PRACTICING CERTIFICATE
1. Every Legal Practitioner (Advocate, Attorney, Conveyancer and Notary Public) is required in terms of the Legal Practitioners Act (LPA) to hold a Practicing Certificate which is valid for that year in order to be entitled to practice.
2. The Annual General Assembly (AGM) has Resolved that names of Legal Practitioners who do not hold Practicing Certificates in each year and are therefore not entitled to practice, be published after the Opening of the Legal Year. The Resolution relates to publication and does not seek to extend or give a waiver to the provision of the LPA that practicing certificates expire on the 31st December of each year.
3. The Ceremony of the Opening of the Legal Year will be held on the 4th February 2025. The Council intends to publicize the list on Monday 3rd March 2025.
TRUST ACCOUNT
1. Section 45 (1) of the Legal Practitioners Act (LPA) requires that every legal practitioner in private practice, practicing on his own or in partnership, should open and operate a Trust Bank Account. No firm is therefore to operate without having first opened a Trust Account. Non-compliance with this provision of the LPA is both professional misconduct and an offence under the LPA. New law firms are therefore required to submit evidence that the firm has opened a trust account before commencing practice / operations.
2. The Trust Bank Account shall be used only for depositing moneys held or received by the attorney in connection with his practice. This has become especially important to note in light of the increased scrutiny on Anti-Money Laundering, prevention of Financing of Terrorism and illicit financial flows.
3. Section 45 (6) of the LPA requires that Trust Account Bank Statements be submitted to the Society once in every three (3) months. This is a very important monitoring tool and noncompliance will lead to a qualified audit.
4. Section 45 (7) of the LPA requires that a Trust Account be audited at least once in each calendar year. Members should particularly note that even if the firm has been operating for less than twelve (12) months an audit report showing that proper books of accounts have been kept (certifying compliance with provisions of Section 45 and Regulation 30) will be required as a prerequisite to issuance of a Practicing Certificate at the beginning of each year. The LPA only provides an exception to the requirement of an audit for first time applicants for a Practicing Certificate. Council does not have the authority to waive this requirement and resolved so in January 2017.
5. Section 45 (8) of the LPA provides that Council or a person nominated by it may inspect the accounting records of any legal practitioner to ascertain if the accounts are in compliance with Section 45(1). It is important to note that, in addition to its regulatory mandate given by the LPA, the Financial Intelligence Act (FIA) has also designated the Law Society of Botswana as a “supervisory authority”. In this role, the Society is required by Section 27 of FIA to regulate and ensure compliance by legal practitioners with provisions of the Financial Intelligence Act. In this regard, the Society will undertake adhoc examinations / inspections of law firms periodically.
6. Law firms have an obligation to ensure that the practice is not used to commit or facilitate commission of financial offences.
7. The obligations for law firms under FIA include (Know Your Customer / Client) KYC requirements. These in general require a law firm to keep proper and full details of its clients and all third parties transacting in the Trust Account, that is those making payments into the Trust Account and payments made from the Trust Account together with reasons for such payments.
8. Law firms are reminded of the requirement by FIA to report all cash transactions amounting to P10 000 and above as well as suspicious transactions.
9. Law firms are reminded to ensure that they are registered on the goAML system
