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- Trust Accounting Rule (Rule 119.19)
Funds in a trust account must be directly related to legal services.
A lawyer must pay out money held in trust as soon as practicable upon completion of the legal services to which the money relates.
Criminals may target lawyers’ trust accounts as an opportunity for money laundering as information about funds may be protected from disclosure due to client confidentiality and solicitor-client privilege. By depositing funds in a lawyer’s account, it can obscure the identity of the funds’ true owners and lend respectability and legitimacy to a given transaction.
Per Rule 119.19, a lawyer must pay into and withdraw from, or permit payment into or withdrawal from, a trust account only money that is directly related to legal services that they are providing.