The interest earned from these accounts is deposited or transferred directly to the Bar Foundation and is dispersed by the Bar Foundation for charitable purposes. This program would not have been a success if not for the enormous response we have gotten from numerous attorneys, law firms and the cooperation of the financial institutions.
Attorneys continue to make their own decisions regarding client trust funds.
Those funds, which are held long enough to justify establishing an interest-bearing account should be held in a separate account on behalf of the client. Interest that is generated is deposited to the Bar Foundation automatically. The program imposes no new administrative burden on attorneys. An attorney would continue to place nominal or short-term deposits into a single, unsegregated account. With each interest remittance, the participating lawyer should be advised by the financial institution of the amount paid to the Foundation, the applicable interest rate and the account balance during the time period for which the report was made.