An evaluation of the utility of ISO 31022:2020 [risk management — guidelines for the management of legal risk] for use by micro-entities

Stuart Weinstein

doi:10.1080/13600869.2025.2506167

An evaluation of the utility of ISO 31022:2020 [risk management — guidelines for the management of legal risk] for use by micro-entities

Stuart Weinstein^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The central thesis of this article is that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 31022:2020 [Risk management – Guidelines for the management of legal risk] is not well-suited for micro-entities due to its complexity and the resources required to implement it by such micro-entities. This paper evaluates where ISO 31022:2020 falls short and concludes that a simplified, more accessible micro-entity-specific solution is needed. This article is an outgrowth of the author’s efforts to develop a legal expert system (OLRAS) designed to assist micro-entities to address commercial legal risk in contract clauses. A micro-entity is defined as a small business that must meet at least two of the following conditions: (1) turnover must be not more than £1,000,000; (2) the balance sheet total must be not more than £500,000; and (3) the average number of employees must be not more than ten (10). There is an acute lack of affordable legal risk management (LRM) advice for such micro-entities. This article contributes to the LRM literature in that it offers a firsthand perspective on the efficacy of the ISO 31022:2020 as a tool suitable for micro-entities.

Original language	English
Number of pages	22
Journal	International Review of Law, Computers and Technology
Early online date	31 May 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2025.2506167
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 31 May 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Data Access Statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article [and/or] its supplementary materials.

Keywords

ISO 31022:2020
legal risk
micro-entities

Access to Document

10.1080/13600869.2025.2506167Licence: CC BY 4.0

An evaluation of the utility of ISO 31022 2020 risk management guidelines for the management of legal risk for use by micro-entities
Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Final published version, 901 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "The central thesis of this article is that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 31022:2020 [Risk management – Guidelines for the management of legal risk] is not well-suited for micro-entities due to its complexity and the resources required to implement it by such micro-entities. This paper evaluates where ISO 31022:2020 falls short and concludes that a simplified, more accessible micro-entity-specific solution is needed. This article is an outgrowth of the author{\textquoteright}s efforts to develop a legal expert system (OLRAS) designed to assist micro-entities to address commercial legal risk in contract clauses. A micro-entity is defined as a small business that must meet at least two of the following conditions: (1) turnover must be not more than £1,000,000; (2) the balance sheet total must be not more than £500,000; and (3) the average number of employees must be not more than ten (10). There is an acute lack of affordable legal risk management (LRM) advice for such micro-entities. This article contributes to the LRM literature in that it offers a firsthand perspective on the efficacy of the ISO 31022:2020 as a tool suitable for micro-entities.",

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An evaluation of the utility of ISO 31022:2020 [risk management — guidelines for the management of legal risk] for use by micro-entities

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Access Statement

Keywords

Access to Document

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