How long a law practice has to keep its trust records

Seven years is the number everybody remembers. What the seven years runs from, and what counts as a record, is where practices come unstuck. Check your own regulator for anything specific to you.

What the clock runs from

• Seven years from the last entry. Not from the day the matter closed, and not from the day the client paid.
• One late disbursement restarts it. A matter dormant for three years, then one payment out of trust, is back inside the period from that payment.
• So you cannot archive by closing date. A closed matter with a recent trust entry is still live for this purpose.

What counts as a record

• Receipts and payments, in the order they were made.
• The matter ledger, showing every movement and the running balance.
• The monthly reconciliations. Rule 48(4) requires the practice to keep them.
• The trial balances, matter by matter, for each account.
• The register of transfers between matters.
• The file maintenance journal. Every amendment to a client or matter record a trust record depends on. An audit that cannot see what a record said before it changed cannot rely on what it says now.

Closing an account does not end it

A closed account keeps its records for the same seven years after its last entry. This is why an account is squared off deliberately: take a full copy of its records first, then close it, and keep them readable afterwards.

Before you change systems

• Can you export a full matter ledger, every field, as CSV? A CSV will still open in seven years. A proprietary backup will not.
• Can you produce a printable statement for one matter on demand? That is what an audit asks for, and it asks matter by matter.