Law Firm & Attorney Support
Accounting and Back‑Office Support for Law Firms
Law practices run on deadlines, trust accounts, and detailed records. When billing, trust activity, and operating expenses are not cleanly tracked, everything from partner draws to tax prep becomes harder.
Black Hills Accounting helps attorneys bring order to the back office so they can stay focused on clients and cases, not bookkeeping. We work with solo attorneys and growing firms to clean up records, improve systems, and create more usable financial reports.
Built for How Law Firms Operate
Law firms are not generic service businesses. You deal with retainers, trust/IOLTA accounts, client costs, and fee splits—often across multiple practice areas and matter types. The accounting has to reflect that reality.
Black Hills Accounting structures your books and workflows around how your firm actually works:
- Clear separation of operating and trust activity.
- Consistent handling of retainers, settlements, and client advances.
- Reporting that lines up with how partners think about the practice: by practice area, attorney, or matter type.
The goal is simple: give you numbers and systems you can rely on when making decisions about hiring, compensation, marketing, or expansion.
Services for Attorneys and Law Firms
Law‑Firm Bookkeeping and Monthly Close
Keep your books accurate and ready for review each month.
- Categorization of income, expenses, and client cost reimbursements.
- Bank, credit card, loan, and trust account reconciliations.
- Month‑end review to catch anomalies before they snowball.
- Structured chart of accounts tailored to your firm.
Trust / IOLTA Support (Process‑Level, Not Legal Advice)
Trust accounting has to be right. Black Hills Accounting focuses on the bookkeeping and process side:
- Recording trust deposits, disbursements, and transfers between trust and operating.
- Supporting matter‑level trust ledgers when your systems allow for it.
- Reconciling trust activity to bank statements.
- Preparing clean reports you and your compliance advisor or bar counsel can use.
Cleanup and Catch‑Up Work
If your books are behind or inconsistent, cleanup comes first.
- Catch‑up of prior periods and reconstruction of missing activity.
- Reclassification of miscoded transactions and client costs.
- Organization of historical statements, invoices, and backup.
- Preparation of cleaner financials for tax prep or lender conversations.
Document Digitization and Data Cleanup
Law firms generate paper and PDFs at scale. We help convert that into usable data and organized digital records:
- Scanning and organizing key financial and billing documents.
- Converting paper or PDF statements into structured transaction data when feasible.
- Sorting, labeling, and indexing records so they are searchable and easier to retrieve.
- Creating digital folders that match the way your firm thinks about clients and matters.
Process Improvement and Light CFO Support
Beyond day‑to‑day bookkeeping, we can help refine the way money and information move through your firm:
- Mapping key workflows such as intake‑to‑invoice and invoice‑to‑collection.
- Identifying manual steps, duplicated entry, and points where information is regularly lost.
- Recommending practical changes to tools, roles, and responsibilities.
- Providing basic budgeting/forecasting and partner‑level financial reviews.
This is especially useful for firms at an inflection point—adding attorneys, opening a new office, or shifting practice mix—and needing better visibility into cash flow, profitability, and capacity.
Who This Is Best For
- Solo practitioners and small firms wanting cleaner books and better back‑office support.
- Growing firms that have “gotten by” on basic bookkeeping and now need more structure.
- Firms that have fallen behind on reconciliations or trust‑account processes and want to get current.
- Practices taking on more complex matters and needing clearer financial reporting.
How to Get Started
Most law‑firm engagements start with a short call to understand your current systems (accounting, billing, practice management), identify where you feel things are messy or fragile, and determine whether you need ongoing bookkeeping, one‑time cleanup, process help, or a combination.
From there, Black Hills Accounting provides a scoped proposal—often starting with cleanup or a focused project, then moving into an ongoing monthly rhythm once the foundation is in place.
Secure Your Firm’s Trust Ledgers
Do not let backlogged matter allocations or un-reconciled cost advances create tracking risks. Schedule a 15-minute operational alignment session to safeguard your IOLTA files.