Tim Prior LLB CFIRM

Tim was admitted as a solicitor in 1986 and as a Certified Fellow of the Institute of Risk Management in 2010.

After working at several firms in the West Country, he spent 21 years working in house in the professional indemnity insurance sector for London Insurance Brokers (LIB), the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) and Travelers.

During this time, he handled professional negligence claims against firms across much of England & Wales, before becoming more involved in risk management. During his ten years at Travelers, he advised underwriters on risk issues and provided risk management support to professional firms (mostly solicitors, but also chartered surveyors, architects and accountants).

He set up PNCR Legal in 2010 to provide expert risk and compliance advice to law firms all over England & Wales. With his long experience in the professional indemnity sector, he works closely with international insurers and brokers assisting their insureds to improve their risk profile.

He writes regularly on topical issues and has been a regular speaker at seminars and webinars on professional indemnity, risk and compliance issues since 1996 for a wide range of organisations including national and local law societies. In advance of the SRA’s overhaul of compliance in 2011, he delivered a series of seminars and workshops for the Law Society on the role of the COLP and COFA and helped LexisNexis develop its compliance programme. He has produced a suite of COLP and COFA templates which help firms to deal pragmatically with their compliance obligations.

He is often asked to speak about cyber risk and property fraud. He has produced guidance and checklists for property firms seeking to address issues raised by recent cases such as Purrunsing v (1) A’Court & Co, (2) House Owners Conveyancers Limited (2016) EWHC 789 (Ch; P&P Property Limited v (1) Owen White & Catlin LLP (2) Crownvent Limited t/a Winkworth (2016) EWHC 2276 (Ch) and Dreamvar (UK) Ltd v (1) Mishcon de Reya (2) Mary Monson Solicitors Ltd (2016) EWHC 3316 (Ch). He has discussed the cases with some of the firms involved.

He writes the sections on property fraud and cybercrime in recent editions of Frances Silverman’s Conveyancing Handbook. Tim wrote the Lexcel risk management toolkit (2nd edition) in 2012. It was fully revised for the 3rd edition which was published in Autumn 2017.