From the Co-Chairs of the IBA Regulation of Lawyers’ Compliance Committee – February 2022

Dear members of the IBA Regulation of Lawyers’ Compliance Committee,

Our Committee focuses on the regulation of law firms and lawyers from the business lawyers’ perspective and from an international viewpoint. The Committee was formed to meet the growing importance and level of interest IBA members saw in the regulation of law firms and lawyers, their related compliance obligations, and of course the risks of failure to comply.

The Committee also addresses the practicalities of complying with a wide range of professional risk management and compliance issues.

The Committee provides a forum where members can discuss, debate and influence legislation that has an impact on the practice of law, particularly in light of the ever-expanding multi-jurisdictional approach to the regulation of law firms and lawyers. The Anti-Money Laundering and Sanctions Expert Subcommittee focuses on anti-money laundering legislation as it affects the legal profession, liaising with the IBA Bar Issues Commission and the IBA Law Firm Management Committee as appropriate.

During the last two years of pandemic-related challenges the members of the Committee have met continuously online and discussed various regulatory, compliance and ethics issues, particularly those related to furloughs and remote working.

On 9 February 2022 the Committee will host a webinar related to the pandemic, entitled ‘Hybrid and remote working: can law firms effectively implement, and thrive through, the new working models?’ Please read more at https://www.ibanet.org/conference-details/CONF2173.

This follows our November 2021 webinar (https://www.ibanet.org/conference-details/CONF2117), which was titled ‘How does a firm on-board clients? Unworthy clients – who decides? What are the risks?’ We had a great panel and interesting discussions at this well-attended webinar. We realised that we had a lot more to discuss, and we are planning to host a ‘follow up’ webinar, focusing particularly on how to consider/evaluate environment, sustainability and governance pressures when taking on a new client. As you may know, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) are embedded in the IBA/Section on Public and Professional Interest strategy for 2021/2022 and in order to make the seminar even more interesting, we hope to host it together with one or two other committees.

Other ongoing projects of the Committee include an initiative from Laurel Terry and Gary Hughes – our first ‘end of the year review’, featuring reports on developments that are relevant to the work of our Committee from jurisdictions around the world. The aim is to grow this as an annual publication.

2021 was Richard Harrison’s last year as a Co-Chair of the Committee. The Committee officers thank Richard for his invaluable work and support for the Committee over many years. Luckily Richard will be moving into an advisory role, where he will continue to share valuable knowledge and support our work.

We wish to have an even more active Committee in 2022, and value contributions from our members, as well as new members. Please feel free to contact any of us with your ideas and tell us how you would like to get involved.

We look forward to meeting you in person at the IBA Annual Conference in Miami.

Karin Faxén Ågrup
Co-Chair, IBA Regulation of Lawyers' Compliance Committee
karin.faxen.agrup@msa.se

Emma Oettinger
Co-Chair, IBA Regulation of Lawyers' Compliance Committee
emma.oettinger@ashurst.com

Richard Harrison
Member, Regulation of Lawyers' Compliance Committee Advisory Board​​​​​​​
Richard.Harrison@clydeco.com