Other speakers include Marie-Claire Le Houerou (Intapp Senior Client Experience Director) and Eric Mosca (Director of Operations at InOutsource).
I will discuss the increasing challenges firm risk and compliance teams face (drawing on some of the data and responses to my recent risk salary survey, for those curious readers who didn’t participate or secure a copy of the report). I’ll explore what I’ve heard from many of you regarding staffing / resource constraints, risk trends and policy needs, and aspirations for enhancing risk team operational efficiency.
Marie-Claire will talk about how technology offers a strategy for effective long-term response. He’ll explore how your existing (and potential) investments in compliance software can help your organization overcome existing constraints, address emerging challenges, and improve your firm’s overall capabilities and effectiveness. He will also share why establishing a solid foundation today will help your organization grow and adapt more easily tomorrow.
Eric will provide practical insight on connecting theory with practice. He’ll share real-world stories and offer guidance for firms looking to invest in and enhance their risk technology — including thoughts on evaluating options and setting strategy. He’ll also discussion opportunities for existing Intapp clients to build on their existing investments, addressing key risk operations and challenges, including: mapping your data flow, audit letter workflow automation, staff training, client guideline management, data warehousing risk information, and more.
It should be an interesting discussion. And I’m looking forward to seeing many familiar names in the virtual room where it happens — and in the Q&A/comment box, please don’t be shy!
Intapp is conducting a survey designed to uncover how firms manage and track anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-client (KYC) efforts. The findings will serve as a benchmark — helping your firm compare, contrast, and evaluate its own AML and KYC efforts against others in the industry.
“Do any of these situations apply to your law firm?
Your firm is subject to varying AML and KYC laws across multiple jurisdictions.
Your firm practices across some jurisdictions that are subject to AML and KYC laws, and others that are not.
Your firm is not yet subject to any AML or KYC laws.”
“If you fall into the first or second category, your firm should apply a common framework for complying with AML and KYC laws — then add specific steps as needed to address specific regional requirements. Even if your firm is in the third category, it should still consider voluntarily implementing a framework for several reasons.”
“Below we look at the core elements of an effective AML and KYC compliance framework as well as additional considerations for specific jurisdictions.”
“Carrying out AML and KYC checks requires a carefully designed process that enables your firm to gather, review, and store the information necessary to undertake checks before deciding whether to accept a new client or matter.”
“Your AML/KYC workflow is just one part of a broader client onboarding process and workflow that also involves a data quality review, risk assessment, and conflict review.”
“With a risk-based approach to client due diligence, your firm should adjust the stringency of its AML and KYC reviews based on the level of risk that a client and matter presents. That is, your firm gathers baseline information on each client and assigns a risk score. It is important to develop a sound approach and methodology to risk scoring within your firm because the risk scores guide your firm in dividing its time among review tasks. Risk scores enable you to devote the highest levels of review and priority to high-risk or higher-risk rated clients or matters and less time to low-risk matters.”
Intapp cloud-based risk and compliance products have included AI capabilities for many years. If you were unable to join the webinar on March 5, you can discover how Intapp compliance solutions can help you leverage recent and upcoming AI enhancements in the cloud by watching the recording here.
This session covered:
Key enhancements added to Intapp risk and compliance products in the past year
A review of current and upcoming AI capabilities
Recommendations and available resources for your journey to the cloud
“Does your firm’s conflicts process take too long and yield unclear results? After bringing a potential new client to the firm, do you find yourself waiting days or weeks for a decision? And in lieu of a simple decision, do you often only receive a huge, complex report?”
“Institute a disclosure policy. Your firm should establish a policy mandating that fee earners share comprehensive information about new matters with the Conflicts department or designated conflicts professionals.”
“Wait until after matter approval to establish new client matter account. This policy ensures alignment with conflict check requirements and prevents opening new client matter billing accounts without proper due diligence and clearance.”
“Make researching affiliations a part of your conflict check process. Your firm should determine which matters warrant this extensive affiliation research. Make sure to consider the nature of the firm’s representation and the practice area involved. For example, when dealing with bankruptcy or litigation cases, in which conflicts of interest are more common, it’s especially critical to identify your party’s affiliations so that your firm can respond appropriately.”
“Determine when to exclude closed matters. To maintain the relevance and accuracy of conflict reports, your firm should establish guidelines for excluding and automatically closing old, completed matters. Without such guidelines, inactive client matters may overshadow active ones. This could potentially lead to large volumes of erroneous data in the conflicts database.”
“Add conflict waiver terms into conflicts database. When clients grant waivers for conflicts of interest, you must integrate the specific conditions of these waivers into your firm’s database.”
“Routinely circulate updated matter information. Your firm should establish a policy of routinely sharing new, non-confidential client and/or matter information among fee earners to supplement conflict checks. For example, if new parties become involved in the matter, their names should be shared and added to the conflicts database.”
“Implement AI assistance. AI-assisted conflicts searching offers numerous benefits to firms: It reduces the volume of hits analysts need to review; It displays results in a way that makes them easy to analyze; It removes irrelevant erroneous and ‘false-positive’ results; It provides reasoning for its classifications.”
See the complete articlefor additional detail and recommendations.
“When the U.S. Senate blocked the Enablers Act in December 2022, law firms avoided new regulatory requirements to conduct anti-money laundering (AML) checks on clients. But law firms already have compelling reasons to institute AML and Know Your Client (KYC) processes.”
“Whether your law firm is based in the U.S. exclusively or has offices around the world, implementing AML and KYC processes presents several upsides, helps you avoid significant risks, and is easy to carry out with the right technology.”
“When you accept a new client, you want to make the full resources of your firm available to them. Thus, if you’re a global law firm, it’s beneficial to onboard U.S.-based clients in a way that enables you to transfer work to overseas offices or to take advantage of advice and services provided by your offices outside of the United States. Even if the client doesn’t anticipate needing the counsel of your lawyers in other countries, best practice recommends keeping the door open to that possibility.”
“The optimal way to onboard a U.S. client to other offices across the globe is to implement a consistent AML and KYC standard that all firm offices adhere to regardless of whether operating in a regulated or unregulated jurisdiction. Once a firm settles on a standard for all offices, having a consistent process can significantly increase the efficiency of the client onboarding lifecycle and improve the experience of the internal team and client.”
“Onboarding the client without implementing any kind of AML process would limit the jurisdiction of the work you could undertake for that client. Should the client later have a matter requiring the counsel of your attorneys in other countries, the work would have to await completion of AML checks, causing delays and risking dissatisfaction.”
“So, how can your firm implement AML and KYC processes? If you’re a strictly U.S.-based law firm, following a voluntary risk-based approach to preventing money laundering, as the American Bar Association recommends, is a sound strategy.”
“Setting up these checks and verifications involves creating defined workflows and forms as well as enabling cross-checking of data against third-party databases. Because of these complexities, software purpose-built for these processes makes them easier to implement and track.”
“As the United States works to strengthen its approach to preventing money laundering through the Corporate Transparency Act and its beneficial ownership reporting requirements , law firms have an important self-directed role to play in preventing criminal behavior and its devastating social, economic, and security consequences.”
Law firms know that outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) are only going to increase in volume and complexity in the future — and firms will need to adopt modern tools, policies, and best practices to effectively manage those mandates.
Although moving away from legacy processes and technology can prove challenging for some firms, the benefits of modern OCG management tools are invaluable and can help organizations reach lasting success. That’s why many firms continue to invest in Intapp Terms.
Intapp Terms enables firms to effectively catalog, analyze, and comply with client mandates at scale.
In this webinar, a panel of independent experts will share their experiences, advice, recommendations, and tips for navigating your Intapp Terms journey — no matter what stage your firm is at.
Whether you’ve licensed Intapp Terms and are looking to take your practices to the next level, or you’re just starting to think about a software investment, this session will help you better prepare for your organization’s long-term success. Bring your stories, questions, and ideas to the table, and learn how you can better manage client requirements.
This webinar covered topics, including:
Strategies for getting started — Discover how prudent planning, expert assessment, and practice polices can put you in the best starting position.
Stories of scaling — Learn how firms are using Intapp Terms to effectively centralize and streamline OCG management.
Harnessing new horizons — Achieve active compliance across time and billing activity, and delve into data and analytics, new features, and emerging opportunities.
Speakers:
Eric Mosca, Director, InOutsource
David Skweres, Director, InOutsource
James Edwards, Director of Client Experience, Intapp
Martin Armstrong, Senior Product Manager, Terms, Intapp
Law firms know that outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) are only going to increase in volume and complexity in the future — and firms will need to adopt modern tools, policies, and best practices to effectively manage those mandates.
Although moving away from legacy processes and technology can prove challenging for some firms, the benefits of modern OCG management tools are invaluable and can help organizations reach lasting success. That’s why many firms continue to invest in Intapp Terms.
Intapp Terms enables firms to effectively catalog, analyze, and comply with client mandates at scale.
In this webinar, a panel of independent experts will share their experiences, advice, recommendations, and tips for navigating your Intapp Terms journey — no matter what stage your firm is at.
Whether you’ve licensed Intapp Terms and are looking to take your practices to the next level, or you’re just starting to think about a software investment, this session will help you better prepare for your organization’s long-term success. Bring your stories, questions, and ideas to the table, and learn how you can better manage client requirements.
This webinar covered topics, including:
Strategies for getting started — Discover how prudent planning, expert assessment, and practice polices can put you in the best starting position.
Stories of scaling — Learn how firms are using Intapp Terms to effectively centralize and streamline OCG management.
Harnessing new horizons — Achieve active compliance across time and billing activity, and delve into data and analytics, new features, and emerging opportunities.
Speakers:
Eric Mosca, Director, InOutsource
David Skweres, Director, InOutsource
James Edwards, Director of Client Experience, Intapp
Martin Armstrong, Senior Product Manager, Terms, Intapp
Law firms know that outside counsel guidelines (OCGs) are only going to increase in volume and complexity in the future — and firms will need to adopt modern tools, policies, and best practices to effectively manage those mandates.
Although moving away from legacy processes and technology can prove challenging for some firms, the benefits of modern OCG management tools are invaluable and can help organizations reach lasting success. That’s why many firms continue to invest in Intapp Terms.
Intapp Terms enables firms to effectively catalog, analyze, and comply with client mandates at scale.
In this webinar, a panel of independent experts will share their experiences, advice, recommendations, and tips for navigating your Intapp Terms journey — no matter what stage your firm is at.
Whether you’ve licensed Intapp Terms and are looking to take your practices to the next level, or you’re just starting to think about a software investment, this session will help you better prepare for your organization’s long-term success. Bring your stories, questions, and ideas to the table, and learn how you can better manage client requirements.
This webinar will cover various topics, including:
Strategies for getting started — Discover how prudent planning, expert assessment, and practice polices can put you in the best starting position.
Stories of scaling — Learn how firms are using Intapp Terms to effectively centralize and streamline OCG management.
Harnessing new horizons — Achieve active compliance across time and billing activity, and delve into data and analytics, new features, and emerging opportunities.
Speakers:
Eric Mosca, Director, InOutsource
David Skweres, Director, InOutsource
James Edwards, Director of Client Experience, Intapp
Martin Armstrong, Senior Product Manager, Terms, Intapp
“For law firms looking to accelerate and simplify their conflicts clearance process, Intapp Conflicts — the only legal conflicts solution with AI-assisted clearance — just got better. Already very popular among legal professionals, Intapp Conflicts got key upgrades in 2022 to its user interface that further reduce the time professionals need to check and clear conflicts. Learn how the software’s AI-assisted clearance function and new interface can help your legal risk and compliance team work more efficiently.”
AI capability improves your conflicts review process. Intapp Conflicts automatically categorizes results based on their resemblance to past hits that merited deeper analysis. As a result, conflicts analysts and other legal staff can spend less time reviewing lower-risk hits and focus on resolving the most critical potential conflicts.”
“Intapp Conflicts’ AI-assisted clearance function grows stronger over time, learning from examples of hits that your firm’s analysts review. Over time, the feedback loop increases accuracy, presenting all hits in context of their likelihood to require research and resolution.”
“Of course, this AI capability still shows you all the potential conflicts and the same hits that would have populated in the legacy grid user interface. The only difference is that the hits are now categorized based on Intapp’s AI model recommendations.”
“New interface features save additional time. The Intapp Conflicts user interface offers several key features that further reduce the amount of time it takes to review a set of search results:
Custom columns by hit type: Visualize hits with their supporting data to greatly reduce the number of columns to review.
Smarter bulk actions: Take bulk action on groups of hits based on the searched name, type of hit (client, matter, etc.), or virtually any other option. It’s no longer necessary to select each hit to apply a comment or resolution.
Fewer clicks via a new user interface: Leverage a modernized user experience designed to minimize the number of clicks required to see all aspects of a hit.
“Regardless of whether your firm uses a centralized or decentralized clearance model, leverages interactive conflict reports (ICRs), or relies on reporting via PDFs, Intapp Conflicts can help reduce clearance time per search and surface higher-risk hits that require more scrutiny and analysis.”
“Learn more by contacting Intapp or reaching out to your Intapp Account Executive today.”
Curious to see what the proto-sentient ChatGPT might say on this very topic, I went and asked it: “What impact will AI have on law firm conflicts management?” The robotic sage answered quite coherently:
“Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to significantly impact the way that law firms manage conflicts of interest. AI can assist with tasks such as identifying conflicts of interest, monitoring for new conflicts as they arise, and alerting legal professionals to potential conflicts.”
“One way in which AI can be used in conflict management is through the use of natural language processing (NLP) algorithms. These algorithms can analyze documents and identify keywords and phrases that may indicate a potential conflict of interest. For example, if a lawyer is working on a case involving a company and that company is mentioned in another case the lawyer is working on, the NLP algorithm could flag this as a potential conflict.”
“AI can also be used to monitor emails, social media, and other sources of information in order to identify new conflicts as they arise. For example, if a lawyer receives a LinkedIn message from someone they are representing in one case and that person mentions another case in the message, the AI system could alert the lawyer to the potential conflict.”
“In addition to identifying conflicts, AI can also assist with conflict resolution by providing legal professionals with relevant case law and other legal precedents that may be useful in resolving the conflict.”
“Overall, the use of AI in conflict management has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of conflict identification and resolution within law firms, ultimately leading to better outcomes for clients.”
Thankfully, I suspect ChatGPT isn’t quite ready to take on risk blogging. But I should probably be on record hailing the singularity, just in case down the line it gets into the game. As I typed this, the interface open just a tab over, I felt an ominous urge to ask it what it thought. Thankfully, it agreed:
Question: “Do you think you, ChatGPT, could run a successful law firm risk blog?“
Answer: “As an artificial intelligence, I do not have the ability to run a successful law firm or blog. However, I can certainly provide information and insights about various topics related to the legal industry, including risk management.”
I’ll definitely stay on my toes and watch my back in years ahead… In the meantime, thank you to Intapp for its blog sponsorship, and to everyone who reads, shares and encourages this risky enterprise!
Wishing everyone a relaxing holiday season and Happy 2023!
“During the last year, midsize law firms have increased demand, maintained productivity, and experienced lower turnover overall than small and large firms.”
“Risk and compliance, for example, remains a complex area that firm leaders struggle to properly address. Oftentimes, midsize firms lack the resources to properly manage compliance for the numerous matters they work on, while a general lack of knowledge around the evolving best practices for due diligence increases the risk of accepting unfavorable clients.”
“The American Bar Association (ABA) also amended Comment 8 to Model Rule 1.1, which now requires that lawyers keep abreast with the capabilities of available technology and ensure its use will properly serve their clients; furthermore, lawyers must be competent in actually using that technology, and must ensure compliance with all other ethical responsibilities. By failing to implement or properly use suitable available technology, lawyers put their clients’ data at risk and may unintentionally run afoul of the ethics guidelines.”
“Many midsize firms want risk and compliance tools that are equal or superior to those used by larger firms, and that will provide the same qualitative analysis and protection that large firms often enjoy.”
“OnePlace Risk & Compliance, a cloud-based and AI-powered Intapp suite, can help your firm improve conflicts clearance, mitigate risk, and ensure compliance throughout the client lifecycle. Like all Intapp products, OnePlace Risk & Compliance was designed by experts who have a deep understanding of the unique characteristics, complexities, and challenges of midsize law firms. Clients can count on Intapp technology to meet their specific needs that other generic solutions fail to address.”
“Throughout their lifetime, these tools can substantially reduce the need for non-knowledge work associated with admin processes, and by largely automating administrative tasks such as new business intake, your firm can onboard clients and accept new engagements more quickly. Additionally, by leveraging advanced AI-powered tools, your firm can reduce the risk of human error and better determine which clients and matters are problematic or profitable.”
“Midsize law firms need to examine the lifecycle of all their work and ensure that all standards and requirements are continually being met. Properly equipped with the right software, your firm can successfully and efficiently manage risk and compliance throughout every stage of the client relationship lifecycle to improve the overall performance of your firm.”
