man uses tablet on a business meeting with a woman

File Review Service for Legal Practices

A fixed fee, file review service that goes far beyond ‘box ticking’.

File Reviews, Monitoring and Analysis

File reviews are seen within the Legal Sector as a mixed blessing. For some they provide a barometer of the levels of client care, and compliance with controls and regulations (including AML and the SRA Code of Conduct). For others they can be seen as a time consuming ‘tick box’ process.

We conduct in-depth file reviews, monitoring and analysis for law firms, and provide detailed reporting describing risks, trends and remedial action for consideration.

Conducted with an appropriate regularity and flexibly (tailored to the practice) our file reviews reveal a wealth of risk-management information which can add significant value to your practice, and elevate your file reviews to far more than just a ‘box ticking’ exercise.

As with all of our services, the file review service is conducted on a fixed fee basis.

File Reviews, Tailored To You

No two legal practices are the same, and so all of our file reviews are tailored specifically to meet your individual needs. We design the criteria, frequency, volume and scoping uniquely for your firm.

For some practices, we review files from every fee earner, once or twice per year, to capture trends for concern so that they can be addressed in good time prior to an assessment visit.

For others, we conduct quarterly or monthly file reviews on selected files or fee earners to provide regular feedback.

We sometimes conduct file reviews as part of the due diligence process during an acquisition.

We conduct file reviews for some firms as part of our ‘Support for COLPs and Compliance Managers’ service.

And, for some practices, we have been tasked with conducting independent reviews to gather evidence to support the response to a query from the SRA.

Whatever your needs, we tailor our service to provide you with the best solution possible. Get started by booking a free, no obligation consultation today.

Our File Review Process

Step 1 - Office Visit:

We start by visiting your office(s) to conduct the reviews on matter files and record the outcomes on our specifically coded forms.

The criteria can be set to suit the Practice; it is 100% adaptable to any Standard, regulation or requirement
There is a report for each fee earner.
Individual fee earner records are consolidated into ‘department’ summaries.
Department summaries are consolidated into a single ‘Practice-wide’ chart.
We also speak with the fee earners to discuss the findings, to identify potential causes of non-compliance (or conversely, opportunity for best practice).

Step 2 - Authoring Your Report

After our visit, we review and consolidate all of the data into a report, including a set of 'dashboard visuals' of performance. The report typically includes:

A high level summary. This provides an overview of areas of concern, anywhere in the Practice

A drill down by department and then individual fee earner. This Provides practices with a helicopter view of compliance and risk, as well as pinpointing trouble-spots that require action

A snapshot of shifts in trends by department across multiple months, Quarters or years

In addition, our reports provide a detailed narrative, including (but not limited to):

Consideration of reasons for the trends.
Potential direct or indirect risks, including regulatory risk.
Identification of potential training requirements or supervision enhancements.
Systematic concerns, such as ID checking or inductions.
Identification of hot-spots of good practice; potential to capitalise upon opportunities.

Pricing

We strive to provide you with unparalleled value through services that are bespoke to your practice.

Our pricing is competitive and transparent. And, it’s tailored according to the scope of the work that that we do for you.

Wherever possible, we conduct work on a fixed fee basis.

Join our free Best Practice Group and save:

Members of our free-to-join Best Practice Group receive a substantial discount on all of our services.

Find out more

Why Choose PDA Legal?

The PDA Legal Team:

Is proud to have more than two decades of experience in the legal sector.
Has supported over 500 legal organisations.
Has worked with The Law Society on Lexcel and has authored articles and spoken at national Law Society events on key compliance topics.
Conducts all discussions with you in strict confidence.
Operates, wherever possible, on a fixed price model and project scheduling, providing you with clear, transparent pricing.
Offers a free, no obligation initial consultation.

Book your free consultation today

What Our Clients Have to Say…

“It was a significant step for us to bring in external compliance support. but the regular visits are making a huge difference to us; we're so glad to have you on board.”
“Your file review visits are immeasurably helpful. The insight from your reporting has helped us to consider our training and supervision requirements.”
“Thank you on behalf of the other Partners and myself for helping us to shoulder the compliance burden. It's also rather nice to now have a little more time freed up for fee earning as a result of this!”
“Changes to SRA, AML, GDPR regulations have all come at once and we have been very pleased to have someone to hold our hand through it all. Thank you and look forward to seeing you again next month.”

More Testimonials