State Bar of Texas Meeting 2019 The State Bar of Texas Board of Directors meets in Georgetown on April 26. (Photo: Angela Morris/ALM)

When Texas attorneys charge their clients flat fees for work, they play a bank account shuffle before they can pay themselves the money.

Shifting client funds from an Interest on Lawyer's Trust Account into a law firm's general operating account takes several steps, which can be time-consuming when clients are sending checks multiple times a week, said State Bar of Texas president Randy Sorrels.

Wanting to save lawyers that time, Sorrels on Friday will propose to the state bar's board of directors to launch a study about a rules update proposal "that would allow an IOLTA deposit exemption for advanced flat fees below a certain amount," said the meeting agenda.

Randy Sorrels Randy Sorrels. (Courtesy photo)

Sorrels explained that the idea is to allow attorneys who charges less than $2,500 in a flat fee to skip their IOLTA accounts and instead deposit earned fees straight into their operating accounts.

This is the very beginning of the process. If the board approves forming a study group, then the bar's administration committee would complete the study and work to draft a rule-change proposal. That proposal would still need approval from the bar board and the Texas Supreme Court before it could go into effect.

"I know at least one court in the nation, I think Missouri, has approved it," Sorrels noted. "I thought that was a great idea for Texas, too. I can't say I'm the author of it, but I'm definitely a fan of it."

Also during the Friday board meeting in Corpus Christi, the board is set to vote on two candidates, Pablo Almaguer and Sylvia Borunda Firth, to run for president-elect next year. The bar's nominations and elections subcommittee picked the two nominees in late August.

Almaguer is the director of private bar and government relations at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid Inc. in Edinburg. Firth, formerly the El Paso city attorney, is a solo practitioner who handles governmental law, real estate and business organization matters.

The board also will vote to appoint members for its new social media engagement team to interact with attorneys on Facebook about the bar's benefits and services. The team, approved in June, already has eight members, and the board is voting on the appointment of seven more social media-savvy attorneys and bar staffers.

Read the full agenda: