Answer

He is correct in the matter. IOLTA accounts are a little special - since the State Bar Association is in charge of how IOLTA accounts are maintained they set how they can be used.

 

It's a ton of work for an attorney to pay interest on an IOLTA account an make sure all the client's who have monies therein get interest for the time and amount of money they have in there.

 

So, what the State Bar Association does is this - that all the interest earned on all the client's monies within the IOLTA account go to some charity or special need thing that each state's bar association mandates. All the client's monies are kind of grouped together as one.

 

All the attorney has to give you is an itemized statement of his fees and disbursements from the retainer that you gave him. Some attorneys do this monthly - some annually - some when they have a flurry of work on a client's matter. So it all depends on the particular attorney. Most attorneys do not send monthy statements. The reason for such is the cost - the cost of mailing the statements to all the clients, the cost of man hours to do such too.

 

So, what documents would constitute an "accounting" - they are usually very basic statements - what you receive from your attorney which shows the amount of hours and expenses on the matter he has put forth and your balance of monies you gave him (your initial retainer amount). Sometimes too, an attorney requests a minimum retainer - so that when your retainer amount gets below a certain dollar amount - they automatically ask for you to replenish such.

 

As to how specific the statement is from the attorney all depends on what accounting software they use and how specific it gets.