Description: There's nothing worse than receiving a letter from the Board of Professional Responsibility . . . unless it's a letter from the Board requesting information about your trust account procedures because a check you wrote out of your trust account bounced! A letter like this means you're probably in for a lengthy investigation.

The mechanics of good trust account management require an understanding of the ethics rules as well as the special terms used in trust accounting. Most unintentional trust account violations occur because of a lack of knowledge, a lack of training and a lack of proper procedures to insure that mistakes are not made. It is up to you to know all of the Trust Account financial reports that are required to be kept up to date. And as always, it's YOUR responsibility to ensure that your employees really do know what they're doing and are rigidly following proper procedure. This is one ethics area where there is no gray area — it's either being done right or wrong.

Management consultant and former TBA risk management advisor Suzanne Rose addresses the most common areas of ethics violations in trust account management. While trust account management violations are not the most frequent of ethics complaints, when they do occur there are serious consequences. This course is based on Jay G. Foonberg's book entitled, The ABA Guide to Lawyer Trust Accounts as well as Ms. Rose's experience in advising firms on law office and practice management procedures. It provides the basic principles of trust account management and the procedures to help you manage your trust account ethically and appropriately.

This course is suggested for all attorneys as well as law firm staff who have trust account management responsibilities.