SRA publishes a thematic review examining law firms’ compliance with MLR 2017 source of funds and wealth requirements, revealing major gaps in document scrutiny, audit trails, and risk-based checks

The thematic review reveals that 11% of reviewed legal matter files lacked any source-of-funds checks and 18% showed inadequate scrutiny, including 8% where evidence did not match ledger entries. It identifies challenges around guidance clarity, resource constraints, client and fee-earner reluctance, and underscores the expectation that firms must document risk-based decisions and maintain a clear audit trail of their controls…