Ethics self-audit

The Ethics self-audit is designed to help law practices to assess how they measure up in terms of their ethical standards. 

It comprises two parts: 

• The Ethics Standard (sections 1-6 below), and
• The Ethics self-assessment form

The Standard comprises six elements - policies and responsibility, recruitment,  identification of ethical concerns, supervision and ethics support, cost, and conflicts of interest.  It aims to support practices in ensuring compliance and in the implementation of best practice management arrangements to raise ethical standards. It is not intended to repeat the ethical obligations found in legislation and rules, such as the Legal Profession Act 2007 and the Legal Profession (Solicitors) Rule 2007.

This voluntary standard is not accompanied by any external audit or certification scheme, and is not intended to add to practices regulatory burden. It encourages practices to take a proactive, preventative approach to the management of ethics, and assist them in identifying and addressing any ethical concerns or risks by undertaking an internal audit of the ethical health of their practice’s operations and activities.

This is supported by the provision of an ethics self assessment form below.