Leadership Financial Institutions

Leadership Financial Institutions volunteer to provide increased interest, free of fees, for their Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Accounts (IOLTA) offerings. 

IOLTA funds support civil legal aid, providing critical free legal assistance to vulnerable low-income Californians, including older adults and individuals at risk of abuse or living with a disability. Civil legal aid helps hundreds of thousands of individuals every year to stay in their homes, obtain restraining orders, and combat wage theft. IOLTA is a major source of funding for these services, but unfortunately, as many as 63 percent of low-income Californians will not receive all the help they need to resolve their legal issues due to insufficient resources.

Leadership Financial Institutions increase funding to close this gap in services, and the potential benefit to civil legal aid is dramatic. In 2025, approximately $252 million will be distributed to legal aid programs. In 2026, $217.5 million has been approved for distribution.

The State Bar recognizes the following financial institutions as Leadership Financial Institutions and encourages attorneys to consider one of these institutions when deciding where to deposit IOLTA funds in order to maximize their impact on civil legal aid across the state.[1]

Participation in the program greatly increases your financial institution’s visibility among attorneys and law firms in California. The State Bar of California highlights Leadership Financial Institutions in its communications to attorneys and external stakeholders. Leadership Financial Institutions are prominently listed on the State Bar’s website (with hyperlinks to these designated institutions) and in communications and publications related to IOLTA. The State Bar encourages attorneys to bank with those institutions for their IOLTA client trust accounts. This publicity is solely for IOLTA products. The State Bar does not provide a general endorsement of any financial institution and will so state.

Financial institutions may list the Leadership Financial Institutions designation on their own websites and in marketing materials, using the Leadership Program logo to signal their participation in the program.

Any marketing of or other communication or publication by an institution regarding its participation in the State Bar’s Leadership Financial Institutions program must be limited to the fact that the institution has been recognized by the State Bar for paying higher rates on IOLTA accounts, resulting in increased funding of free legal services for those in need. Leadership Financial Institutions may not state or imply that the State Bar has endorsed them generally or made any other endorsements or representations about their products or services. Failure to comply with these requirements may result in expulsion from the program, withdrawal of the Leadership Bank designation, and withdrawal of all State Bar approval, endorsement, and connection.

Currently, over 103,000 attorneys in California hold approximately 50,000 IOLTA accounts with nearly $9.7 billion in assets. Additionally, attorneys hold over $5 billion in approximately 13,000 non-IOLTA trust accounts, generally at the same financial institutions. Many attorneys and law firms care about supporting and increasing the availability of free legal services to those who cannot afford them. Becoming a Leadership Financial Institution can increase your financial institution’s market share by attracting business from these attorneys.

In addition, these changes can help fulfill a financial institution’s obligations under the Community Reinvestment Act by helping families to stay in their homes and find economic stability and physical safety in their community. For more information about how IOLTA funds benefit individual clients as well as entire communities, see the most recent impact report identifying outcomes achieved by legal aid and life-changing impact of these services for low-income Californians.