Such practice is unethical. A lawyer cannot derive any benefit from clients' property. The program does not use interest money from all client trust deposits - only those that are nominal in amount or to be held for a short period of time. No client is deprived of any practicable income opportunity. Lawyers should continue to establish separate, interest-bearing accounts for individual client's funds where the sum is large enough or when the time of the deposit is of sufficient duration to justify the cost of opening, closing and administering the account.
Any interest accrued then becomes the property of the client.
It is up to the lawyer to determine whether the amount of interest an account will generate justifies the expense of opening and maintaining a separate account for the client. But Arkansas banks have shown a strong desire to serve the lawyers in their community. This support and generosity enables the Foundation to pay out more money in grants. Interest rates and service charges vary from bank to bank and even among different bank branches. What if my client trust account is rarely used and typically has a small balance.