A day in the life of the Law Society's anti-money-laundering unit

The Law Society’s dedicated anti-money-laundering unit is housed within the Regulation Department, where all AML matters are dealt with by a single team. Mary Hallissey acts a bit shady

Solicitors who provide AML-regulated legal services must comply with certain statutory obligations that apply to how solicitors both manage their AML compliance requirements within their practices and their mandatory obligation to report suspicions of money-laundering to the relevant authorities.

Although the legislation that solicitors must comply with is not new, a number of significant changes are emerging at EU level.

In 2023/2024, the Law Society took the strategic decision to set up a dedicated AML unit housed within its Regulation Department, where all AML matters relating to regulation, education, and external-stakeholder engagement are dealt with by a single team, with input from colleagues in Financial Regulation and Regulatory Legal Services.

Manic Monday

Ciara McQuillan and Riona Leahy are both AML executives and solicitors in this new unit.

A typical day could involve answering queries from the profession through the AML Helpline and attending both Regulation of Practice and Money-Laundering Reporting Committee meetings, as well as external stakeholder meetings with Government departments, the Central Bank, and the CCBE.

The team is also busy developing educational and training initiatives for the profession, such as the recent webinar in conjunction with the State’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and the Revenue Commissioners, which attracted over 1,700 attendees. (A recording, with CPD points available, can be viewed via the AML hub on the Law Society’s website.)

Ciara points out that a single rulebook is emerging for anti-money-laundering – and the majority of the EU AML Regulation will have direct effect in all EU member states, including Ireland.

These requirements will include:

• A directly applicable EU regulation creating a more harmonised ‘single rulebook’ for preventive controls,
• A new directive that updates how national systems, FIUs, and supervisors operate, and
• A regulation establishing the EU Anti-Money-Laundering Authority.

Separately, EU criminal-law measures continue to harmonise money-laundering offences and sanctions across member states.

Customer due diligence (CDD) will become more prescriptive, with firms expected to apply more standardised checks and follow clearer, more detailed rule-sets than under many current national approaches.

In practical terms, CDD will require the collection of more information, supported by more robust documentation, and a clearer evidential trail showing how identity, beneficial ownership, and the purpose and nature of the relationship were assessed.

Firms should also expect a stronger emphasis on consistency of outcomes, record-keeping, and being able to demonstrate compliance – not just that checks were performed.

Tuesday’s gone

Since 1991, Ireland has been signed up to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), which is the global framework of AML and CFT (countering the financing of terrorism) regulations.

“The FATF is the standard-setter internationally,” says Ciara, who has a background in financial regulation.

All these requirements will be harmonised by reform at EU level into a comprehensive package of regulations – the Sixth Anti-Money-Laundering Directive (6AMLD), which is a criminal-law instrument, and moves away from patchwork national laws. The directive will be fully transposed into the Irish regulatory framework by July next year.

Ciara and Riona explain that one of the biggest results of the 6AMLD era is the establishment of the Anti-Money-Laundering Authority (AMLA), headquartered in Frankfurt.

AMLA will also conduct peer reviews over the non-financial-sector supervisor and will be able to issue non-binding warnings.

The authority has been established to strengthen convergence in supervision and to support consistent application of the rules across the EU, including through coordination and oversight tools.

Running alongside the preventive framework, EU criminal-law measures continue to align the definition of money-laundering offences and the minimum standards expected of member states in terms of available sanctions and enforcement tools.

A new supervisor will be named in Ireland (yet to be identified) of the self-regulating bodies designated for AML oversight, including the Law Society.

Waiting for Wednesday

In terms of the forthcoming changes to the regulations, Ciara explains:

“Solicitors are now required to seek much stronger proof of identification from new clients, such as passports, along with proof of nationality and proof of birthplace. Solicitors must also verify more than one source of client identification, with many more data points to be collected, before starting to deliver any AML-regulated legal service – particularly, but not solely, those concerning real estate.”

She points to the Register of Beneficial Ownership as an indicator of the beefed-up obligations to declare interests.

The Law Society’s Regulation of Practice Committee and Conveyancing Committee together recently published guidance for solicitors in this arena.

The consequences for solicitors who fail to comply are grave, including a potential risk to livelihood and professional reputation.

Not only do solicitors have obligations to comply with AML legislation to ensure that their practices cannot be used as conduits to launder illicit funds but, additionally, they have an obligation to submit a suspicious transaction report (STR) to FIU Ireland and to Revenue if a suspicion arises of an offence of money-laundering or terrorist-financing. Failure to comply with this obligation is a criminal offence.

“Solicitors will often say, ‘I know the family’ or ‘I know the client’ when placed in this difficult situation,” Ciara says. “But they are the gatekeepers of the profession, and that should be at the forefront of any decision. Obviously, it’s a very serious matter to report a client, and not one taken lightly,” she adds.

Understanding that property is the most usual route to launder dirty money, Ciara urges vigilance with property transactions.

In addition, she cautions that “solicitors should be particularly on the lookout for social-welfare fraud or tax fraud, where substantial funds may get laundered through a property transaction”.

Thursday’s child

For good-housekeeping, Riona Leahy strongly encourages firms to register promptly with the goAML portal and to ensure that all relevant support staff, such as bookkeepers and legal executives, are fully trained up in the requirement for STRs.

The Law Society provides a free training video for non-solicitor staff, which is available from its AML hub.

Firms should also have clear internal escalation procedures, including prompt referral to the person responsible for AML reporting within the practice, where applicable.

Understanding that the rules are often complex, Riona also warns against inadvertently tipping off a client when reporting a suspicious transaction:

“Solicitors must also make sure reporting of worries isn’t a ‘tipping off’ that could otherwise prejudice an investigation.”

The era of tick-box compliance is long past, say Riona and Ciara.

The Law Society, through its inspection regime, monitors firms’ AML compliance pursuant to the legislation, including the Solicitors (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Regulations 2020 and, while statistics for firms inspected in 2025 show that very few firms are non-compliant, there are areas where clear improvement is needed, particularly in relation to client risk assessments.

AML risk assessments should now be deeply embedded in business-risk assessments in every law firm, they stress.

While minor compliance infringements are dealt with by the Law Society on a practical, case-by-case basis – with the focus on educating rather than heavy-handed sanctioning – failure to comply with the AML regulations is serious, not just with the Law Society as supervisor, but in terms of a criminal-offence element.

Firms who fail to demonstrate that they have sufficient measures in place to mitigate risk, and that they have been applying those measures, may find themselves subject to an external AML audit, issued with a formal direction to take certain action or, at the most serious end of the non-compliance scale, could be referred to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal.

It’s not enough to have a beautifully written suite of business-risk assessments, policies, controls, and procedures in place in a practice if the contents of them are not being applied by the solicitor on the files, advises Ciara.

It is also crucially important that the reasons that a solicitor assesses risk in relation to a transaction in a certain way is fully documented.

Ciara and Riona also point to the potential reputational damage to a law firm if, for instance, it is linked to a Criminal Asset Bureau investigation.

“Protect yourself,” Ciara urges solicitors.

Riona agrees, advising solicitors to “scrutinise your source documents carefully, and protect the integrity of your client account – because the final responsibility for any funds held is with the solicitor”.

Friday I’m in love

“Solicitors may not fully grasp what criminality can look like in the 21st century,” observes Ciara, and when this becomes clear, shock and worry are the outcome.

A growing factor in the AML sphere is the weight of funds from jurisdictions with capital controls.

These countries may have very poor human-rights records – Ciara and Riona urge solicitors to keep this at the front of their minds when transacting, for instance, for ‘politically exposed’ people.

To bypass restrictions, large sums are frequently broken into smaller, less noticeable amounts, so constant vigilance is essential.

The duo sees certain types of small practices as particularly vulnerable to money-laundering attempts. Younger and ‘greener’ solicitors, who may be new in business, are a potential weak link, as are sole practitioners.

A new national risk assessment (to which the AML unit contributed) is due to be published as this Gazette goes to press, and solicitors are urged to read it thoroughly.

Whether solicitors going about their day-to-day work want to believe it or not, professionals are vulnerable to being targeted by sophisticated criminal elements.

Many solicitors might consider that the nature of the work they carry out is low risk but, as the AML unit cautions, where large monetary transactions are involved, the risk is usually closer to ‘medium’ or ‘medium/high’.

Forewarned is forearmed, and the Law Society’s AML unit is highly focused on ensuring that the profession is fully educated, informed, and supported to fully comply with AML requirements.

Too often, Ciara and Riona say, solicitors and other professions are unfairly described as ‘professional enablers’ in relation to money-laundering.

Every profession can have bad actors, but the AML unit is keen to dispel any misconceptions about the legal sector, and to assist the profession in demonstrating that both solicitors and the Law Society take their roles in relation to AML very seriously.

As Riona concludes: “At the end of the day, we want to ensure that the description of solicitors as a ‘trusted profession’ rings true.”

Five key takeaways for legal professionals:

1) Make sure that all your policies, controls, and procedures adequately address the risks of money-laundering and terrorism-financing,

2) Make sure that your client due diligence is up to scratch – apply your common sense and document your thinking,

3) Avail of the excellent, free, high-quality AML training provided by the Law Society, as well as bar associations,

4) Use the support resources, such as the AML query email address and the AML  telephone line, and speak to colleagues about your concerns,

5) Register for goAML and check  thresholds as a measure of good compliance. 

Mary Hallissey is a journalist with the Law Society Gazette.