
Master trust accounting, billing compliance, and law firm financial operations with CFO partners who understand legal industry regulations and best practices.
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Legal practices face unique financial complexities from trust accounting to partner compensation structures.
From solo practitioners to Am Law 200 firms, we provide the financial infrastructure legal practices need.
Monitor the operational and financial metrics that drive law firm profitability and performance.
Trust account violations can result in malpractice claims, state bar discipline, and reputational damage. We maintain perfect compliance through rigorous daily reconciliation and audit-ready documentation.
Three-way reconciliation performed every single business day
Perfect compliance record across all 35+ law firm clients
Complete trust account audit documentation delivered within 1 day
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Compliance Record
"Rich and the aquifer team helped us significantly improve our financial infrastructure. This allows us to focus on scaling faster, while feeling confident we have the right financial systems in place."
"Rich and the aquifer team helped us significantly improve our financial infrastructure. This allows us to focus on scaling faster, while feeling confident we have the right financial systems in place."
"Rich and the aquifer team helped us significantly improve our financial infrastructure. This allows us to focus on scaling faster, while feeling confident we have the right financial systems in place."
"Rich and the aquifer team helped us significantly improve our financial infrastructure. This allows us to focus on scaling faster, while feeling confident we have the right financial systems in place."
"The Aquifer team has been incredibly insightful in approaching our finance stack, making them an invaluable partner for our business. They work with us rather than around us and continue to lend their expertise in the world of web3 accounting."
"Aquifer was instrumental in helping GDA scale by providing financial infrastructure & processes, financial advisory seed + Series A rounds, corporate accounting & tax support, and any other ad-hoc projects. The team brought a strong sense of co-founder ownership."
We don't just reconcile trust accounts. We become integrated partners who understand your billing cycles, partner compensation models, and ethical obligations—speaking the language of the legal profession.
We specialize exclusively in law firms, understanding nuances from IOLTA regulations to ABA Model Rules that generalist accountants miss.
Zero tolerance for trust account errors with daily reconciliation, audit-ready documentation, and state bar rule compliance across all jurisdictions.
Maximize firm profits through realization rate improvement, WIP management, and data-driven partner compensation models.
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Our experienced CFOs bring decades of expertise across various industries to help your business thrive







We maintain expertise in state bar rules across all 50+ jurisdictions. Our process includes daily three-way reconciliation (bank statement, client ledger, general ledger), monthly detailed reconciliation reports, IOLTA interest reporting and distribution, maintenance of individual client ledgers, and preparation for random state bar audits. We've never had a client receive a trust account violation or disciplinary action.
We integrate with your practice management software (Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, etc.) to track time entries, expenses, and billing by matter in real-time. We calculate WIP aging, monitor realization rates by attorney and matter type, identify matters exceeding budgets, track write-offs and write-downs with reason codes, and generate profitability reports by matter, client, and practice area.
Yes. We work with firms using lockstep, eat-what-you-kill, modified lockstep, and hybrid compensation models. We track origination credit, matter credit, and administrative contributions, calculate profit allocation per partnership agreement, manage capital accounts and partner draws, prepare Schedule K-1s and partnership tax returns, and model compensation scenarios for partnership changes.
We have extensive experience with flat fees, capped fees, success fees, blended rates, and subscription legal services. We track actual time vs. flat fee budget, calculate effective hourly rates for profitability analysis, manage holdback provisions and contingent fees, recognize revenue appropriately under ASC 606, and provide ROI analysis on AFA engagements to inform future pricing.
We build comprehensive dashboards tracking utilization rate (billable hours / available hours), realization rate (collected / billed), collection rate (collected / fees worked), revenue per lawyer (RPL), profit per partner, aged WIP and AR analysis, leverage ratio (associates to partners), and practice group profitability. All metrics benchmarked against industry standards.
Retainer advances are held in trust until earned, with detailed tracking of advance balance by client, application of retainer to invoices with proper documentation, automatic alerts when retainer balance falls below threshold, and evergreen retainer replenishment management. We ensure compliance with ethics rules requiring unearned fees to remain in trust.
Absolutely. We implement proactive collections strategies including aging AR analysis with follow-up protocols, client payment plan arrangements, invoice dispute resolution tracking, write-off policy recommendations based on data, and identification of collection trends by attorney, practice area, and client type. Our clients typically see 15-25% improvement in DSO within 6 months.
We handle state income tax filings across all jurisdictions where partners reside or the firm operates, source rules for service revenue by state, partnership tax returns (Form 1065) and K-1 preparation, quarterly estimated tax calculations for partners, payroll tax compliance including attorney vs. employee classification, and sales tax on legal services in jurisdictions that require it.
Get a free law firm financial audit. We'll review your trust accounts, billing processes, and profitability metrics—providing a custom roadmap for optimization.