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the reg 21 brief · monthly · free

What independent reviews actually find.

Anonymised patterns from live AML file reviews and AI audits, the regulatory changes that matter to a firm of 5–50 fee-earners, and first sight of new entries in the AI tools index. Written by the people doing the reviews, on delivery week, not by a content calendar.

8issues published so far 1email a month, maximum 0sales sequences, ever
01what lands in your inbox

Five things, once a month, none of them filler.

Written for COLPs, MLROs, managing partners and IT leads in UK firms of roughly 5–200 fee earners — where compliance and technology decisions land on the same two desks.

Findings patterns, anonymised

What we are actually seeing across live file reviews and AI audits: the clusters, the severity, and the fix that worked. Never a firm's identity, never a client's data.

Regulatory movement, translated

MLR, SRA, ICO and ISO/IEC 42001 changes, written for a fee-earning reader with ten minutes — including a plain line on whether it needs action this quarter.

New tool reviews

First sight of entries and re-scores in the AI Tools Index, with the reasoning rather than the rating alone.

Templates and one-pagers

The artefacts we build for clients, released free when they are general enough to be useful to everyone. Register templates, checklists, board notes.

The occasional opinion

On the parts of this market that deserve one: unverifiable vendor claims, 'AI-powered' marketing, and consultants who offer to certify their own work.

what you will never get
  • Vendor news and funding rounds
  • Webinar invitations with no substance behind them
  • Anything we would not want to read ourselves
  • Your address, ever, in anyone else's hands
the arrangement

Cadence, and how we keep it honest

Monthly, plus occasional extra sends when something regulatory actually changes.

One email a month. When there is nothing useful to say, there is no email — and you will notice we keep that promise.

If we have nothing useful in a month, you get nothing. We would rather be missed than filtered, and the unsubscribe link works in one click — no preference centre, no "are you sure?", no re-subscribe pop-up a week later.
02the archive

Everything we have sent.

No gating and no "read the full issue" tease — the archive is the archive. Subscribe and the next one arrives; skip it and you can still read everything here.

No. 7September 2026

The AI your staff installed, and the register that catches it

Fourteen undeclared tools across nine firms. Plus: why the new SRA warning notice makes your file notes a compliance artefact rather than a habit.

AIGovernance
7 min
No. 6August 2026

Regulation 28 is not a photocopying exercise

The most common High-severity finding in our reviews, the four records we look for, and the twelve-minute count that sizes your exposure.

AMLreg 28
8 min
No. 5July 2026

Private models: what the vendors' own moves tell you

Legal AI's biggest players are building proprietary models. What that means for a firm choosing between public APIs, private tenancy and self-hosting.

Private AI
9 min
No. 4June 2026

The £480k band: source of funds in practice

Worked examples of proportionality from anonymised reviews, including the third-party payer and the statement-alone file.

AMLreg 28
6 min
No. 3May 2026

Why we will never certify you

ISO/IEC 17021-1, the independence boundary, and how to tell whether your consultant has drifted across it.

ISO 42001
5 min
No. 2April 2026

The legacy DMS: where five-year retention goes to die

Two firms, one shared black hole, and how to prove records are retrievable when the old system has no exit interview.

AMLreg 40
6 min
No. 1March 2026

What a regulator's reviewer actually opens first

The document order we see in supervised firms, and why the board summary is read before the findings.

AMLPractice
5 min
No. 0February 2026

Launch issue: the free 3-file check, explained in full

What we do with three files, what we do not do, and the results from the first twenty firms to send them.

Practice
4 min
who reads it

COLPs, MLROs and the two people in every firm who end up owning technology.

COLPs, MLROs, managing partners and IT leads in UK firms of roughly 5–200 fee earners — where compliance and technology decisions land on the same two desks. If that sounds like your firm, forward this page to the colleague who would otherwise forward you a vendor whitepaper.

while you are here
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Send three files.
We'll tell you what a reviewer would flag.

  • No charge and no obligation — you keep the findings either way
  • Turned around in ~48 hours, encrypted transfer only
  • Most firms find at least one issue they did not know they had
Book the free 3-file check → Talk to us about cost Or write to — replies usually the same day.