Every year, Arkansas attorneys who renew their law licenses are required by Arkansas Rule of Professional Conduct 1.15 to certify their compliance with court rules governing client trust accounts. In 2016, the Arkansas Supreme Court adopted rules that address how attorneys who handle client funds are supposed to deal with account balances that have gone unclaimed by a client entitled to the funds or that the attorney cannot trace to a rightful owner. Those rules require an attorney to remit unclaimed or unidentifiable funds to the Arkansas Access to Justice Foundation if, after a period of two years, the attorney is unable to identify or locate the person entitled to such funds.

Beginning with this year’s IOLTA Compliance Statement, attorneys who handle client funds are required to certify that they have made a determination as to whether any of the client funds they manage include any unclaimed or unidentifiable funds. This certification is can be made by returning a hard copy of a completed, signed IOLTA Compliance Statement with the attorneys license fee payment, or by completing the required certification online.

The deadline for completing the IOLTA Compliance Statement for 2018 is March 1, 2018.