Commercial Legal Audit
Herrington Carmichael has a team of experienced commercial lawyers who provide a combination of legal expertise and pragmatic commercial awareness.
Legal Audit
In the fast-paced business environment, a company may experience challenges which could ultimately lead to legal risk. This may be caused by a number of different factors, including not having the right contracts in place, not following best practice when it comes to use of your terms and conditions or not having or following the necessary legal policies.
The result could end up exposing the company to financial risk such as fines for non-compliance, damages for breach of contract or damages claims. We, at Herrington Carmichael LLP, (recently named as one of The Times’ Best Law Firms 2023) offer legal advice to UK and international businesses as well as individuals and have experienced commercial and compliance lawyers that provide a combination of legal expertise and pragmatic commercial awareness. With our wealth of experience and specialists in these areas of law, we are pleased to offer a new product to existing and new clients alike: a commercial legal audit as a solution to the risks identified above.
Outsourcing a commercial legal audit to a specialist firm of solicitors is a cost-effective mechanism for a business to review its core contracts and policies, without the business having to allocate vast resources and time to conduct the audit itself.
We can help your business by conducting a commercial legal audit on your behalf. If you would like to discuss this further or would like more information, please contact us to speak to a member of our Commercial Team
What’s included in our legal audit?
- Scheduling an introductory call to understand your business in more detail.
- Issuing a questionnaire to be completed by you to identify key areas to address.
- Reviewing completed questionnaire and supporting documentation.
- Further call to answer queries identified in questionnaire.
- Advising, preparing and drafting a high-level report on the findings of the audit.
- Full retainer and scope will be provided on request.
What are the benefits of a Commercial Audit?
Cost savings
Improve businessMake savings by reviewing terms of your key contracts and reviewing or streamlining certain policies. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Improve business
By identifying legal blind spots and implementing workarounds leads to smart working.
Reduce risk
Identify legal risk in a business, then actions can be implemented to reduce exposure to financial risk such as fines for non-compliance, damages for breach or damages from claimants.
FAQs
What is a commercial legal audit?
A commercial legal audit is an effective review of certain key contracts as well as certain policies to ensure that not only are your contracts adequately protected but also to ensure that you have the right procedures in place to make sure those contracts are working for you. The audit consists of advising on certain elements of key contracts and policies as well as ways of incorporating a business’ standard terms and conditions. The review is done from a commercial law perspective and all advice is based on English law.
What are the benefits of a commercial legal audit?
- An effective review of contracts and policies to provide sufficient legal protection within your contracts and procedures.
- Effective legal advice tailored to your circumstances.
- Greater education to businesses.
- Provides greater confidence to businesses to operate effectively and with confidence.
How much does a legal audit cost?
The fixed fee will be dependent on the size of the business and scale of the audit. We provide the above service on a fixed-fee basis, up to the point of providing you with the report referred to above.
What other solutions can reduce legal risk?
Besides conducting a commercial legal audit, a business can also reduce their exposure to risk by implementing good corporate governance systems or strategies such as integrated business management systems, routine internal audits, training management system or risk management. Some of these systems can be implemented internally and others may require external specialists.
In the area of risk management, in-house legal teams are doing more to identify and mitigate legal risk however, on the downside, these teams may not have the experience or specialism in certain areas of law or may be biased by the interests of their employer compared to specialist firms of solicitors. If your business does not have an in-house legal team, or a legal team with specialism in risk management, there are specialist firms of solicitors that will be able to assist a business to identify and manage existing legal risk.
Does the audit include Intellectual Property?
The audit will NOT include a review of intellectual property. We can conduct a separate review of your current intellectual property rights to protect your brand and logos and provide a report on recommendations to protect your IP rights which we can provide a fee proposal for if required.
Mark Chapman is very impressive.
The practice undertakes a high number of transactions each year. The team is well oiled and 100% client focused.
Legal 500, client feedback
Cesare McArdle has helped my business to expand in its chosen market. He is personable and easy to get hold of most of the time and we always feel valued.
Legal 500, client feedback
Related expertise
Best Law Firms 2024
Herrington Carmichael has once again been named in the Times Best Law Firms. We were first listed in 2023 and have once again made the Best Law Firms list for 2024.
