Business Audits

There are many benefits of legal audits, not least that potential legal problems and risks can be identified before they translate into potential legal liability & risk. In essence, a legal audit is a form of risk assessment and legal inventory.

There are many instances where issues and opportunities are discovered by us when conducting a legal audit which result in contracts being successfully renegotiated or other opportunities spotted, which can have a positive impact, particularly in the current economic environment.

We hope the free legal checklists and questionnaires which we will be adding to this site, and which can be accessed by clicking on links when added below are helpful.

Free legal audits of website law & intellectual property include :-

  • The Use of Computers in the Workplace
  • Legal aspects relating to disclaimers
  • Privacy
  • Security of client information
  • E-Commerce
  • Brand Protection
  • Data Protection
  • E- Commerce
  • Ownership of assets
  • Distance selling

Free legal audits/checklists & questionnaires on company & commercial/business compliance

  • Business start up checklist
  • Company Law compliance
  • Company law record keeping and filing
  • Director duties
  • Pre-sale due diligence/checklists/questionnaires
  • Business Structures
  • Consumer legislation
  • Shareholder Rights
  • Terms and conditions
  • Commercial Contracts
  • Agreements with suppliers
  • Distribution and Agency Agreements
  • Joint Venture Agreements
  • Import/export legal checklist
  • Buying a business checklist

Free legal audit relating to internal business legal issues & compliance include :-

  • Credit Control
  • Debt collection
  • Pensions
  • Disputes
  • Product liability
  • Property Matters including Landlord and Tenant Issues and renewal of business leases
  • Public Liability
  • Sector Specific Regulatory Issues
  • Vicarious Liability

Employment law audits/questionnaires/compliance checks include :-

  • Employment legislation
  • Recruitment Procedures
  • Employee’s terms and conditions of employment.
  • Drafting workplace policies
  • Equal opportunities and diversity in the workforce
  • Absence/sickness procedures
  • Maternity/paternity provisions
  • Redundancy checklist
  • Remuneration
  • Grievance/discipline procedures
  • Self-employment & freelance work checklists

Health & safety questionnaire & checklist

  • Health & safety
  • Risk assessments
  • Fire safety
  • Record keeping
  • Sickness absence

FAQs about:
Business Audits

What is a legal or business audit ?

Many businesses will be familiar with the need to have accounts audited, both in the sense that companies over a certain size and turnover must be financially audited to comply with law, but there is an additional advantage to this in the sense of spotting possible "black holes" in the accounts and/or fraud.

In the same way, a legal audit is a very cost effective method of not only identifying legal risks before those risks turn into potentially very expensive legal liabilities, but also to spot opportunities for saving money or securing a strategic business advantage.

Other advantages ?

Whilst not strictly applicable now, legal audits may well also become useful in the future for lowering professional or business insurance costs. If  a business can demonstrate good practice, ongoing risk assessment and such like, this may well lead to lower insurance premiums and potentially could be used as an excellent form of references for banks or credit or trade finance applications.

Employment law audit ?

A particularly obvious use for regular, annual legal auditing relates to employment law. There is no sign of any abatement to the regular statutory and case law adjustments to employment law, both in english law and european law. It is extremely difficult for any employer without a full time HR department to keep up with the changes and yet, failure to comply can have disastrous consequences for employers. A regular review of not only employment contracts, legislative and case law updates but also policies and procedures is money very well spent, particularly when the cost of audits is competitive. Just a couple of quick examples of recent highly significant employment law changes in the last 6 months would be :-

  • The Equality Act

  • The Bribery Act

  • The growing importance of having a properly considered and bespoke social media policy for employees.

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