Evergreen retainers are business arrangements with clients that require a minimum balance in the client trust account. The client pays upfront and once the funds hit a set minimum amount, adds funds again. This way, you will always make sure there is money in the account to pay the most recent invoice. In LeanLaw, the minimum amount is reflected on invoices (in the trust memo) and in trust reports.

When you set up an evergreen retainer in LeanLaw, the trust notice attached to invoices will report the current trust balance as well as the evergreen amount and the payment amount required to replenish the evergreen. To help you keep track, evergreen values also show up in the QuickBooks tab of the Billing page, and in trust reports.

Note: The evergreen retainer is only available on LeanLaw Pro. Using evergreen retainers requires your firm be set up to track trust payments/deposits in LeanLaw. If you have not already done so, here is how to connect your trust account.

1. Go to Settings

The evergreen retainer feature is disabled by default. To enable it, go to your firm's Settings page by clicking the gear icon ⚙ in the top-right.

On the left side of your firm's Settings page, underneath Firm Settings, click on Trust Accounting.

Click the Enable Evergreen Retainers checkbox, then press Save.

Note: enabling evergreen retainers creates a new option for customizing your trust notices, called Evergreen, found on the same settings page. This notice will appear in the invoices of matters which use evergreen retainers.

Now that evergreen retainers are enabled for your firm, you can set the minimum amount for a matter in that matter's QuickBooks tab.

Go to your matters page by clicking Matters on the main navigation bar, found at the top of LeanLaw.

In the Matters page, locate the matter to which you wish to set an evergreen amount and click the matter to open it.

In the matter, click on the QuickBooks tab.

Locate the field labeled Evergreen Amount and enter the value you wish to be the minimum trust balance. Click the green Save button just below it.

You now know how to enable and set up an evergreen retainer!

"Hi We are interested in the Evergreen Trust Retainers. My bookkeeper and I are interested. Is this a feature that comes with our package?"

Hi! Yes, that feature is in the Pro version. Once you are set up in LeanLaw, you have access to Evergreen retainers. You can choose that option in your trust setup area.