I have been talking to a lot of law firm owners recently that have MAJOR problems with their trust account. For many, it’s a situation where they are doing the right thing generally, meaning they aren’t stealing or anything like that, but they also aren’t formally reconciling their trust account like they are supposed to. And what usually happens is, that underlying stress starts to eat away at you. No one wants trouble with the bar, especially trouble with the bar about your trust account. You know you want to fix the problem, but where to start? I’m going to tell you right now. First, start reconciling your current work. You don’t need to fix the past to start complying now. Step 1 is to set up a system to accurately document your trust account transactions and start reconciling the trust account every month starting this month. There are three great reasons for this. First, it stops the accumulation of non-compliant months. Second, it forces you to build the structure you need to comply (it’s easier than you think). And third, it gives you a defensible “we are compliant as of July 2026” line in the sand. Second, start working backward, one month at a time. You know the old saying about how to eat an elephant? One bite at a time. That applies here too. Have a goal of each week working through a prior month of transactions to get that month reconciled. It may sound slow, but here’s the truth: (1) it’s doable; (2) it’s sustainable; and (3) you’re behind so any progress is good progress. Third, lock in an ongoing system so you never have to worry about it again. For many, your practice management system (CLIO, practice panther, etc.) has this stuff baked in. For the rest, a well-organized spreadsheet with formulas can often do the trick (you should see what we’ve built for our clients – it’s easy, it’s reliable, and it’s something you’ll actually use). No matter what you do, don’t sit on this for too long. It’s literally one of the only things that can take your license away. If you have a few seconds, hit me up and tell me if you’re compliant or not. If you need help, we can chat about what that looks like and stop that scary voice in the back of your head. Have a great week! Sincerely, Christopher Small Big Bird Accounting LLC PS: If you’re in that $300k–$1m range and not 100% sure your trust account would pass an audit, you’re exactly who I created the free Trust & Books Checkup for. You can grab a spot here: bigbirdaccounting.com/fbcheckup