Solicitors’ Accounts Rules Update – All day session Sept

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2014
Time: 9:30 registration & breakfast, 10:00 – 16:00 seminar *lunch will be provided
Venue: TBC
CPD: 5 Hours CPD Accredited by the SRA
Fees: Member Fee for Fee Earners: £150 + VAT, Member Fee Support Staff: £110 + VAT,
Non-Member Fee for Fee Earners: £190 + VAT, Non-Member Fee Support Staff: £150 + VAT
Speaker: Linda Lambert

The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Accounts Rules have been substantially updated with the new rules being applicable from October 6th 2011. Also brought in at the same time were two new roles; these being the COLP and the COFA, which start as from January 1st 2013. Due to the new roles it is important that there is a thorough knowledge of the rules to ensure breaches, if any, are identified as well as ensuring, where ever possible, full compliance by the firm and their personnel. This course is a full rules course; it includes the new roles starting 2013 and of course the rules. The aim of the course is to help firms comply with the rules as fully as possible and to help highlight areas of potential non-compliance.

• Client Account and Client Money
• Use of Client Account
• Client Monies withheld from Client Account
• Interest Rules
• What is a Bill?
• What is an Agreed Fee?
• Office Monies and Professional Disbursements
• Bank Reconciliations
• Legal Aid (in brief and SAR only)
• Accounting Systems and Records (including central records)

Linda Lambert: Linda lives and works in the West Midlands where she came to read Accountancy at Birmingham University. After obtaining her degree she then worked in the banking and financial sector and as a trainee chartered accountant before joining the legal profession some 25+ years ago. Linda has in her career worked as a sole Legal Cashier for a small city practice, a Finance Manager for a 14 partner provincial firm and as a Practice Manager before working freelance. She has experience of accounts systems from hand written to computerised and has been responsible for introducing new systems in the practices she has worked in, in particular dealing with management information and credit control. Linda has trained as a lecturer for further education and is currently the Institute of Legal Finance and Management (ILFM)’s lecturer in ‘The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Accounts Rules’, the tutor for the ILFM’s Associate Accounts Course, as well as working as a freelance Legal Cashier, mainly in Birmingham. Linda has also acted as a consultant for a two partner firm of solicitors in Worcestershire, covered maternity leave, on a part time basis, in the Department dealing with Risk and Compliance in a medium sized Worcestershire practice and presently undertaking training of Fee earners and support staff in several well-known firms countrywide.

Web Links:

http://birminghamlawsociety.co.uk/cpdcalendar?task=view_event&event_id=78