What if I put a “cushion” of my own money in the account to avoid the possibility of writing an NSF trust check; is that okay?
No. This is commingling. A lawyer cannot maintain the lawyers own funds in the client trust account to cover the lawyers writing trust checks on money not yet collected. Under Rule 1.15(b) a lawyer can deposit his or her own money to cover necessary and reasonable bank charges such as returned-check fees and NSF charges (which are not fees covered by the Lawyers Trust Fund for IOLTA accounts). If you deposit funds from a source and are not sure that it will ultimately be collected, wait and confirm with your bank before writing a trust check. Know your financial institutions funds availability policy to ascertain when deposited funds become available for withdrawal and when they are expected to clear. U.S. banking laws require that banks give customers access to their funds within one to five business days. (The timing depends on whether the check-issuing bank is foreign or domestic, local or out-of-state.). However, even though the check is available for withdrawal, the transaction ca
