This solo personal injury attorney runs roughly 100 open files with three virtual assistants and settles about 15–20 cases a year. There is no case management software — the firm runs on a self-built spreadsheet-and-AI dashboard — and no bookkeeper. When asked about trust account reconciliation, his answer was disarmingly honest: “Reconciling it? Yeah, I don't even know what that means, to be honest.” For firms this size, the pitch that landed wasn't speed. It was compliance.
What Their Old Flow Looked Like
- No trust account reconciliation at all: “probably if the bar called me tomorrow and said, let me see it … I just don't reconcile”
- Kept the state bar's Excel trust account journal, but never went back to verify entries — no check numbers recorded, no month-end closes
- No bookkeeper and no case management software — the firm ran on a self-built spreadsheet dashboard
- Disbursements sent through a free bank bill-pay tool with no link to the trust account journal
- One bar audit letter away from having no reconciliation records to produce
How Disbo Replaces This Flow
- Connect the firm's IOLTA account to Disbo, so every trust transaction is recorded against its client matter automatically
- Disburse settled cases through Disbo — ACH or a tracked mailed check via Lob — instead of bank bill pay disconnected from the case and trust account journal
- Reconciliation happens continuously as a byproduct of disbursing: ledger, bank, and matter records stay in sync without month-end work
- Audit-ready trust accounting reports are generated automatically — no more empty Excel ledger
There is no realized before/after to report yet — but the old flow had no reconciliation at all. Disbo is designed so that reconciliation is not a task a solo attorney has to learn; it is a byproduct of how every disbursement runs. In his words, when he saw it: “It's big. Yeah, because no one knows how to do it. No one knows what it is, apparently.”