The LeanLaw Blog
Legal billing, trust accounting, and law-firm finance — straight from the people building the tools.
- Trust Accounting
How Long Can You Hold Settlement Funds While a Lien Is Disputed?
A disputed lien justifies holding the disputed amount, not the whole settlement. Disburse the undisputed portion, reserve the contested amount, and carry the reserve as its own client sub-ledger.
August 28, 2026 - Contingency
What Is a Personal Injury Firm's Actual Profit Margin?
The contingency fee percentage is a share of one recovery, not a margin. Advanced costs, case duration, and matters that never resolve all sit between the fee and the profit. Here's how a firm computes its own.
August 28, 2026 - Trust Accounting
What Is California's Client Trust Account Protection Program (CTAPP)?
CTAPP is an annual State Bar of California reporting requirement covering trust account registration, a self-assessment, and a compliance certification. Nearly every California licensee has to complete it.
August 27, 2026 - Trust Accounting
What Is a Client Trust Liability Account, and Why Does the Balance Sheet Care?
A client trust liability account is the balance sheet entry recording that money in the trust bank account belongs to clients. Without it, a firm reports client money as its own net worth.
August 27, 2026 - Accounting
Case Cost or Overhead? The Distinction That Breaks Matter Profitability
Whether a cost belongs to a matter or to the firm determines what your matter reports mean. The clear cases are easy, the grey ones drive the error, and misclassification makes every matter look wrong.
August 26, 2026 - Quickbooks
How Do You Track Case Costs by Matter in QuickBooks Online?
Customer and sub-customer, classes, and projects each track case costs by matter in a different way. What each one is good for, where each one breaks, and how to combine them.
August 26, 2026 - Trust Accounting
What Is a Settlement Account, and Is It the Same as a Trust Account?
"Settlement account" means different things in banking, insurance, and law practice. For a law firm holding settlement funds, the account you need is a client trust account.
August 25, 2026 - Accounting
What's a Good Realization Rate for a Law Firm — and What Is It for a Contingency Firm?
Realization is the share of billable value that becomes collected revenue. The benchmark question has an honest answer, and a contingency firm needs a different measure entirely.
August 25, 2026 - Accounting
Does a Law Firm Need a W-9 Before Disbursing Settlement Funds?
If a payment is reportable, the firm needs the payee's taxpayer identification number, and the practical deadline is before the check is cut. Here's where the W-9 belongs in the settlement workflow.
August 24, 2026 - Accounting
How Does a Law Firm Issue a 1099 for a Settlement?
One settlement can generate several 1099s, and which ones depend on what each disbursement was for. Here's how to decide at the moment you cut the check instead of reconstructing it in January.
August 24, 2026 - Contingency
Do You Report Contingency Revenue Gross or Net of Costs?
Fee revenue is revenue. Recovered case costs usually are not. How the P&L should present the two so the managing partner's revenue number matches what the tax return says, and where a CPA has to decide.
August 21, 2026 - Contingency
When Does a Contingency Firm Recognize Revenue?
On the cash basis, when the fee actually reaches the operating account. Why accrual doesn't move the date much for contingency work, why most PI firms file cash, and what to build for management visibility instead.
August 21, 2026 - Trust Accounting · Contingency
Can a Contingency Firm Advance Case Costs Out of the Trust Account?
Generally no. Firm-advanced case costs come out of operating and become a receivable. Costs paid from a client's own trust funds are a disbursement of that client's money and need authorization and a balance to support them.
August 20, 2026 - Accounting
Are Advanced Client Costs an Expense or an Asset?
Advanced client costs are an asset. They are a receivable the firm expects back out of the recovery, and booking them as an expense distorts matter profitability, revenue, and the firm's tax position at once.
August 20, 2026 - Trust Accounting
A Settlement Check Made Out to Three Parties. Now What?
When a settlement check names the client, the firm, and a lienholder, the endorsement, deposit, and trust-ledger treatment all change. What to do, in order, before the check goes anywhere near the bank.
August 19, 2026 - Contingency
How Do You Account for a Medical Lien Reduction on a Settlement?
When a medical lien is negotiated down, the difference belongs to the client unless the fee agreement says otherwise. Where it goes in the books, why there is no savings entry, and what has to be provable in the trust ledger.
August 19, 2026 - Trust Accounting
Do Settlement Funds Have to Clear Before You Can Disburse?
Good-funds principles, why disbursing against an uncleared settlement check means one client's money is covering another's, and what the trust ledger should show while a deposit is still pending.
August 18, 2026 - Trust Accounting
How Do You Disburse Settlement Funds From Trust, Step by Step?
The ordered sequence for disbursing a settlement from the trust account, from cleared funds to a zeroed client ledger, and why the firm's own fee transfer is the step that most often breaks reconciliation.
August 18, 2026 - Contingency
What Goes on a Settlement Disbursement Statement?
The line items on a settlement disbursement statement, in the order they belong, and where each number is supposed to come from in the firm's books before the client signs it.
August 17, 2026 - Contingency
How Do You Record a Personal Injury Settlement in QuickBooks Online?
The gross settlement goes into trust as a client trust liability, and every disbursement reduces that same liability. Here is the entry sequence, in order, and the four places it usually goes wrong.
August 17, 2026 - Accounting
When Should a Law Firm Outsource Its Bookkeeping?
The trigger is usually a specific failure, not a headcount. What actually signals it's time, what stays in-house no matter who keeps the books, and what an outsourced bookkeeper needs access to in order to be useful.
August 14, 2026 - Billing
Billable Hours vs. Actual Hours: The Gap Is Your Real Utilization Number
Billable hours are the hours you can invoice. Actual hours are the hours the day consumed. The ratio between them is utilization, and the gap is the most honest operating number a law firm has.
August 14, 2026 - Accounting
Income Partner or Equity Partner: What Changes in the Firm's Books
The difference between an income partner and an equity partner is an ownership question with an accounting consequence. What moves from compensation to distribution, what lands on a K-1, and what your books have to be able to report.
August 13, 2026 - Billing
How Much Should a Law Firm Charge for an Initial Consultation?
There is no standard consultation fee. The right number depends on what you want the fee to screen for and what your own conversion data says. How to decide it from evidence rather than from what the firm down the street does.
August 13, 2026
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