Risk management

Knowledge-based risk

As a lawyer, anyone employing your services will expect you to have a certain level of knowledge.

They will, quite fairly, expect any advice that they receive from you to be accurate and up-to-date.

However, can you be certain that you are being kept properly updated?

Lawyers are held up as authorities on the area of law they practise, this means not only the legal side, but all relevant issues.

However, with the constant changes in legislation and industry itself, can you honestly say you feel completely confident that you are up to speed on all aspects of your chosen discipline?

If there has been some change in regulation, and you are not aware that the date for the change had been and gone, and have missed an opportunity to save money for a client, you could be leaving yourself open to a negligence claim.

So how are you supposed to keep abreast of all the many changes to legislation that occur within the law?

Firstly, if you work in a large enough practice, it could be a good idea to employ someone whose sole job is to research all changes in the law and their due dates and report these changes to the relevant partners.

This might seem rather a large expense, to employ someone solely to do research, but how expensive would a negligence claim be to the firm? Wouldn't you rather make sure that all partners are kept up to speed on any changes, than run the risk of a disaffected client, claiming your firm wasn't up to date with regulations?

If you work in a smaller firm, then you will probably have to rely on IT and literature.

A lot of the bigger firms send out e-mails and newsletters advising on changes to the law, so make sure you take the time to read and understand all information which comes through to you.

Obviously, this might be too much for one lawyer to do, so divide up the reading and then hold an internal meeting to discuss the forthcoming changes, either monthly or fortnightly.

You, as a lawyer have a high level of expertise, and the trick to successful risk management is maintaining that level.

It is important for the claims record of your practice to be completely up to speed on all areas of the law in which you practise.

Therefore, it is imperative that the relevant systems are in place to ensure you and the rest of your lawyers are properly informed of each and every change in legislation as and when it happens.

This column was prepared by the Alexander Forbes Professions risk management team