Outside Publication

A Good Rule, Poorly Written: How the Financial Crisis Highlighted the Inadequacy of IOLTA Rate Rules, The Catholic University Law Review, Vol. 64 Issue 3

Spring 2015

“If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: Thou shalt not ration justice.” This ethos underlies a variety of programs designed to provide needy Americans with access to the judicial system, including the IOLTA program. IOLTA, an acronym for “Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts,” is a partnership between banks and the legal community where banks pay interest on attorneys’ short-term deposit balances held in trust for the attorneys’ clients. Although the interest earned on any particular account may be insignificant, its impact is magnified when it is aggregated with interest from IOLTA accounts statewide to fund legal services programs.

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