Interest on Lawyers Trust Accounts (IOLTA) is a unique and innovative way to increase access to justice for individuals and families living in poverty and to improve our justice system and has been operating in the USA since 1981. Without taxing the public, and at no cost to lawyers or their clients, interest from lawyer trust accounts is pooled to provide civil legal aid to the poor and support improvements to the justice system by allowing the pooled ‘overnight investment earnings’ utilized by financial institutions with their other individual/business deposits.  IOLTA’s success is dependent on the cooperative relationship between the attorney, the financial institution, and the grantor of the IOLTA funds.

In Arizona, the Arizona Supreme Court Rule 43 requires all lawyers receiving client funds in Arizona or in connection with representation of clients in Arizona to maintain an interest-bearing trust account to pool client funds when the funds cannot otherwise earn enough interest income for the client to be more than the cost of securing a separate account. (The client - and not the IOLTA program - receives the interest if the funds were to generate net interest that could be of benefit to the client.)  The interest earned on these accounts is entrusted to the Arizona Foundation for Legal Services & Education for Arizona's IOLTA Programs. Under the rule, the Foundation is mandated to use the interest for programs designed to assist in the delivery of legal services to the poor, for law-related education purposes and to fund studies or programs designed to improve the administration of justice.

In existence since 1984, Arizona's IOLTA program currently provides more than $2.5 million per year benefiting over 30,000 families with free legal services and reaching over 300,000 children with education about their rights and responsibilities as citizens.

Click here for IOLTA Legal Services Grants Program information.