https://www.slab.org.uk/solicitors/solicitor-registration-with-slab/entry-on-to-our-financial-accounting-and-management-system-fams/
https://www.slab.org.uk/solicitors/solicitor-registration-with-slab/entry-on-to-our-financial-accounting-and-management-system-fams/
If you intend to carry out any form of legal aid work:
This allows us to accept your legal aid applications and pay for that work.
You can start this process either by a telephone call or in writing. We will need basic details such as
You can, if you wish, be linked to all branches within a firm but you must specify a default branch (usually the head office).
We will enter your name on FAMS, allocate you a practitioner code and, within three working days, send you a FAMS registration form. You need to complete and sign the mandate and return them to our Receipts and Payments Department together with any other relevant documentation (e.g a copy of your up-to-date practising certificate (both sides if applicable)). We will activate your practitioner code when we receive these and confirm in writing that the code can now be used.
Entry onto the FAMS database does not mean you are registered to carry out legal aid work. You cannot provide legal assistance if your firm is not registered. In criminal and children's legal assistance you must register as a solicitor even if your firm is already registered.
You can have links to any number of firms who are entered on FAMS. However you must ensure that the firms tell our Receipts and Payments Department so that we can issue the FAMS registration forms. It will take three working days to set up a link for you to another firm on FAMS.
Any firm intending to undertake legal aid work must be entered on FAMS before any solicitor employed by the firm can carry out that work. A member of staff within the firm can start this process by a telephone call or in writing. We will need basic details such as:
We will then:
You need to tell our Receipts and Payments Department by phone or letter if you are already entered on FAMS with a firm but take up employment with another firm.
Within three working days we will write to you at your new firm, enclosing a registration form and mandate, and outline what will happen with current and new applications. We will activate the link to the new firm when you return the signed registration form and mandate. Any links to the former firm will remain open until you tell our Receipts and Payments Department that the links are no longer needed. The link to your former firm will need to remain open until we have received and paid all relevant accounts.
If you are a criminal practitioner, you should note that your move cannot be activated on the Criminal Legal Assistance Register until you have completed and returned this paperwork. It is therefore very important that you tell us as soon as possible about your intended move and its effective date.
We cannot pay VAT until we receive a copy of your certificate if your firm has registered with Customs and Excise for VAT. In these circumstances you should:
We will accept a list of payment references and amounts if you cannot provide remittances. However this will cause delays as we will have to produce duplicate payment remittances before our Accounts Department can deal with the request.
If your firm opens a new branch and intends to submit applications and/or accounts from the branch then its details will need to be added to FAMS. The branch details can be entered onto FAMS by phoning or writing to our Receipts and Payments Department. You need to tell us basic details including:
We will then:
You should return the signed registration form with a copy of the senior partner’s practising certificate and, if appropriate, a copy of the VAT registration form. We will then write to you when we have activated the code.
There are several points to settle Ii your firm intends to merge with another before contacting us to enter the new firm on FAMS. These include:
The merging firms may also have accounts they have already sent us that are currently waiting to be paid. We will pay these into the bank account of the firm shown on the Account Synopsis Form. The firm should ensure that the correct firm and branch code are recorded on the Account Synopsis Form for future accounts.
Each of the parties concerned must confirm in writing any decisions the partners within each of the former firms make that would affect details we hold.
Within three working days of being told in writing of the merger we will:
Merging firms should also consider whether the procedures (for civil or criminal) used by each firm will remain the same or whether they will be consolidated into one common version.
We aim to ensure that remittance advices are sent to a firm no later than the bank credit date. These are currently Wednesday and Friday. We send the remittance advices to the branch we have paid.
If you need a duplicate remittance please first contact the branch which we paid before getting in touch with us. We can issue duplicates within three working days if the original remittance advice cannot be found. The following information will help speed up the request:
Rarely your firm may receive payment of an account in error. If this happens, please return the payment to us, and quote the legal aid reference number that the payment was made under or provide a copy of the payment remittance advice.
The senior partner within the firm should ask us, in writing on headed paper, to amend a firm’s bank account details.
The senior partner in the firm should ask, in writing, for any amendments to either of these.
Sheriff officers may lodge an arrestment schedule with us relating to you or your firm. In either case, any payments where legal aid was granted before the arrestment was lodged, will be attached. We will continue to withhold payments under this arrestment until either we hold sufficient funds or the arrestment is loosed.
If the arrestment is lodged against an individual, all accounts to any firm where they are the nominated solicitor and which relate to certificates granted before the arrestment was lodged will be caught by the arrestment.
If the arrestment is lodged against a firm, all accounts submitted by that firm, irrespective of the nominated solicitor, that relate to legal aid granted before the arrestment was lodged, will be arrested.
If funds held against an arrestment exceed £5,000, we will transfer these funds to a special deposit account where interest is accrued. This interest will be released once the arrestment is loosed.
In all cases, when sufficient funds have been caught, we will send the firm a cheque for the balance held, where applicable, and all future payments will be made to the nominated bank account in the usual manner. Once the arrestment is loosed, if the arrestor has not made a claim on the additional funds, these will be released by cheque and sent to the firm.
We will not take any action on behalf of either party unless we receive an appropriately signed written request. No funds will be released to the arrestors without authorisation from the solicitor or firm arrested.
You should ensure that all completed accounts, where the individual concerned is the nominated solicitor, have been sent to us before asking us to remove a link.
We will apply an end-date to the appropriate record when we receive such a request. You should write to our Receipts and Payments Department if the practitioner or firm number has to be restored to on FAMS.
Applying an end-date effectively deletes the details from our database. It will restrict us sending correspondence, stop us registering any applications and either stop or delay us making any payments to the firm.