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I was once (in the era before Money Laundering Regs) asked by a partner to take over a commercial property sale file at the eleventh hour; it struck me as very odd since the partner was very jealous of my advising his clients and tended to keep all the big jobs for himself. I then found out that the buyer was trying to manipulate the client into a mortgage or Stamp Duty fraud by a falsification of the price in the documents. I advised the client not to agree to this and that, in any event, my firm could not act for the client if the parties wanted the matter to proceed on the basis proposed by the buyer. The buyer dug his heels in and my client became desperate to sell. The buyer's solicitor was of no help whatsoever. So, in a nutshell, everyone involved in the transaction except me was prepared to commit fraud. I took the file to the partner and explained my concerns to him; he said he would take back the file but later the same day the file reappeared on my desk. I went to the partner and asked what he had decided; he said he wanted me to complete the transaction. When I explained again that the client and the buyer wanted me to agree to falsify the price and that as things stood the transaction couldn't complete (because the buyer wouldn't budge) he just said that I should complete the transaction. I said that I couldn't and gave the file back to him. I never saw the file again but a few weeks later I was given notice. Of course, I had long since realized that the partners was a s**t and this incident proved that he was not only a s**t but also a cowardly s**t at that. He was prepared to pressurize me into committing a crime but wanted to keep himself out of it. So let me say to all young lawyers out there that if you are ever asked to do or pressured into doing something wrong, just say no. It is far better to be able to hold your head up high than to be a member of the sort of firm who would tolerate wrongdoing. Of course, nowadays I would have to report all the above things to the MLRO but at least that would get me off the hook. However, I can see why a young lawyer might be wary of risking damaging their career by reporting. If their bosses are rotten eggs then they might be persecuted or sacked. Nevertheless, stick to your guns and stay honest. There are decent honest firms out there and eventually you might end up working for one of them- like I did.