Lynda ArtesaniLegal Accountant and Data Migration Specialist at The Proper Trust

The Elephant in the Room... Trust Accounting #legalaccounting #accounting #podcast

10 Mar 2026 · 1 min

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1:13

In this podcast excerpt, the hosts discuss the critical role of outsourced accounting firms in managing trust accounts for law firms, especially personal injury (PI) practices. They emphasize that providing a "third layer" of oversight—beyond the firm’s internal controls and the client’s expectations—helps catch and correct errors such as duplicate checks, overdrafts, and mis‑recorded settlements. By closely monitoring trust account activity, the outsourced team can quickly identify compliance breaches, offer guidance to rectify issues, and ensure the firm remains in good standing with regulatory requirements. The conversation highlights the niche focus of the service, its value in preventing costly mistakes at settlement time, and the added security it offers law firms.

It's less distracted, it's more value input. And we're very narrow niched into that space.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room, trust accounting. That's where we really excel as outsourced accounting people for law firms. And that's where the law firm has that extra layer of security knowing that— and I love to use this word with trust accounting— we're laser-focused on looking at your trust accounts and telling you what we see, giving you guidance when something happens. That shouldn't happen, you know, and getting it cleaned up and keeping it in compliance. That's huge.
When you have that third layer or additional layer of oversight, so you put all the numbers together. Let's just say you're a PI firm. You put all the numbers together.
Good example. For time of settlement.
Yeah. As you know, time of settlement and now it's time to pay out. And if you have your Excel sheet or you have something else like, things don't come quite the way they should, or you've been misinformed— like a check was written and you thought it wasn't written, so you reprint the check, and then now you've overdrawn the account— now you have somebody else coming through and double-checking that work. That's just part of the accounting method.