Compliance and risk events for law firms

About compliance & risk events

Compliance and risk events are aimed at the people who carry personal responsibility when something goes wrong: COLPs, COFAs, MLROs, risk partners and the growing number of full-time compliance professionals working inside law firms in England and Wales.

Anti-money laundering remains the single biggest theme. Economic crime conferences cover client due diligence, source of funds, sanctions screening, suspicious activity reporting and the SRA's enforcement approach, which has grown noticeably firmer. Firms that have been through a regulatory visit tend to say the same thing afterwards: the problem was rarely the policy document, it was whether fee earners actually followed it. The better AML conferences focus on that gap.

Regulatory change is the second constant. Recent and proposed reforms to the compliance officer regime, notification obligations, merger and heads-of-terms reporting, client money rules and the Legal Services Board's pressure on the SRA all reshape what a compliance function has to do. Attending a regulation and compliance conference is often the quickest way to understand how a consultation will translate into day-to-day process before the deadline arrives.

Risk management sessions look wider than regulation. Cyber attack and payment diversion fraud, professional indemnity insurance and the renewal process, file supervision in hybrid teams, conflicts, undertakings, complaints handling and the risk profile created by rapid growth or acquisition all feature. Firms that have grown through merger frequently find that their risk framework has not kept pace, and these events are a useful reality check.

Artificial intelligence has arrived on the compliance agenda too. Sessions on managing AI risk in legal practice deal with confidentiality, client consent, supervision of AI-assisted work, and the disciplinary consequences already visible where fabricated authorities have reached a court. For most firms the question is no longer whether staff use AI tools but whether the firm knows which tools, on what matters, and with what oversight.

Formats vary. Some compliance events are full-day national conferences in London; others are half-day regional sessions, online webinars run by professional bodies, or focused COLP and COFA training courses. Nearly all carry CPD relevance and many are priced modestly because professional bodies rather than commercial organisers run them.

Our diary lists upcoming compliance and risk events across England and Wales with dates, locations, attendance mode, organiser and price notes where published. If you are building next year's compliance training plan, it is a practical starting point — and if you run compliance training that should be listed, you can send us the details free of charge.