Lynda ArtesaniLegal Accountant and Data Migration Specialist at The Proper Trust

Trust Accounting Compliance - The Buck Stops With You #legalaccounting #lawfirms #TrustAccounting

18 May 2026 · 0 min

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In this brief segment from a legal accounting video, the speaker emphasizes that ultimate responsibility for trust accounting compliance rests with the law firm’s owners or partners, not with the paralegals who may perform the day‑to‑day bookkeeping. Even if a paralegal makes an error, the firm’s leadership must address and correct it promptly, as they remain accountable to the bar and face potential disciplinary action. The conversation underscores the urgency of fixing mistakes and the personal liability that senior lawyers bear for trust account mishandling.

The buck stops with you as the owner of the firm or the partner of the firm. So if you have your paralegal doing the trust accounting and it does go awry, the buck stops with you. The paralegal's going to go home and sleep at night. You're not.
Yeah.
You know.
And you don't have a lot of time to get it fixed.
Right.
And if it's really messy and it's done internally and you go to the bar and you say, look, my paralegal is doing the books, they're not going to be very happy with you.