When we talk about anti-money laundering risk, the conversation usually starts with conveyancing. That is understandable. Property work is high volume, involves large sums of money, and has been a major focus for both the SRA and government for years. It is also easy to picture. Most people instinctively understand why criminals might want to turn dirty money into bricks and mortar.
But that familiarity can create a blind spot.
That was the theme of our recent webinar, “AML: Anything but conveyancing!”. A link to the recording can be found in our COLP Insider newsletter published on 17 April 2026.
The central message was simple: financial crime risk does not begin and end with property. In fact, one of the dangers for firms is that they become relatively well drilled in their conveyancing systems and controls, while being less confident, and sometimes less robust, in other areas of practice.
The problem with a property-centred view of AML
One of the panel’s starting points was that conveyancing has come to dominate the AML conversation partly because it is easy to understand. Property is tangible. It is an obvious store of value. It is also an area where regulatory attention has been intense for years, which has helped create a self-reinforcing cycle: the SRA focuses heavily on property, firms respond by tightening their property controls, guidance and software solutions evolve around that risk, and other areas of practice receive less scrutiny.
That creates two practical problems.
The first is that firms can slip into the assumption that everything outside conveyancing is therefore lower risk. We often see that reflected in firm-wide risk assessments and AML policies, where conveyancing is treated as self-evidently high risk while other work types are marked down almost by default.
The second is that there is less practical guidance available for non-property work. Conveyancers are used to conversations about source of funds, client account movements and familiar red flags. Outside that world, the guidance can feel much more open-textured. Firms are told to take a risk-based approach, but are given much less help on what that means in practice.
Private client: dead people do not launder money, but criminal property does not die with them
One of the most interesting sections of the webinar focused on private client work. It began with a deliberately provocative line: dead people do not launder money. The point, of course, was that this can lead to the wrong conclusion.
A deceased person may no longer be committing offences, but solicitors dealing with their estate can still encounter criminal property and can still facilitate its handling if they are not alert. Private client work is often about ownership, control and the movement of assets, even where it does not immediately look like classic AML territory. Probate, trusts, family wealth planning, gifts, loans, LPAs and Court of Protection work can all raise financial crime issues.
Estate administration is the clearest example. Probate lawyers already have to build up a detailed understanding of the deceased’s affairs: what assets they had, how those assets fit with their life and background, and whether the overall picture makes sense. The webinar’s message was that this same exercise should be viewed through a financial crime lens. If the estate appears out of keeping with the person’s life, profession or known circumstances, that should prompt further questions. Historic tax evasion may be an issue. So might suspicious inconsistencies in how assets were acquired or held.
A common objection is that the deceased is not there to answer source of funds questions. That is true, but it does not remove the need for critical thinking. Solicitors still have access to family members, executors, paperwork, background information and their own judgement about whether the estate profile is plausible. In many cases, the real issue is not that the right questions are never asked, but that the AML significance of those questions is not recognised or recorded clearly enough.
Trusts and long-running private client work
Trusts were another major focus. Trust work can be particularly difficult because the risk is often not tied to an immediate transfer of funds. A trust may begin with very little in it, but once established it becomes a vehicle through which value, control and ownership can later be exercised. That future potential is one reason why trusts sit squarely within the AML picture.
The practical difficulties can be significant too. Older trust structures, particularly those with offshore elements, may involve poor records, incomplete paperwork, changes in trustees or beneficiaries over time, and people who are simply not used to being asked detailed questions. Add to that the fact that many clients value trusts precisely because of privacy and confidentiality, and the tension with modern due diligence becomes obvious.
The panel also made an important point about ongoing monitoring. Rather than relying on arbitrary review cycles such as every year or every two years, firms should think in terms of trigger events. A dormant trust is one thing. A trust that is about to make a distribution, admit further funds, change trustees or respond to a change in beneficiary circumstances is another. Those moments should prompt fresh thinking about the risk position. Even if the conclusion is that nothing material has changed, that should still be recorded.
Private client risk is not just about offshore wealth
Another useful reminder from the webinar was that private client AML risk is not confined to offshore structures or ultra-high-net-worth clients. Firms should resist the temptation to assume that ordinary high street work is somehow outside the real danger zone. Modest estates, everyday wills and straightforward probate matters can still involve criminal property, tax evasion or suspicious inconsistencies.
That is particularly pertinent where client account is involved. Misuse of client account for non-legal purposes remains one of the simplest ways that firms can end up facilitating money laundering. Funds moving through client account must be strictly connected to an underlying legal service. That is not just an Accounts Rules point. It is part of the wider financial crime picture.
Litigation: outside the Regulations does not mean outside risk
The litigation section tackled another important misconception. Litigation is often outside the Money Laundering Regulations, but that does not make it low risk.
It is easy for firms to think in binary terms: either a matter is in scope of the regulations or it is not. But POCA, the Terrorism Act and sanctions legislation do not disappear simply because a matter is non-transactional or outside the regulated sector. Suspicious activity, criminal property, tipping off and sanctions exposure can still arise, and litigators need to keep those frameworks firmly in mind.
Sanctions were highlighted as a particular issue. Many firms now screen counterparties in litigation and corporate work as a matter of course, even where the exact legal minimum may be debated. That is sensible. The consequences of missing a sanctioned person can be severe. The practical difficulty, of course, is that non-client counterparties often generate multiple possible matches and there may be limited information available to verify the result. The answer is to have a system that can identify obvious hits and force the right questions to be asked.
Sham litigation and litigation funding
One of the most striking parts of the webinar was the discussion of sham litigation. A fabricated dispute can, in theory, be an effective way of moving money from one party to another under cover of legal process. That is one reason litigation can be attractive to criminals: it is less obviously associated with AML scrutiny than property, and it comes wrapped in a framework that can appear legitimate on its face.
The panel pointed to familiar warning signs, including pressure to settle very quickly or attempts to rush matters through in a way that does not feel commercially or legally natural. Litigators already analyse merits, credibility, economics and whether a case really ought to proceed. The point was that this same professional judgement often doubles as a financial crime safeguard, whether or not it is labelled as such.
Litigation funding was another area of concern. Funders, especially where the money originates from opaque offshore entities, should not be treated as an afterthought. Firms need to understand ownership, business history and source of funds, much as they would with a client. That is partly about regulatory protection, but it is also basic commercial hygiene. A firm that becomes dependent on dubious funding can create serious business as well as compliance risk.
Corporate and commercial: “we are not holding the funds” is not an answer
In corporate and commercial work, one of the most common refrains is that the firm is not touching the money, so the risk must be lower. The webinar took a firm line against that way of thinking.
Even where no money is passing through client account, source of funds and source of wealth are both still relevant. Corporate transactions often involve multiple jurisdictions, holding companies, nominees, investment vehicles and other layers that create distance between the visible transaction and the real people behind it. That complexity is exactly what can make the area attractive for misuse.
The firm has to understand structure and flow properly. It is not enough to identify the immediate client and stop there. Firms need to understand who is behind the entities, who has real control, what the commercial purpose is, and where the actual injection of value into the transaction comes from. Private equity, venture funding and similar structures are not inherently suspicious, but nor should their labels be treated as reassurance in themselves.
The webinar also touched on pooled investment and crowdfunding arrangements. These can be especially awkward because the dispersed nature of contributors may make due diligence harder rather than easier. Firms should be particularly careful where client account is used to receive money from multiple third-party investors. At that point, the risks may extend beyond AML into broader concerns about lending legitimacy to dubious or unlawful investment schemes.
The wider point: almost any legal service can be abused
In the final part of the discussion, the panel moved beyond the three main practice areas and touched on other fields including employment, family, immigration, insolvency and intellectual property. The point was not to create a definitive list. It was to challenge narrow thinking.
Almost any legal service can, in the right circumstances, be used to facilitate money laundering, tax evasion, sanctions breaches or other financial crime. The right question is not whether a piece of work looks like conveyancing. It is how, in practice, the service could be misused. That is a much more useful question, and a much more demanding one.
What firms should take away
The webinar closed with a set of practical themes.
First, training needs to be tailored. Generic AML training has limited value if it stays at the level of broad theory. The real benefit comes from practice-area-specific examples that reflect the kind of work the firm actually does.
Secondly, firms need to document their judgement better. In many cases, solicitors are already asking sensible questions and forming sensible views, but that thinking never makes its way clearly into the file or the client matter risk assessment. If it is not recorded, it is much harder to show that a genuine risk-based approach has been applied.
Thirdly, firms should beware the social comfort trap. Longstanding relationships, familiar families and local clients can all create a false sense of security. Familiarity should not become an excuse for lowered vigilance.
And finally, firm-wide risk assessments need to do more than repeat generic assumptions. They need to reflect how the firm’s actual services could be used, directly or indirectly, to facilitate financial crime. That means taking input from practitioners who understand how the work is really done, not just treating AML as a property issue and stopping there.
The aim is not to pretend that every practice area carries the same level of risk, or that all work should be treated as though it were conveyancing. It is to move beyond a narrow property-centred view of AML.
For many firms, the real challenge is not that they know nothing about financial crime risk outside conveyancing. It is that they have not yet translated what they already know about their own work into a clear, conscious and documented AML framework.
That is where better risk assessments, better training and better judgement come in.
