effective risk and compliance systems in place in your firm. It can be especially useful if you are just setting up a new legal practice or need to start afresh with an up to date set of policies and procedures. Our comprehensive editable template policies, procedures and logs provide a cost effective toolkit for achieving firm-wide compliance with SRA rules, anti-money laundering procedures and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Spanning over 120 pages of A4 and over 50,000 words, this manual covers a breadth of topics that you won’t find in many other toolkits of this kind. You can view the full index for the manual and sample some of the content below. Downloads available immediately upon purchase. No subscription necessary. Now updated for the new SRA Standards and Regulations 2019 which came into force on 25 November 2019 and the 5th Money Laundering Directive changes implemented on 10 January 2020.
“The template was amazing. Really, really easy to use and well drafted.”
Emily Bolton, Centre For Criminal Appeals
“The template risk and compliance documentation assisted us with our firm based authorisation process as it was invaluable in ensuring we had a risk and compliance framework to ensure compliance with the SRAs requirements.”
Jo Adams, Otium Legal
What’s inside the office manual?
We intentionally separate out this part of our manual from the staff standards because we find that most staff do not need to review certain risk assessments and structure charts day-to-day. In this section of the manual we include the following policies and procedures:
- Governance
- Risk management
- Quality and risk assurance
- Compliance officer roles
- Financial management
- Management team terms of reference
- Business continuity plan
- Local file review form
- Central file review form
- Anti-money laundering risk assessment
- Data protection and cyber security policy
This is the part of the manual dedicated to clearly setting out what the solicitor’s firm expects of colleagues in any given area. In this section of the manual we include the following policies and procedures:
- Our ethical values
- Information we need from our staff
- New client instructions
- Confidentiality and data protection
- Service standards
- Undertakings
- Publicity
- Working with third parties
- Client complaints and claims against us
- Reserved legal activities and financial services
- Ceasing to act for the client, matter closures and gifts
- Learning and development
- Accounting procedures
- Litigation, advocacy and our duties to the Court
- Equality and Inclusion policy
- Client feedback and complaints
- Conflicts of Interest policy
- Working with other businesses and outsourcing
- Procurement and Bribery Act policy
- Sharing concerns policy (whistleblowing)
- Acceptable use policy
- Anti-money laundering procedures and forms
- Rule breach notification form
Depending upon which document pack you select you can also access the following additional templates and guidance:
- client care letter and terms of business toolkit;
- GDPR toolkit;
- SRA price transparency toolkit.
Client care letter and terms of business toolkit
Our template client care information sheet has been drafted so as to reflect recent SRA guidance on simplifying client care letters and the template fits on just one page. The terms of business however include much more detail including provisions on client responsibilities, calculating charges, billing, a payment of interest policy, information on the protections available to clients (as required by the SRA), a privacy policy, a complaints policy and anti-money laundering information. It also includes guidance on how to tailor the documentation and sample wording for compliance with the Consumers Contracts Regulations 2013 for firms who visit ‘consumer’ clients out of the office. Content spans approximately 8,000 words.
General Data Protection Regulation toolkit
Take the pain out of GDPR compliance with all of the key tools you will need, tailored specifically for law firms. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you’ll be able to get your systems in place with these templates. The toolkit includes:
- a step-by-step guide on how to use the e-learning and templates;
- a template privacy notice for clients;
- example of a data audit / information mapping table which you can adopt as your starting point;
- template law firm information risk assessment;
- template data protection policy;
- template staff standards on confidentiality, data protection, cyber security and more.
Word content spans approximately 15,000 words.
SRA price transparency toolkit
The SRA’s price transparency rules require all law firms to publish certain information on their website. For some this is simply certain complaints / redress information but for others it requires publication of price information on the firm’s website. This toolkit includes template price information for firms to simply slot their pricing in in the context of the three most widely caught areas of law: employment, immigration and conveyancing. Content spans approximately 5,000 words.
SRA Risk and Compliance Office Manual Frequently Asked Questions:
Does the manual come as a Word file?
The manual comes in a Word file with some accompanying template registers in Excel. Once purchased from our shop you can immediately download the templates in Word (the registers come in Excel) enabling you to amend the templates to suit you best as you like. Please contact us if you require alternative formats before purchasing this item.
Is the office manual regularly updated?
Yes. We do keep track of the most significant SRA and AML changes and will periodically publish an updated version of the procedures. When you purchase the manual from the shop it is a one off purchase without updates. If you would prefer to subscribe to the manual to maintain access to the most up to date versions you can do so with a compliance office in the cloud subscription. Get in touch for more information.
Do I need to subscribe?
Not if you don’t want to no. You can simply purchase the manual as a one-off item if you wish to do so. If you are interested in continuing to receive the most up to date drafts you can subscribe to our Compliance Office in the Cloud platform. Contact us for more information.
Have the templates been approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)?
The SRA as a matter of policy do not approve template policies and procedures and do not generally offer their own. However we are pleased to say that our templates have been tried and tested many times over the years both in the context of the SRA authorisation process and onsite investigations without problem.
Will this office manual make my firm SRA compliant?
No template can simply be adopted and relied upon for complete compliance without any further action. Be very weary of any company which is suggesting that their product will automatically make you compliant – it is more complex than that unfortunately. While we tend to find that our templates require very little tailoring in most firms you should be satisfied that they work for you before adopting them. They also need to be followed in practice. This means training staff periodically on the standards expected of them and implementing checks and balances to ensure that the standards set are being met. All that being said however, workable up-to-date policies and procedures are a very big piece of the puzzle and this package will set a great foundation for SRA compliance. We do offer more hands on support which includes training, health checks and retainer support. Just contact us for more details.
Do you provide guidance on how to implement the office manual?
As standard we price our manuals competitively without the automatic inclusion of any hands on help or guidance on your particular circumstances. However, we do work with a number of consultants who can help you tailor your policies and procedures or track your old manual into the new. Contact us if you would like more information on this.
Is the office manual compatible with Lexcel, CQS or SQM accreditation?
These procedures are primarily intended to satisfy SRA requirements. Each of our policies and procedures have optional paragraphs highlighted by a different coloured text to assist in meeting the relevant standards. The majority of Lexcel, Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) and SQM requirements are therefore addressed within the templates (though in practice there is more to do than simply have the policies in place of course). However it is not a complete set of procedures for these purposes and you will need to take care to ensure that you supplement and update these procedures as required. We can offer no guarantees as to the suitability for accreditation purposes – the procedures should be viewed as a starting point only. In Lexcel for example the firm would typically need to ‘top up’ in respect of corporate social responsibility, client satisfaction surveys, health and safety and HR policies. Similarly for the closely linked Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) firms would need to describe in writing their lender reporting, leasehold and Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) approach in order to meet the CQS standards.
Why do you not charge more money for your office manual?
Some of our longest standing retainer support clients started out with a simple purchase of our office manual. People tend to be very impressed by the quality of the manual (see our testimonials) and get in touch when they need more help and support. We obviously want that to continue! We also enjoy providing an alternative to some of the more costly piecemeal / subscription only alternatives out there.