The done-for-you AML/CTF program for solicitors, conveyancers and small law firms — 25 editable documents, forms & registers plus the offline AML Compliance Cockpit — drafted for legal practice, mapped to the reformed obligations, and ready before the 29 July 2026 enrolment deadline. Built by people who understand that privilege and confidentiality are not optional for you.
If your practice provides any of the nine legal "designated services" below, the full set of AML/CTF obligations applies. It does not matter whether you are a sole practitioner, a two-partner firm or a conveyancing business — the obligations attach to the service, not your title. Real-property work and statutory trust accounts are the highest-volume triggers, so most firms doing conveyancing, settlements or company/trust work are caught.
Assisting a client to buy, sell or transfer real estate. The highest-volume trigger — it captures property lawyers and conveyancers on essentially every matter.
Assisting a client to buy, sell or transfer a company, legal person or legal arrangement — for example, acting on the sale of a company or a trust.
Receiving, holding, controlling or managing a client's money, accounts, securities or other property when assisting to plan or execute a transaction. The statutory-trust-account trigger that catches almost every practice.
Assisting a client with the provision of equity or debt financing for a transaction.
Selling or transferring a pre-registered, dormant ("shelf") company to a client.
Assisting a client to create or restructure a body corporate or legal arrangement — company, trust and partnership formations and restructures.
Acting as — or arranging for someone else to act as — a director, secretary or attorney of a non-natural person, or as a trustee or partner.
Acting as — or arranging for another person to act as — a nominee shareholder for someone other than yourself.
Providing a registered office address or a principal place of business address for a client's entity.
Pure litigation and advocacy, advice that does not assist to plan or execute a designated transaction, and family or criminal work without trust-account control or transaction authority. Privilege also protects much of this. Always verify against your own facts.
Enrolment opened 31 March 2026. New entities providing designated services from 1 July must enrol in AUSTRAC Online and notify their compliance officer by 29 July 2026.
Identify and document the money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing risks specific to your practice, your client base and the matters you act on — including trust-account through-payments and source-of-funds opacity.
Develop and maintain written policies, procedures, systems and controls that manage and mitigate the risks you have identified across your matters.
Designate a compliance officer and notify AUSTRAC of the appointment by 29 July 2026. For most practices this is the principal/legal practitioner director.
Identify and verify your clients (name, address, DOB for individuals) and identify beneficial owners who own or control 25% or more of a corporate or trust client — including through nominee and layered structures.
Lodge suspicious matter reports (24 hours for terrorism financing; 3 business days for other suspicions, extending to 5 business days where legal professional privilege is asserted via the AUSTRAC LPP claim form). Lodge threshold transaction reports for physical cash of $10,000 or more within 10 business days.
Retain CDD records, transaction records and AML/CTF program documents for the required periods — critical if AUSTRAC ever requests them.
Arrange an independent evaluation of your whole AML/CTF program — not just the policies, but the entire program — at least once every three years under the reformed regime.
A bespoke AML/CTF program from a specialist consultant typically starts around $10,000 for a small legal practice and climbs from there — before annual maintenance. That is a heavy bill for a sole practitioner or a small firm, for documents you then still have to read, customise to your matters, and implement yourself.
The Legal Edition gives you the same starting documents — drafted for legal practice, mapped to the reformed obligations, with an LPP-claim workflow built in — for a fixed price, yours to keep.
Look inside — see real sample pages →
The 13 core policies and procedures, plus a full operational layer (fillable client-identification forms, beneficial-ownership and source-of-funds forms, PEP/DFAT sanctions screening, transaction-monitoring logs, SMR/TTR and training registers, a compliance calendar, and — critically for legal practice — an LPP claim workflow and a matter-by-matter designated-service determination worksheet), and the interactive AML Compliance Cockpit. Every document is editable Microsoft Word with [Practice Name], [Date] and [Compliance Officer] merge fields you fill in with your own details. This is a one-time program build — not ongoing screening software, not a consultant sign-off, and not the independent evaluation AUSTRAC requires at least every three years.
Step-by-step AUSTRAC Online enrolment walkthrough, key dates, and a pre-launch checklist for the 29 July 2026 deadline.
A working risk assessment covering money laundering, terrorism financing and proliferation financing — with legal-practice-specific risk factors: trust-account layering, conveyancing settlements, company and trust formation, nominee and fiduciary roles, third-party payers and source-of-funds opacity.
Your core policies, procedures, systems and controls mapped to the reformed obligations. The heart of a compliant AML/CTF program.
Initial CDD for individual clients (name, address, DOB) and corporate/trust clients, plus beneficial ownership verification to the 25% control threshold through complex structures.
Additional steps for higher-risk parties: PEPs, offshore clients and foreign-sourced funds, opaque ownership structures, nominee arrangements and clients from higher-risk jurisdictions.
Appointment letter and role description to formally designate your AML/CTF compliance officer — required by the 29 July 2026 deadline.
Suspicious matter reporting workflow for legal practice (e.g. unexplained source of funds, trust-account through-payments with no legal purpose, aborted matters once CDD begins), escalation procedure, and a ready-to-complete SMR template. 24-hour TF / 3-business-day standard timeframes, extending to 5 business days where privilege is asserted via the AUSTRAC LPP claim form.
Threshold transaction reporting for physical cash of $10,000 or more (lodge within 10 business days), with a lodgement template and guidance on detecting structured deposits.
An AML/CTF training framework for your legal team and support staff, and an employee due-diligence process appropriate for a practice environment.
What records to keep, for how long, and how — mapped to AML/CTF record-keeping requirements. Integrates with existing matter and trust-account file management.
Scope brief and structured checklist to commission the independent evaluation of your whole AML/CTF program, required at least every three years under the reformed regime.
Accountability structure, principal/director reporting lines and an oversight register so the practice principal can demonstrate governance oversight of the AML/CTF program.
How to use the included interactive risk-rating tool on a client or matter and keep its output on the client's CDD file.
Most kits stop at policies. These are the practical, fillable tools your team uses on every matter — so you can run the program, not just file it.
The front sheet that ties every policy, procedure, form and register together with owners, approval dates and the review cycle.
Document why each of your services — and each matter — is or isn't a designated service, with a geographic-link check and sign-off. Your matter-by-matter "am I a reporting entity?" evidence.
Four ready-to-use forms — individual/sole trader, company, trust, and partnership — each with the identity fields, verification-evidence table and risk rating for clients.
Capture every individual who owns or controls 25% or more of a corporate or trust client — including through nominees and layered structures — with verification and sign-off.
A structured questionnaire and evidence checklist for higher-risk clients, offshore funds, third-party payers and unexplained sources.
When and how to screen clients against the DFAT Consolidated List and PEP indicators, how to handle a hit, plus the screening register to log it.
Review cadence, trigger events and the unusual-activity signals to watch for across a matter, with a monitoring log to evidence it.
A practical, legal-practice-specific one-pager so every practitioner knows the warning signs — lawyer-as-conduit through-payments, structured cash, undervalue transfers, opaque beneficial ownership — and exactly what to do (without tipping off).
Ready registers to record every suspicious-matter and threshold-transaction report considered and lodged, with AUSTRAC references and retention.
Track who was trained, on what and when — plus an attestation each staff member signs acknowledging their obligations.
A pre-populated calendar of recurring obligations — reviews, training, screening, record checks, independent evaluation — so nothing slips.
A worked legal-professional-privilege line-drawing workflow and the AUSTRAC LPP claim-form process, plus retainer-disclosure language aligned to the Law Council's consultation direction — so you protect privilege and manage tipping-off versus your duty of candour. (Includes the independent-evaluation report template structure for your reviewer.)
An offline, browser-based command centre tailored for legal practice, included with every licence. Seven tools in one private workspace: an "Am I caught?" matter-scope check, a client ML/TF risk-rating engine, a CDD checklist generator, automatic SMR and TTR draft builders, a deadline & obligations tracker, and a records register. Everything runs in your browser — no data leaves your computer, nothing is uploaded, which matters when the inputs are client matters. It turns a folder of documents into a working compliance system.
The complete 25-piece program (documents, forms & registers) and the AML Compliance Cockpit, licensed for your practice — no subscription, no upsells. A bespoke legal AML program from a specialist consultant runs well into five figures; both editions below are a fraction of that, yours to keep.
For sole and independent conveyancers, where nearly every matter is a designated service (Item 1 real property + Item 3 trust account) and CDD must run on essentially 100% of files. The cheapest credible turn-key program — bolts onto your existing settlement/PEXA workflow without hiring anyone.
Firm-wide, for solicitors and small law firms across the full service surface. Includes the complete privilege/LPP workflow, the tipping-off-versus-candour guidance and retainer-disclosure language — built around the legal-sector nuances that a generic program never touches. The principal/legal practitioner director is the AML/CTF compliance officer.
| Feature | Legal Edition — from $497 | Specialist consultant | Generic online template |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | $497 one-off | $10,000+ and rising | Free (generic baseline) |
| Time to get documents | Instant download | Weeks of scoping & drafting | Instant, but you build it out yourself |
| Drafted for legal practice | Yes — all 9 designated services | Depends on consultant | No — generic, all sectors |
| Covers reformed program structure (no Part A/B) | Yes | Depends on consultant | Yes |
| Trust-account, conveyancing & lawyer-as-conduit risk factors | Yes | Depends on scope | No |
| LPP claim workflow & privilege line-drawing | Yes — built in | Depends on consultant | No |
| Tipping-off vs duty-of-candour guidance + retainer disclosure | Yes | Depends on consultant | No |
| Beneficial ownership — 25% threshold through trusts & nominees | Yes | Depends on scope | Partial |
| Editable Word documents | Yes | Often locked PDFs | Yes |
| Interactive client risk-rating & SMR/TTR draft tool (offline) | Yes | Not standard | No |
| Independent evaluation (required every 3 years) | Scope brief & checklist included — reviewer engaged separately | Sometimes bundled | No |
| 12-month update guarantee | Yes | Re-quoted on updates | Updated by AUSTRAC, generic |
Check out in a couple of minutes. Secure payment, instant access — no subscription, no renewal.
Get all 25 editable documents, forms & registers and the offline AML Compliance Cockpit the moment you pay.
Drop in your practice name, compliance officer's name and your details — the structure and substance are already done.
Adopt your program, brief your legal team, run the risk-rating tool on your matters and enrol with AUSTRAC by 29 July 2026.
Reporting on my own clients collides with my duties of candour and confidentiality. How does the Legal Edition handle privilege and tipping-off?"
This is the defining legal-sector nuance, and the Legal Edition is built around it. First, privilege is preserved: AUSTRAC states the common-law doctrine of legal professional privilege remains unchanged, and you are not compelled to disclose privileged communications. Where an SMR would require disclosing privileged information, you lodge an AUSTRAC LPP Claim Form alongside the SMR, formally identifying what is privileged and withholding only that part — and asserting LPP extends the standard SMR deadline from 3 to 5 business days (the extension does not apply to terrorism financing, which stays at 24 hours). Second, not everything is privileged: CDD/KYC identity data, trust-account fund movements, formation mechanics and source-of-funds information are generally administrative, so you still file the SMR and the non-privileged content. The hard work is line-drawing inside a single matter, and the Edition gives you a structured workflow to do it. Third — the deepest conflict — tipping-off: once a suspicion forms you must lodge the SMR but must not tell the client (or any unauthorised person) that the obligation has arisen or been met, which collides with your duties of candour and acting in the client's best interests. The Law Council consulted (submissions closed 30 March 2026) on ASCR amendments, including a rule that the retainer should tell clients up-front that the solicitor is subject to statutory reporting obligations. The Legal Edition includes retainer-disclosure language aligned to that direction and a red-flags reference that tells your team exactly what to do without tipping off — so you protect both your clients' privilege and your firm's independence, rather than becoming, in the Law Council's words, an 'agent of law enforcement.'
My matters are privileged — how can I possibly report on my own clients?"
Legal professional privilege survives the reforms untouched — AUSTRAC has confirmed the common-law doctrine is unchanged. But not everything in a matter is privileged: CDD and identity data, trust-account fund movements, company and trust formation mechanics, and source-of-funds information are generally administrative and not privileged, so you still file the SMR and the non-privileged content. Where a report would require disclosing privileged communications, you assert privilege using AUSTRAC's LPP Claim Form and withhold only that part. The Legal Edition gives you a worked LPP-line-drawing workflow and the claim-form process so you are not improvising this under a deadline. (See the dedicated privilege answer above.)
My professional body — the Law Society / Law Council — will sort this out for me."
Your professional body is publishing guidance, and the Law Council consulted (submissions closed 30 March 2026) on amending the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules and adding a retainer-disclosure rule. But that guidance points you back to your own statutory obligations. AUSTRAC regulates you directly. The enrolment, the program, the CDD and the reporting are yours to do — your professional body cannot fulfil them for you.
I'll just hire a consultant when the time comes."
A specialist AML/CTF program for a small legal practice typically starts around $10,000 and takes weeks to scope and draft. The deadline is weeks away. The Legal Edition does not replace a specialist if your risk profile is genuinely complex — but for the large majority of small firms providing standard designated services, it gives you an accurate, legal-specific base to start from today, for a fixed price instead of an open-ended quote.
Can't I just use the free AUSTRAC starter kit?"
You can — and you should look at it. AUSTRAC publishes a free starter kit for small, low-complexity reporting entities, and we tell you that honestly. The starter kit is a generic baseline. The Legal Edition is built for legal practice specifically: the nine designated services, the trust-account and conveyancing risk factors, the LPP claim workflow, the tipping-off-versus-candour guidance, and matter-by-matter scoping. If your practice is genuinely simple and you have time to build it out yourself, start with AUSTRAC's free kit. If you want a complete, legal-specific program drafted and ready to implement now, that is what you are paying for here.
How is this different from a generic AML template online?"
Most generic templates were written for financial-services firms under the old Part A / Part B program structure, which the 2024 reforms replaced. The Legal Edition is built on the reformed structure (ML/TF risk assessment + AML/CTF policies + independent evaluation of the whole program) and every risk factor, designated-service description and CDD procedure is specific to legal practice: trust-account layering, conveyancing settlements, beneficial ownership through trusts and nominees, the lawyer-as-conduit red flags, and the privilege line.
Does buying this make my firm compliant?"
No — and we will not pretend otherwise. The Legal Edition gives you the starting documents for an AML/CTF program. Compliance comes from implementing them: adopting the policies, training your people, enrolling with AUSTRAC, doing CDD on your clients, keeping records, lodging reports when required, and commissioning the independent evaluation AUSTRAC requires at least every three years. We provide the accurate, legal-specific build; you provide the implementation and ongoing oversight.
If AUSTRAC updates its Tranche 2 guidance for legal practices within 12 months of your purchase, you receive the updated documents free of charge. Buy once, stay current through the rollout year.
The Legal Edition provides done-for-you documents that you implement. We do not promise any particular regulatory outcome, that you will avoid penalties, or that AUSTRAC will be satisfied with your program — compliance depends entirely on your own implementation, training and ongoing oversight. This is general compliance support material, not legal advice, and does not create a professional relationship. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by AUSTRAC, the Attorney-General's Department, the Law Council of Australia, any state Law Society, or any government or professional body.
We sell to risk-averse professionals, so we're upfront about what this is, how it's built, and where its limits are.
Published by Axior Labs (ABN 91 949 773 596), Bendigo, Victoria.
Yes. Under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) as amended by the 2024 reforms, legal practitioners and conveyancers who provide specified "designated services" become reporting entities from 1 July 2026. The nine legal designated services include real-property transactions, managing client money in trust accounts, creating and restructuring companies and trusts, acting as nominee director or shareholder, and providing a registered office — services that form the core of most practices. Verify your status with AUSTRAC's free "Check if you may be regulated" tool at austrac.gov.au.
No. AUSTRAC has confirmed the common-law doctrine of legal professional privilege remains unchanged. You are not compelled to disclose privileged communications. Where a reporting obligation would require disclosing privileged information, you assert privilege using AUSTRAC's LPP Claim Form, lodged at the same time as the SMR, and withhold only the privileged part. Much of what triggers obligations — identity data, trust-account movements, formation mechanics, source of funds — is administrative and generally not privileged, so you still report that. The Legal Edition gives you the line-drawing workflow and the claim-form process.
SMR (suspicious matter report): within 24 hours for a suspicion related to terrorism financing, or 3 business days for any other suspicion. Asserting LPP extends the standard SMR deadline to 5 business days (this extension does not apply to terrorism financing, which stays at 24 hours), and the LPP claim form is lodged at the same time. You must not tip off the client that an SMR has arisen or been lodged. TTR (threshold transaction report): physical currency of $10,000 or more must be reported within 10 business days. Source: austrac.gov.au reporting and LPP-reform guidance.
There is, and we say so plainly: AUSTRAC publishes a free starter kit for small, low-complexity reporting entities. It is a generic baseline you build out yourself. The Legal Edition is a complete, legal-specific program — the nine designated services, trust-account and conveyancing risk factors, the LPP claim workflow, tipping-off-versus-candour guidance, retainer-disclosure language, and matter-by-matter scoping — drafted and ready to implement now. If your practice is genuinely simple and you have time, start with AUSTRAC's free kit. If you want the work done to a legal-practice standard before the deadline, that is what the $497 buys (or $497 for a sole conveyancer).
You are buying a one-time program build: 25 editable documents, forms and registers (~223 pages) plus the offline AML Compliance Cockpit, drafted for legal practice. It is not ongoing transaction-screening software, not a consultant's sign-off on your specific matters, and not the independent evaluation AUSTRAC requires of your whole program at least once every three years — the Edition includes the scope brief and checklist to commission that evaluation, but a qualified independent reviewer must perform it. You implement the program; we provide the accurate starting build.
No on both. The Legal Edition is general compliance support material — editable templates and guidance you adapt to your own practice — not legal advice, and it does not create a professional relationship. AMLCompliant is an independent product, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for AUSTRAC, the Attorney-General's Department, the Law Council of Australia, any state Law Society, or any government or professional body. We reference AUSTRAC's published guidance so the documents map to real obligations; for advice on your specific position, engage a qualified Australian lawyer with AML/CTF expertise.
All 25 documents, forms and registers are editable Microsoft Word (.docx) files with clearly marked merge fields — [Practice Name], [Date], [Compliance Officer Full Name] and similar. The AML Compliance Cockpit is a single self-contained HTML file that runs offline in any browser: an "Am I caught?" scope check, a client ML/TF risk-rating engine, a CDD checklist generator, SMR and TTR draft builders, a deadline tracker and a records register. Nothing is uploaded, no data leaves your computer — which matters when the inputs are client matters. You download everything immediately after purchase.
25 editable documents, forms and registers and the AML Compliance Cockpit — drafted for solicitors, conveyancers and small law firms, with the LPP claim workflow built in, delivered the moment you pay.