The monitoring of the legal area is usually a complex and difficult task for organizations, which however cannot be neglected.
Faced with the need to carry out a legal audit, it is important to evaluate various aspects:
- The structure of the area, the profile of its members and its products and services
- Its relationship with other sectors, mainly with the accounting area
- Portfolio recovery management in its judicial and extra-judicial phases
- Management of cases in which the entity is a defendant.
At Grant Thornton Argentina we have developed an innovative auditing service specially designed for the correct supervision of the legal area, mainly in the following aspects:
Organization of the area
- Survey of the structure, preparation of flow charts by responsibilities and verification of control points established in the existing regulations
- Analysis of legal products and services and add value in them, elimination of operational errors and optimal use of scarce resources
- Relationship between the profile of the members of the area and its products and services.
Analysis of the legal area and its relationship with the accounting of the entity
- Survey and analysis of litigation in which the entity is a plaintiff, and accounting impact based on the credits received
- Survey and analysis of litigation in which the entity is a defendant and its relationship with the accounting of contingent liabilities.
Legal area and portfolio recovery management
In portfolio recovery management, the opportunity cost is directly proportional to the delays incurred in the recovery tasks; that is why we understand that they must be properly supervised.
When the management is extrajudicial, we evaluate:
- Compliance with the internal policies of the entity
- Efficiency in management (waiting times between the assignment of the case and its negotiation)
- Efficiency in management, analysing the percentage of recovery based on the existing debt.
When the management is judicial, it requires the evaluation of:
- Management efficiency ratios, analysing the delay between procedural impulses
- Efficiency ratios, analysing the percentage of recovery in relation to the amount demanded
- Detection of procedural anomalies: loss of lawsuits, expiration of instance, paralysis of causes.
Legal area and its performance as a lawsuit party
When the entity is a defendant, it is taken into consideration that the impulse of the procedure is on the side of the counterparty. Therefore, the analysis focuses on:
- Answers in time of transfers, requests or legal requirements
- Loss of opportunity in the request for expiry of evidence or instance.
