Overview
Completing a Risk Assessment in Legl allows your firm to assess, record, and manage client or matter risk in line with your internal policies.
Risk Assessments pull through existing data from across the platform to reduce manual input and support consistent, auditable decision-making.
Before you start
Before completing a Risk Assessment, ensure that:
You have access to the Risk Assessments area in Legl
The relevant client, business, or trust contact already exists in the platform
Any required CDD or business checks have been completed (where applicable)
Your firm has a published Risk Assessment template available. Admin users can build and manage templates directly in Legl.
ℹ️ Further guidance
How to complete a Risk Assessment
1. Start a new Risk Assessment
Go to Risk Assessments in Legl.
Select Start risk assessment.
Choose the relevant Risk Assessment template from the dropdown.
Search for and select the client, business, or trust you are assessing.
If completing a matter risk assessment, enter the matter reference when prompted. This allows the assessment to be found by matter reference in the dashboard.
Click Start risk assessment.
ℹ️ Important
Matter risk assessments can be linked to multiple contacts. This is useful when a matter involves more than one client, for example two individuals purchasing a property together. You can add additional contacts during the assessment.
2. Review auto-populated information
Some questions are automatically answered using existing data already held in Legl.
Auto-population currently applies only when a single contact is linked. Where more than one contact is linked, these questions need to be answered manually.
The fields that auto-populate are:
Entity type — whether the client is an individual or a business
Date of last CDD check — pulled from the client's most recent completed CDD in Legl
Client location — including whether the client is based in a high-risk country
PEP status
Sanctions status
Source of Funds — if a Source of Funds check has been completed for the client, the assessment will automatically detect whether the check was done, when it was completed, whether any overseas funds were identified, and provide a summary of the check. The AI distinguishes between individual and Commercial Source of Funds checks.
Corporate failure score and band — for business clients, the failure score from the client's most recent company report, shown as a number out of 100 alongside its risk band, for example "Lower than average risk"
Corporate delinquency score and band — the delinquency score from the same report, also out of 100, alongside its risk band, for example "Medium risk"
These fields are clearly highlighted so you can review and verify them when reviewing inputted fields.
General Details
Source of Funds
When the corporate failure and delinquency scores populate
These two fields only populate for business clients, and only where the most recent company report on file is a Dun & Bradstreet report. Other report providers store different values in the same score fields, so Legl leaves the fields blank rather than showing a score that does not mean the same thing.
On a reassessment, the scores only update if the company report is newer than the one used last time. Where the report has not been refreshed since the last assessment, your previous answer is carried over unchanged.
For both scores, a higher number means lower risk. The two scores use different bands:
Failure score | Band |
1 to 10 | High risk |
11 to 50 | Higher than average risk |
51 to 85 | Lower than average risk |
86 to 100 | Minimum risk |
Delinquency score | Band |
1 to 10 | High risk |
11 to 30 | Higher than average risk |
31 to 70 | Medium risk |
71 to 90 | Lower than average risk |
91 to 100 | Minimum risk |
How this affects the risk rating
The corporate failure and delinquency scores are shown to help inform your review, but a populated score does not change the calculated risk rating by itself. Only questions with selectable answers (Yes/No, Radios, or Dropdown) feed into the risk rating, and the score fields hold a number rather than a selectable answer.
Where your firm's template uses these scores, you may see a separate question directly underneath asking you to make a judgement based on the score shown, for example whether it should be treated as a risk factor. It is your answer to that question, not the score itself, that contributes to the risk rating.
3. Complete the risk questions
Work through each section of the Risk Assessment.
Due to the conditional logic, depending on your answers:
Additional questions may appear
Irrelevant questions may be hidden automatically
ℹ️ Important
Your firm can choose which questions are optional or mandatory, and add guidance text to support consistent completion.
Click Continue to next step once all questions are completed.
4. View the calculated risk rating
Legl automatically calculates a risk rating based on your firm's configured weightings. The default is to be displayed in a Low/Medium/High rating, but can be configured to show numerical scoring.
Review the risk factors that contributed to the rating.
If required, authorised users can:
Select Change rating
Record a rationale for any manual override
All changes are time-stamped and logged for audit purposes.
5. Complete the Risk Assessment
Before completing the Risk Assessment, you must record:
How the identified risks will be mitigated or managed
Any additional controls or follow-up actions
This information becomes part of the permanent audit trail.
Select Complete risk assessment.
Complete Risk Assessment
Select a reviewer (if enabled) — this will notify the reviewer and set the Risk Assessment as Ready for Review.
Set a reassessment date (optional) — if selected, Legl will send an email reminder one week before the reassessment is due to the person who completed the Risk Assessment.
Confirm that the Risk Assessment information provided is correct to the best of your knowledge.
Select Complete risk assessment.
The Risk Assessment status updates immediately in the platform.
What happens next
The Risk Assessment appears on the Risk Assessments dashboard
The final risk rating is visible at a glance
If a high-risk factor was identified:
The Risk Assessment is marked as Escalated
A notification email is sent to the designated reviewer (for example, the MLRO)
The completed Risk Assessment can be:
Viewed at any time
Updated at any time
Downloaded as a PDF for external storage or audits
Important information
Risk Assessments can be started by one user and completed by another
High-risk assessments may require review by a different user, depending on your firm's escalation rules
Updating an existing Risk Assessment creates a new version, preserving the full history and audit trail
Manual risk rating overrides are clearly marked in the dashboard
Matter risk assessments can be linked to multiple contacts, useful when more than one client is involved in a matter
Admin users can build and manage Risk Assessment templates directly in Legl without contacting the Legl team