Washington Legal Foundation v. Legal Foundation of Washington

This case raises constitutional questions about Washington’s program for applying interest on lawyers’ (and others’) trust accounts to various good works.

I. FACTS

Lawyers’ ethical requirements have long required that “[mjoney of the client or collected for the client ... should be reported and accounted for promptly, and should not under any circumstances be commingled with his own or be used by him.” 1 The contemporary formulation is that a “lawyer shall hold property of clients or third persons that is in a lawyer’s possession in connection with a representation separate from the lawyer’s own property. Funds shall be kept in a separate account maintained in the state where the lawyer’s office is situated, or elsewhere with the consent of the client or third person.”

*1101 In order to keep clients’ money separated, a lawyer traditionally maintains a trust account separate from the law firm account, and keeps clients’ money in the trust account. Clients advance money to lawyers for many reasons, such as for the closing of a business or real estate transaction, satisfaction of a claim, bail, and fees to be earned by the lawyer in the future but to be secured by the trust…