In the facts you presented, the committee believes that the intent to locate the clients to give them the monies in the trust is the dispositive point in the hypothetical. Thus, the committee opines that it is not improper to use monies from a trust to pay an investigator to locate promptly clients whose whereabouts are unknown. However, the committee believes the amount paid out of the trust to an investigator must be reasonable and must not deplete the client's funds held in the trust itself, lest the purpose of finding the client would be defeated. Additionally, the committee opines that the reasonableness test should also be applied by the law firm, when examining the chance that the client will be located through this method. Since the committee has previously opined that an attorney may identify clients with unclaimed trust account monies and turn the monies over to the Department of Treasury, the committee is of the opinion that the attorney may also use a reasonable amount of the trust monies to locate clients to give them the money that is in the trust.
Due diligence is all that is required of an attorney trying to locate a client.
In the hypothetical that you have given, the committee believes that using a reasonable amount of trust monies to find clients would not be improper.