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COFAs Toolkit
Availability: Published
The Legal Services Act 2007 requires every firm to appoint a Compliance Officer for Finance and Administration (COFA). The COFA has a more focused role than a COLP (Compliance Officer for Legal Practice) and has two key responsibilities:
- to ensure compliance with the SRA's accounts rules
- to record all failures to comply and to report any such failures to the SRA as soon as is reasonably practicable.
This toolkit provides practical assistance to the COFA to implement and oversee systems for compliance in relation to the Accounts Rules and includes:
- payment authorisation forms
- draft undertakings
- reporting and monitoring forms
- development and training policy
- draft letters and reports.
Contents
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Principal regulatory requirements of COFAs
- 3. Becoming a COFA
- 4. Responsibilities of the COFA
- 5. Reporting requirements
- 6. Further guidance.
- Appendices (contained on CD):
- Overall compliance checklist for COFAs
- Terms of appointment to the role of COFA
- Temporary emergency notification letter to the SRA
- SRA guidelines- accounting procedures and systems checklist
- Guidance on matter file reviews
- Matter file review template
- Pro forma templates for the recording of breaches internally
- Template letter for reporting material breaches to the SRA
- Common areas of breaches of the Accounts Rules
- Internal policy for dealing with mixed payments
- Framework for monitoring, reviewing and managing risks of non-compliance
- Examples of key general controls expected to be in place in law firms.
About the Author
Jeremy Black is a Partner in Deloitte’s professional practices group.Category
Regulation and compliance
Published
June 2012
Publisher
Law Society
ISBN
9781907698477
Format
Paperback + CD
80 Pages