Compliance resources
Plain-English explanations of the trust accounting and record-keeping rules Ontario firms work with day to day. Every legal claim below links to the regulator’s own text, so you can read the rule rather than take our word for it.
These are explanations, not legal advice, and rules change — your firm is responsible for its own compliance. See how we verify our trust accounting for how we hold ourselves to the same standard.
Free tool: three-way trust reconciliation
Check whether your reconciled bank balance, trust ledger and client listing agree, and see what to look at when they do not. No account, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Open the calculator →Free tool: Ontario limitation period calculator
Work out limitation and notice deadlines from the dates each period runs from, including the 15-year ultimate limit and the 2020 emergency suspension. No account, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
Open the calculator →Trust accounting
How fast trust money has to reach the trust account
Funds received in trust are to be deposited by the end of the next banking day. The rule is short; the difficulty is that banking days are not business days and the clock starts at receipt.
· 4 min read
Taking cash: the limit, and the receipt book most firms forget
By-Law 9 caps cash at $7,500 for any one client matter and separately requires a duplicate cash receipt book. Firms that never approach the cap still miss the book.
· 5 min read
The valuable property record: the trust register that holds no money
Original wills, deeds, share certificates and jewellery held for clients need their own record under By-Law 9, separate from the trust ledger and kept for ten years.
· 4 min read
Three-way trust reconciliation, explained
Three numbers have to agree every month: the bank, the trust ledger control, and the sum of client balances. Here is what each one is and why they drift apart.
· 8 min read
When money is allowed to leave a trust account
By-Law 9 permits five reasons to withdraw from trust and no others. The fee one carries a condition that produces a large share of spot-audit findings.
· 7 min read
Trust money you cannot return to the client
After two years a licensee can apply to pay unclaimed trust money to the Law Society — but the situations that qualify are narrower than most firms assume.
· 6 min read
Paralegals have the same trust obligations as lawyers
By-Law 9 speaks of licensees, not lawyers. A paralegal holding client money keeps the same books, the same monthly comparison and the same records.
· 6 min read
Compliance
When a lawyer joins your firm: the conflicts check people forget
Hiring a lawyer or a clerk from another firm can create a conflict that ordinary client-versus-client checking will never surface. The test is what the person actually knows.
· 5 min read
Joint retainers: what has to be said before you act for both
Acting for two clients on one matter is permitted and common. The Rules require specific disclosure first, consent recorded, and a decision made in advance about what happens if they disagree.
· 5 min read
What an LSO spot audit actually looks at
A spot audit is a records review, not an investigation. Here is what the Law Society asks for, in the order it usually asks — and what a clean answer looks like.
· 7 min read
Client identification and verification are two different duties
Identification applies to every client. Verification is triggered by money, carries a timing rule, and cannot be repaired later — the record shows when it was done.
· 7 min read
The Ontario deadlines that expire long before two years
The basic limitation period is two years. The claims that get missed are the ones with a notice requirement measured in days — sometimes ten of them.
· 8 min read
What the Solicitors Act allows in a contingency fee
Contingency fees are permitted in Ontario with real limits — written form, two excluded practice areas, a prescribed maximum, and court approval to exceed it.
· 6 min read
Undertakings: the promise you cannot quietly drop
An undertaking must be strictly and scrupulously fulfilled. Most breaches are not dishonesty — they are a promise nobody wrote down and nobody was tracking.
· 6 min read
Running a practice
Referral fees: the cap, the form, and the line on the account
A referral fee between licensees is permitted in Ontario, but it is capped on a sliding scale, requires a prescribed form signed by three people, and has to appear on the client account.
· 5 min read
Trust account records for a new sole practitioner
Opening a practice means opening a trust account and keeping a specific set of books from day one. Here is the minimum, and the order to set it up in.
· 6 min read
The Ontario firm's annual compliance calendar
Three recurring obligations carry most of a small firm's regulatory year, and a fourth arrived in 2025. What falls due, when, and what missing it actually costs.
· 6 min read
How long trust records have to be kept
Most trust records are kept ten years plus the current year, one is six, and all of them must be current and producible on request — not merely stored.
· 5 min read
Delivering a bill, the one-month rule, and interest
You cannot sue for fees until a month after delivering a signed bill, and you cannot charge interest unless the rate was on the bill you delivered.
· 7 min read