Thursday, 30 September 2021

Annual Information Booklet 2021/2022 (AIB) Amendments

The Annual Information Booklet 2021/2022 (AIB) had been amended to provide further information on the following sections.

• Request to Review the Annual Contribution (Regulation 93) or Waive the Late Lodgement Fee (Regulation 89) – see Clauses 54 to 62 on page 7; and
• Restructure of Legal Practice – see Clauses 87 to 88 on page 9.

A downloadable copy of the AIB is available on the Law Mutual section of the Law Society's website and can be accessed via this link.

We ask you to ensure that your principals are familiar with the amended sections.

We are continuing to see an increase in claims relating to cybercrime across Australia. Most of the incidents arise from intercepted emails relating to the payment or transfer of fund requests, or intercepted emails from within legal practices purporting to be from practice principals requesting a funds transfer.

In a recent article in the Australian Financial Review (3 July 2018), Peter Moon, a technology lawyer at Cooper Mills, made the following comments:

Email wasn't designed as a secure messaging platform and almost everything about it is the opposite of how a secure communication system should work.

Email was conceived as a short messaging tool: "Meet at the cafeteria at 1pm to talk about the results?" "Sure. See you then."  It didn't matter that it travelled over the network encrypted, or that copies might sit indefinitely on servers that third parties could access, or that there was minimal proof of the sender's identity.

If it appeared to come from Fred, it probably was from Fred.

It was later generations who decided to apply this handy but insecure chat system to serious business and high value transactions.

Most of us simply choose to trust email, against overwhelming evidence that it doesn't warrant it.

However, email is now part and parcel of how we do business; that isn’t going to change any time soon.

Email is the main form of communication between lawyers, clients, and others both internally and externally of the office. Essential to modern practice, many lawyers are simply never trained how to compose an email to ensure it is read and understood, nor are they given any Risk Management training.

As part of the 2021/2022 Risk Management Seminar Programme, Cathryn Urquhart will facilitate the Working More Effectively with Email session.

This session is designed to do those things plus more:

• Risk Management particularly strategies when communicating with your client
• Time management: The 4 D’s
• Reduce Inbox overload: How to reduce what comes into your Inbox
• Reader focused writing: Message headings, key points up front
• Time-poor readers: The F-plan and why you need to draft with it in mind
• Attachments & email trails
• Email policy for the office
• Working better as a team to save time and improve communication.

Business Email Compromise Claim Examples

New Trust Account
Criminals infiltrated staff email accounts and set about emailing the clients of the practice, informing them that the legal practice had opened an interim trust account whilst the current trust account was being audited. Clients were advised to use the details of the interim trust account (controlled by the cyber criminals) until further notice.

Handwritten PDF
By taking over staff emails, cyber criminals were able to amend the bank account details contained in a PDF document attached to an email. As you will be aware, PDF documents can be easily amended with access to the relevant software. However, in this case, the bank accounts details were handwritten and the criminals still managed to change the information.

Client invoices
Through email, cyber-criminals accessed the law firm’s client list and set about sending out invoices to clients with the criminals’ bank details.

The crime wasn’t discovered until the law firm sent invoices to the clients and the clients questioned why they were receiving a second bill, when they had already paid the first.

2021/22 Risk Management Programme

September was a busy month for Risk Management, with our first series of seminars kicking off for the 2021/2022 Programme. October has just as much to offer, and places are filling up fast, so book now to hear from our exciting line-up of speakers, including Anna Hinder and Deborah Templeman.

Presenter: Rob Knowsley, Managing Director-Principal Knowsley Management Services
Date: Wednesday, 10 November 2021 | 9.00 AM to 10.00 AM
Location: At your desk

The Practice Management Guidelines describe the five elements and requirements for structuring and managing the affairs of any practice. A Practice Management System comprises five elements of Leadership, People, Information, Activity Management and Assurance, with various areas sitting under each of the elements.

Rob will discuss his observations (from over 30 years of experience) of the fundamentals that well managed, financially healthy practices get right, and how they align with the requirements of the Practice Management Guidelines. He will demonstrate how minimising professional liability risk and implementing the fundamentals for business success are linked, revealing that with many claims, prone practices have common substantial financial characteristics.

Rob will also discuss key areas where in his experience practices must also “get it right”, for financial health and business success, in ways not explicitly covered by the Practice Management Guidelines.

Presenter: Deborah Templeman, Gilchrist Connell
Dates: Tuesday, 23 November 2021 | 2.00 PM to 3.00 PM
Tuesday, 30 November 2021 | 2.00 PM to 3.00 PM

Risks can arise throughout the solicitor-client engagement and in a variety of ways. Having a clear strategy in place throughout the matter and good communication can ensure that the client and the practitioner are well informed of decisions, actions and changing circumstances relating to the matter.

This seminar will focus on the risks associated with not having a clear communication strategy in place, failing to undertake further investigation to gather relevant facts and failing to conduct appropriate legal research of the most relevant and current references.

The session will build on the concepts discussed in the Client Engagement Agreement – Planning for Success seminar and examine some recent examples of where inadequate fact gathering, legal research or communication of strategy has led to claims, whilst providing some practical risk management controls to avoid them.

Law Mutual Discount

Don’t forget: Law practices will be able to obtain a 5% Risk Management Discount on their total Annual Contribution for the 2022/2023 insurance year, if all of the partners or practitioner directors and at least 80% of the employed practitioners of the law practice have attended at least two (2) hours of Law Mutual (WA) approved risk management training in the period 1 March 2021 to 28 February 2022.

How to find your LPB PIN

CPD points allocation is subject to providing your Practitioner Identification Number (PIN) issued by the Legal Practice Board of Western Australia (LPB WA). »For detailed instructions on how to find your LPB PIN, please click here.