Overview
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.
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, as watchlist screening is already built into every CDD report for individuals.
ℹ️ Important
Ongoing monitoring will be automatically enabled once a CDD report containing a watchlist screening has been run.
How to run a watchlist screening check
Via an Engage request
Go to Engage Individuals
Select Create Engage Request
Enter the client's contact details
Select Continue
Select your workflow (this must include a CDD Report or Watchlist Screening)
Select Create Engage request
Send to your client
ℹ️ Further guidance
For further details on sending an Engage request, see: How do I create an Engage request?
Once your client has completed the request, view the results:
Go to Engage Individuals
Search for the client
Click to open the report
Watchlist Screening results appear under Client Due Diligence
Via 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
Select Continue
Enter the client's contact details
Select Continue
Enter additional client details:
Phone number (optional)
Date of birth (optional)
Country (required)
Postcode (optional)
Select View results
ℹ️ Important
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.
ℹ️ Further guidance
For further details on running an In-Person CDD:
Via Instant Screening in a business report
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
ℹ️ Further guidance
Further guidance on Business Reports:
What happens next
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
ℹ️ Further guidance
For guidance on how to review and interpret your results:
Important information
The quality and completeness of client data is the single biggest factor in determining how relevant your screening results are, so providing full details helps filter out unrelated results and reduce false positives
You can directly control screening accuracy by providing: full legal name (including middle names), date of birth (recommended wherever available), and country of residence or nationality
If you notice a high number of false positives, check that the name format, date of birth, and country information have been entered correctly before re-running the check
The screening is a starting point: your firm must review any Consider results to confirm whether they relate to your client before proceeding
For example, an initial CDD report without a date of birth 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: