Ever had that ques­tion­ing feel­ing when a stranger asks you for mon­ey? You are filled with doubt and start to feel uncom­fort­able. Your gut reac­tion is to say no. Yet when a Solic­i­tor asks for the same thing, the cheque book usu­al­ly comes straight out often with­out any ques­tions asked.

Solic­i­tors have an under­ly­ing trust sur­round­ing them to act and behave in the best inter­est of their client, and as a gentleman’s promise should always stand respect­ed, so does the Solic­i­tor pro­tect their client and their assets. With this in mind, Solic­i­tors and indeed all that work with­in a law firm, are firm­ly reg­u­lat­ed in order to ensure the same. The fun­da­men­tal con­cept of such guide­lines is to pro­tect client mon­ey & is one rea­son why we oper­ate a sep­a­rate client & office account.

What hap­pens when we receive Client’s money?

Each client is des­ig­nat­ed with a spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence num­ber at the start of every trans­ac­tion. This client spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence is used through­out the trans­ac­tion and in par­tic­u­lar with any mon­e­tary trans­ac­tions as a way of elec­tron­i­cal­ly record­ing all transactions.

It means that we can recog­nise each pay­ment as soon as it is received into our nom­i­nat­ed account, and be able to noti­fy the cor­rect fee earn­er quick­ly so that the mat­ter pro­gress­es smooth­ly. It also means that we keep every client’s mat­ter sep­a­rate from one anoth­er. Law Firms also oper­ate a sep­a­rate account for clients & their own funds.

As we are firm­ly with­in an elec­tron­ic age, this allows a per­son to check the fig­ures that have been received against the fig­ures expect­ed online, and in doing so, is able to quick­ly query any dis­crep­an­cies. By query­ing a dis­crep­an­cy as soon as it is noticed, it decreas­es the pos­si­bil­i­ty of resid­ual bal­ances in a trans­ac­tion, or going over­drawn on a spe­cif­ic matter.

We also employ exter­nal accoun­tants on a month­ly basis to assist our finan­cial con­trol & we also have an annu­al audit by an exter­nal accoun­tant. This involves ran­dom checks against files to check our gen­er­al accoun­tan­cy but also ensure we are com­pli­ant with the Solic­i­tors Accounts Rules. The results of our annu­al audit are report­ed back to the Solic­i­tors Reg­u­la­tion Authority.

To arrange a dis­cus­sion about how we can assist your legal mat­ter, please get in touch with Rick Bar­row on 01625 523988 or mail@​JBGass.​com