Red flags for legal professionals

People search “suspicious activity indicators lawyers” when a two-partner firm wants a legal red-flag list and is about to treat every unusual client as a report. Checked against AUSTRAC’s risks and indicators page on 4 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. Filing, once a suspicion exists, is the suspicious matter report for Tranche 2. What you must not tell the client is what not to tell a client. The sector map is /tranche-2.

Prompts that belong on a legal matter

Lawyers are asked to hold a deposit, to buy or sell on instructions that do not match the file, or to lend the firm’s name to a person who will not be identified. Those are the kinds of scenes a legal indicator is for. AUSTRAC publishes indicator material for industry. This page does not copy it and it does not turn a scene into a report.

The two-partner firm writes a short prompt and a named decision. One partner can notice. The person the program names decides whether there is a suspicion. Until that line is written, the firm has a question, not a report.

• Ask what the legal work is. A transfer with no advice, no document, and no dispute is a prompt. Busy conveyancing with a clear contract is not the same scene.
• Watch the firm’s trust account. A request to receive and send money that is not part of the matter is a prompt about the firm being used as a channel.
• A hidden person is a prompt. Someone who will not be named, or who sends a representative with no authority, belongs in the customer question and in the indicator note.
• Do not narrate the worry to the client. What you may say is on the tipping-off page. This page does not script that conversation.

Four legal scenes

Use the scene to start a note. Do not score it. The note ends with whether a suspicion was formed, by whom, and on what date.

Where the legal indicators stop

This page is the legal prompt. It is not the filing guide and it is not the tipping-off rule. Those are the suspicious matter report for Tranche 2 and what not to tell a client.

What the client pays

On FreeAML the firm suite is A$0. The firm emails the client a link. Verification is client-pays. On the public list a personal KYC check is A$20 and a company or trust KYB check is A$40. Use KYB when the customer is a company or a trust. A red-flag discussion in a partners’ meeting is not a check, and it is not included in the firm suite. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not decide a suspicion on a legal matter or draft the firm’s indicator list.

Frequently Asked Questions