The Delaware Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts Program (IOLTA) was first authorized on September 29, 1983 by an Order of the Delaware Supreme Court. The program has been active continuously since its inception. Its success reflects and depends upon the close cooperation of Delaware's legal and financial communities. The fund is comprised of interest accruing on lawyers' aggregated escrow accounts that contain client deposits which are small in amount or held for a short period of time. The interest collected on participating accounts is transferred to the Delaware Bar Foundation (the Foundation) and distributed in the form of grants to agencies that promote and improve legal services for the poor, and the administration of justice, as well as for such other programs of public interest as may be approved by the Supreme Court.

     Under Rule 1.15 of the Delaware Lawyers’ Rules of Professional Conduct, each active lawyer is required to determine whether moneys placed in his or her trust account are either (1) large and/or long-term deposits; or (2) small and/or short-term deposits. With respect to the former category, a lawyer has a fiduciary obliga­tion to hold each such deposit in its own separate account at interest for the benefit of the recipient. Small and/or short-term deposits, however, are unlikely to generate a sufficient amount of interest while held in escrow to offset the administrative cost of opening a separate account for each such deposit, thereby generating interest for the beneficia­ry. Rule 1.15 requires that the moneys that fall into the second category be pooled and the interest thereon be paid to the Foundation. The Foundation receives the interest directly from all Delaware banks where such accounts have been established and combines all of the deposits into a Foundation IOLTA account which is then used to fund legal services to the poor, law related education, improvements to the administration of justice and such other programs that serve the public interest. The funds in the IOLTA account can only be used for the purposes approved by the Delaware Supreme Court.

     Delaware’s program is neither mandatory nor purely voluntary; rather, it is an opt-out program. This means that unless the lawyer or the law firm having an account officially opts not to participate in the program, the lawyer or the law firm will be deemed to be a participant in the program and will be expected to contribute to the Foundation the appropriate amount of interest on the pooled escrow account.

• Participation Letter, Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts Program (IOLTA)
• Rules Governing all Escrow Accounts