Which law-firm practice areas provide AML/CTF designated services?

Start with the requested activity, not the department name

Conveyancing and property work can fall within table 6 item 1 when the firm assists, plans, executes or otherwise acts for a person in a sale, purchase or transfer of real estate. Corporate and commercial teams should test transfers of companies or legal arrangements, equity or debt finance, shelf-company transactions, and the creation or legal restructuring of a company or arrangement. Private-client and funds teams should also test trustee, nominee, officeholder and registered-office services. The same matter can contain several separately designated services, each with a different start point or customer population.

Advice alone is not automatically captured. AUSTRAC distinguishes a service that merely influences a decision from conduct that directly advances an existing or prospective transaction. A tax opinion about possible structures may remain advice; drafting and lodging the documents to create the selected structure may be item 6. A litigation label does not settle the position either: holding or managing property to advance a private settlement may require an item 3 analysis even where the underlying advocacy is not designated.

Recognise the main table 6 service families

Do not stretch these descriptions to every related administrative task. For example, item 7 concerns authority or control akin to the listed roles, not every filing made as a client's representative. Legal restructuring concerns changes to legal form or organisation, such as a merger or demerger, rather than an ordinary staffing or technology change. Conversely, calling implementation work administrative does not remove it when the facts satisfy the Act.

• Real estate and entity transfers, subject to the specific court or tribunal order exceptions in items 1 and 2.
• Receiving, holding and controlling, including disbursing, or managing customer money, accounts, securities, virtual assets or other property to directly advance a transaction.
• Equity or debt financing for a body corporate or legal arrangement, and selling or transferring shelf companies.
• Creating or legally restructuring bodies corporate or legal arrangements, including preparatory steps that directly advance the creation.
• Acting or arranging for a person to act as a director, secretary, attorney, partner, trustee or nominee shareholder, and providing a registered office or principal place of business.

Identify the customer separately for every service

The client named in the costs agreement is not always the complete AML/CTF customer set. For many table 6 services, the customer is the person the firm assists or acts for. Creation services can identify proposed directors and beneficial owners of a company, or a proposed trustee, settlor and beneficiaries of an express trust, as additional customers. Item 3 focuses on the person directly assisted in the relevant transaction; it does not automatically make every person whose money passes through an account a customer.

Keep the customer, representative and beneficial owner concepts distinct. Establish who gives instructions, who receives the service, who the representative acts for, and who ultimately owns or controls a non-individual customer. Documenting this before CDD avoids verifying the convenient contact while missing a person the legislation actually places in scope.

Record the start point, exception and conclusion

A professional service generally starts when the firm acts on instructions and the activity directly advances the relevant existing or prospective transaction. For entity creation, necessary preparatory work can be enough. Record the instruction, factual milestone, table item, customer set and first regulated activity. That record tells the matter team when initial CDD and risk controls need to be complete and helps avoid a last-minute settlement or filing hold.

Apply exceptions narrowly and record their elements. A transfer genuinely pursuant to or resulting from a court or tribunal order may be outside items 1 or 2, while a private financial agreement is not itself such an order. Item 3 has separate statutory exclusions, including defined payments for the firm's own goods or services and some incidental, court-ordered, governmental or insured payments. Some legal-aid, community legal and government-instructed barrister services may also have specific treatment. Check the current Act, Rules and AUSTRAC guidance rather than adopting a practice-wide exemption.

Build scope checks into matter intake and change events

Use a short service matrix at opening: requested outcome, likely transaction, activities, table item, customer, start trigger, exception considered and reviewer. Repeat the assessment when scope changes. A matter that starts as advice can later move into drafting, filing, funds control or officeholder work. A corporate acquisition may add financing, trust or registered-office services. The updated decision should be visible to everyone who can take the next irreversible step.

The matrix supports, but does not replace, the firm's AML/CTF program and legal judgement. Ambiguous matters should be escalated before the service is provided. Keep the reasoning with the engagement, relevant evidence and approval so the firm can demonstrate why it treated a service as included or excluded on the facts known at the time.