Venable partner Kevin L. Shepherd, a global authority on gatekeeper regulation of the legal profession, was quoted extensively in the October 1, 2011 issue of the ABA Journal on cooperative efforts by the ABA and the U.S. Department of Treasury to implement the ABA’s voluntary good practice guidance for lawyers to detect and combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
The article notes that the guidance urges lawyers to implement a risk-based approach to assess the money-laundering risk from three vantage points: the nature of the client, the nature of the legal work involved, and where the business is taking place. “That will be a change to be sure,” Shepherd says, “but it’s a practical step given the possible unattractive alternative of federal law imposing mandatory anti-money laundering obligations on the legal profession.”
The article notes that the guidance urges lawyers to implement a risk-based approach to assess the money-laundering risk from three vantage points: the nature of the client, the nature of the legal work involved, and where the business is taking place. “That will be a change to be sure,” Shepherd says, “but it’s a practical step given the possible unattractive alternative of federal law imposing mandatory anti-money laundering obligations on the legal profession.”