Paying for accounting help is cheaper in the long run

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By David Donovan
Dolan Media Newswires

Most weeks, including this one, you can find a roundup of attorneys who have been sanctioned by the state Supreme Court for violating ethical rules.

We print these as cautionary tales illustrating the kinds of behaviors most likely to get an attorney disbarred.

You may have noticed that, while occasionally we find instances of unusual conduct, most disciplines involve attorneys who mismanaged client trust accounts. Sometimes it’s a simple case of greedy hands pilfering from the cookie jar, but other times attorneys simply fail to take their accounting responsibilities seriously and, as a result, wind up in some serious trouble.

Often, this plight is particular to solo attorneys. I’ve worked as a solo practitioner, and it’s an incredibly difficult way to make a living. There are so many demands on your time, and you have to be ruthless in cutting costs, and accounting support looks like an easy target. Additionally, most of us got into the law because we wanted to be lawyers, not accountants. We’re great with our words, but we may or may not have good heads for numbers.

But as the frequent OLR cases illustrate, skimping on accounting support is one of those things that’s penny wise but pound foolish. Accounting is, quite frankly, hard, but it’s incredibly important. There’s no easier way to put your law license in jeopardy than to screw up your trust accounts, and a bar discipline is orders of magnitude more costly than getting some proper help with the books.

If you’re not a solo, and you’ve spent your whole career with the benefit of having an office manager who reconciles the books so you don’t have to, you may not appreciate what a luxury it is.

The value is, I assure you, immense. And if you do ever transition into solo practice, take a couple of easy steps to make sure that I never end up writing about you on these pages.

The trust that clients place in us to look after their money is profound. Honor that trust by taking the rules on record-keeping seriously, whether you reconcile the books yourself, or you’re able to rely on a highly qualified assistant and review their work carefully.

David Donovan is a former attorney and now staff writer for North Carolina Lawyers Weekly and South Carolina Lawyers Weekly, which, like Wisconsin Law Journal, are owned by The Dolan Co.