Legl automatically runs a watchlist screening check whenever you complete a Client Due Diligence (CDD) report for an individual or run an Instant Screening for a company director. This process screens your client against global sanctions, politically exposed persons (PEP), and other regulatory watchlists to help your firm meet its AML compliance obligations.
When a watchlist screening is performed
A watchlist screening runs automatically when you:
Send a client an Engage request that includes a CDD report.
Run an In-Person CDD (Standard CDD or Watchlist Screening) within Legl for an individual.
Perform an instant screening on a director or individual from within a business report.
You do not need to add a separate step - watchlist screening is built into every CDD report for individuals.
Note: Ongoing monitoring will be automatically enabled once a CDD report containing a watchlist screening has been run.
How to send an Engage request
Follow these steps to perform a Watchlist Screening via an Engage request:
Go to Engage Individuals
Select Create Engage Request
Enter the clients contact details
Continue
Select your workflow (this must include a CDD Report or Watchlist Screening)
Create Engage request
Send to your client
Tip: For further details on sending an Engage request, see this guide:
Viewing the results, once this has been completed by the client:
Go to Engage Individuals
Search for the client
Click to open the report
Watchlist Screening results appear under ‘Client Due Diligence’
How to run an In-Person CDD
Follow these steps to perform a Watchlist Screening via an In-Person CDD:
Go to Engage Individuals
Select Run In-Person CDD
Choose the report you need:
Standard CDD
Standard CDD (No ID)
Watchlist Screening
Continue
Enter the clients contact details
Continue
Enter additional client details
Phone number (optional)
DOB (optional)
Country (required)
Postcode (optional)
View results
Note:
No emails are sent to clients during an In-Person CDD check.
Entering the optional client details will narrow the search and reduce false positives.
Further details on running an In-Person CDD:
How to perform an Instant Screening in a business report
You can also run a watchlist screening instantly - for example, when checking a director from a company search:
Go to the Company record in Legl
View the Company Report
Click on the Structure & Ownership tab
Select the individual (e.g. a director) and click Instant screening.
Enter or confirm their identifying details.
The screening runs immediately
Click View Results
The screening result appears in the Engage Individuals section of Legl.
Tip: Further guidance on Business Reports:
How to improve the accuracy of your results
The quality and completeness of client data is the single biggest factor in determining how relevant your screening results are.
Providing full details helps Legl’s matching engine filter out unrelated results and reduce false positives.
You can directly control:
Full legal name (including any Middle names)
Date of birth (recommended wherever available)
Country of residence or nationality
For example:
An initial CDD report without a DOB entered, returned 9 results, many of which were unrelated individuals with similar names.
Adding a date of birth in a later screening refined the results down to 6, removing additional noise and providing stronger matches.
Tip: If you notice a high number of false positives, check that the name format, DOB, and country information have been entered correctly before re-running the check.
How Legl uses this information during the screening:
Data point | Purpose | Example |
Full legal name | Primary identifier used to search for matches across all watchlists. | “Stuart James Andrew” |
Known aliases | Ensures screening covers common variations or translations of a name. | “Stuart Andrew”, “Стюарт Эндрю”, “ستيوارت أندرو” |
Date of birth (where available) | Increases accuracy by distinguishing between people with similar names. | 25 November 1971 |
Country or nationality | Helps prioritise relevant results and reduce false positives. | United Kingdom |
What happens after screening
After the report is generated:
Legl displays the summary result in the dashboard.
A detailed PDF report is available to download.
If monitoring is enabled, the client will continue to be checked automatically, and any new results will trigger an alert.
How to review and interpret your results:
Tip: Further guidance on how to review and interpret your results:
Important: The screening is a starting point. Your firm must review any “Consider” results to confirm whether they relate to your client before proceeding.