Whistleblower- system for law firms

Who it may concern:

Law firms with at least 50 employees are required under Section 12(2) of the HinSchG to set up and operate their own internal whistleblower system, regardless of their legal form. This system must enable confidential, ideally anonymous, reporting and communication with whistleblowers.

Regardless of the size of the law firm, “lawyer employers” must also provide a confidential, internal reporting channel for their employees to report violations of money laundering regulations in accordance with Section 6 (5) GwG.

In addition, the new Section 31 BORA provides for the establishment of an internal reporting office for professional law-related complaints as a means of ensuring professional law compliance for professional practice companies from October 1, 2023 (Section 31 (2) BORA).

Do it yourself or outsource?

While client-related reports must generally be handled internally by the law firm in order to maintain attorney-client privilege, the internal reporting office can also be outsourced for reports that do not contain client-related information (e.g., reports of internal financial crimes, offenses involving insults among employees, or violations of the Working Hours Act that are subject to fines). This creates an outsourced contact point for reports that concern the law firm as a “normal” employer, which can lower the threshold for reporting and reduce the risk of external reports being made to the Federal Office of Justice.

The law firm advantage:

For this complex situation, we offer you a service tailored specifically to law firms with separate reporting channels:

• Client-related reports are assigned to internal case handlers within the firm.
• Reports not related to clients are assigned to our internal reporting office in accordance with the HinSchG (German Reporting Act).

Further divisions are possible:

• Professional law-related reports (Section 31 BORA) can be assigned to internal case handlers (e.g., the internal professional law officer).
• Reports related to money laundering law (Section 6 (5) GwG) can be assigned to internal case handlers (e.g., the internal money laundering officer).

This allows you to maintain attorney-client privilege while lowering the threshold for reporting violations that you, as an employer and organ of the administration of justice, need to know about and must remedy. The advantage for you is that you do not need to change your client agreements and can still grant your employees the legal protection afforded to whistleblowers, even in the case of client-related reports.

We offer you the following at a fixed price:

• Setup and operation of the internal reporting office with anonymous reporting channels
• All legally required documents

Our whistleblower system covers all legal requirements.