Tracfin for fiduciary lawyers: the legal privilege paradox
French lawyers have been subject to AML obligations since 2004, but practical adoption remains hesitant. Bar association controls intensify, and digital compliance becomes unavoidable.
Custom software for law firm.
Law firms have specific needs: confidential case files, hourly billing, strict GDPR compliance, secure client portal. Most legacy software is dated or too expensive for small and mid-sized practices.
01What we solve
Three recurring problems.
The same in most firms.
Before talking software, we talk pain points. If you don't recognize any of these three, we are probably not the right partner for you.
- 01
Time spent never gets fully billed
Time entries are made from memory at week's end, letters and calls slip through, travel forgotten. On a 10-lawyer firm, on average 1-2 hours per day are not billed, pure dry loss.
10-20% of billable time lost each month
- 02
Cases live across 4 different tools
The client is in a CRM, documents in a shared folder, the procedural calendar in Outlook, invoices in another tool. No consolidated view: impossible to answer quickly when a client calls.
4 tools open on average to handle a case
- 03
Market tools are expensive, slow, dated
Diapaz, Secib, Kleos: 2000s interfaces, €80-150/lawyer/month subscriptions, long training, non-existent technical support. And impossible to customize to the firm's specific practice.
€80-150 / lawyer / month on legacy solutions
02Complex or critical software
The systems that
cannot fail.
When your processes require a replayable audit trail, sagas with compensation, or compliance by construction, we ship an event-driven architecture (DDD + CQRS + Event Sourcing), not a CRUD layered with audit logs.
Conflict-of-interest detection by AI assistants
An AI assistant scans every new case in real time against the firm's history and international sanction lists. Each suggestion is kept with full reasoning, consultable 30 years later for ethics defense before the Bar Council.
Sanction listsOpen SanctionsWorld-Check
Tamper-proof CARPA accounting
CARPA accounts with strict control: every escrow movement is recorded in tamper-proof form, never modifiable after the fact. Clean rollback on refund cancellation, history replayable during a Bâtonnier or CARPA control.
CARPAEscrow banks
Procedural tracking with critical deadlines
Procedural deadline calendar (cassation 2 months, appeal 1 month, opposition 30 days) with automatic catch-up if a step is missed. 7 / 3 / 1-day alerts before forfeit. No deadline can be forgotten, the solution is designed never to block.
RPVAe-Barreau
Privilege and case-access history
Every consultation of a sensitive case file (M&A, criminal, employment) is traced in tamper-proof form. Exact reconstruction of "who saw what and when" for defense before the CNIL or the Bâtonnier, compliant with reinforced case law on legal privilege.
GDPRBar Council
03Mobile and web applications
The day-to-day apps,
screen by screen.
For everything else (CRM, portals, scheduling, billing), we ship a custom application, on your design system and with your existing integrations.
Confidential case-file management
One file = one isolated workspace with documents, deadlines, parties, act history. Fine-grained per-file permissions (partner, associate, paralegal, client) with full access history for ethics.
RPVAe-BarreauOneDrive
Fluid time entry
2-click entry from mobile, email, calendar. Automatic detection of outgoing phone calls. Every time entry is immediately attached to the file and act type.
OutlookGoogle CalendarToggl
Secure client portal
Your clients consult progress, deposit documents, sign engagement letters online. Strong authentication, end-to-end encryption of sensitive documents.
FranceConnectYousignDocuSign
Hourly billing
Automatic billing based on thresholds or fixed fees. Engagement letters generated from templates, mission letters tracked, graduated reminders. Territorialized VAT for international cases.
StripeGoCardlessPennylane
04Regulations & integrations
What we handle natively,
no add-ons.
Business compliance and key integrations are not options, they are prerequisites built in from the start.
GDPR
Personal data, reinforced legal privilege
Bar Council ethics
Conflicts of interest, privilege, escrow, special accounting
RPVA / e-Barreau
Lawyer private virtual network, electronic service
CARPA
Lawyers' autonomous fund-settlement office
Sapin II law
Anti-corruption, transparency declarations
Legal archival
5-30 year retention by case nature
05Frequently asked questions
Answers to the questions we get in meetings.
- Do you replace Diapaz / Secib / Kleos?
- Yes, in most cases. We take your current software as the functional spec, remove what's no longer useful, add what's missing (mobile, client portal, integrations). Data migration included.
- How do you guarantee legal privilege?
- End-to-end encryption of sensitive documents, sovereign hosting in France or on your premises (on-premise possible), audit trail on every access, fine-grained per-file RBAC. Source code is yours, you can audit or take over hosting at any time.
- Is the application compatible with RPVA / e-Barreau?
- Yes. We integrate RPVA APIs for electronic service, hearing tracking and communication with courts. No double entry.
- How much does the solution cost per lawyer / per month?
- Swoft's model isn't per-user. You pay the development of the solution once (fixed-price scope, IP transferred), then a maintenance contract. Over 3 years, typically 50-70% cheaper than Diapaz or Secib for a 10-lawyer firm.
- Can we start small, then add modules?
- Yes. The application is split into independent business modules, you can ship a core (cases + billing) in 4-5 weeks, then add modules (client portal, deadline calendar, conflict of interest) without redoing it all.
06Related industries
On the boundary?
Mixed firms (accounting + audit, accounting + advisory, accounting + legal) draw from several industries. Here are those that share the most challenges.
07Articles & veille
L'actualité Law firm, décryptée.
Réglementations, virages business, sous-domaines en mutation : ce que notre pôle veille publie sur le secteur Law firm.
Tracfin for fiduciary lawyers: the legal privilege paradox
A law firm wanting out of Diapaz / Secib?
30 minutes, no sales pitch.
30 minutes to scope the perimeter, identify RPVA and CARPA integrations, and tell you honestly how much it would cost over 3 years vs your current solution.