The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has recently announced an amendment to its Rules of Professional Conduct concerning the procedures lawyers should follow when they identify that the owner of funds in an Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account (IOLTA) is unidentifiable or cannot be located. The modifications specifically involve changes to Rules 1.15 and 1.15A are expected to come into effect starting September 1.
According to these amendments, in the light of such instances where the funds’ rightful owner is either unknown or cannot be found, the unclaimed money ought to be transferred to the Massachusetts IOLTA Committee. This new regulation is a response to the court case known as the Matter of Olchowski (2020), wherein the court had to come to a decision about the proper disposition of unidentified client funds on deposit in an IOLTA account. This particular case seems to have highlighted a gap in the procedural aspect of dealing with such scenarios, thereby calling for these specific amendments.
For a closer look at the amendments and specific procedural details they delineate, feel free to peruse the original announcement by the court.