Excerpt from Texas Lawyer: Starting on Jan. 1, lawyers need to take extra steps to protect clients’ money in their Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA). Lawyers holding more than $250,000 for a client in such an account need to research the bank to ensure it won’t fail or consider depositing the cash in multiple IOLTA accounts at separate banks. For the past two years, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has insured an unlimited amount of money in IOLTA accounts, but starting in the New Year, the FDIC will only insure up to $250,000 per client per bank, says Betty Balli Torres, executive director of the Texas Access to Justice Foundation, the administrator of the IOLTA program in Texas. Click on the headline to learn more. |