For 2011, the Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program has awarded $275,000 to New Mexico nonprofits that help senior, poor and young citizens in the state. IOLTA funds are generated from the interest earned on the pooled client trust accounts of attorneys in private practice. More than 450,000 people were served by these outstanding programs during the prior year. Links to a complete funding history of IOLTA grants awarded in New Mexico from 1987 through the present appear below.

 Grantees 1987 1998 (69.96 kB) |  Grantees 1999 2011 (70.96 kB)

CCV desires to obtain maximum effect from each grant made with IOLTA funds. The Grant Committee and the Board of Directors will use the following guidelines, with exception where necessary, to assist in the decision-making process.

1. Grants that may jeopardize CCV's Section 501(c)(3) tax status will not be made.

2. For civil legal services providers, applications that address specific legal issues impacting low-income persons as identified by the New Mexico Supreme Court's Access to Justice Commission State Plan will be favored. These issues include disability benefits and rights, welfare benefits, unemployment benefits, welfare-to-work programs, health benefits, landlord-tenant relations, housing quality, affordable housing, housing discrimination, foreclosure and condemnation, domestic violence, child custody, child support, divorce and consumer rights, water rights, migrant worker and Native American issues and other issues as established by the State Plan.

3. Grants will not be given to individuals; religious activities; political campaigns; organizations designed primarily for lobbying; lobbying activities; lawyers in the private practice of law; entities providing unauthorized delivery of legal services; and, governmental programs.

4. Applicants must have sources of income in addition to the IOLTA funds requested.

5. Greater weight will be given to applicants that serve areas of greatest need, in terms of substantive law, population groups and lack of other available resources; have a proven history of delivering quality services; and, help to develop cooperative efforts among other providers/grantees.

6. Other factors that will be considered are broad geographic and demographic distribution of IOLTA funds throughout the state; level of participation in IOLTA by the applicant's board and geographic community; participation in IOLTA by the applicant (if applicant maintains an attorney trust account); and, the ability of the applicant to provide adequate publicity of IOLTA funds received.

7. Grants to fund experimental or pilot projects that are designed to improve the administration of justice will be considered and may be funded for limited periods. However, grant funds may not be used to meet a governmental entity's legally-required duties.

IOLTA enrollment is mandatory for all New Mexico attorneys who maintain a pooled trust account. Please refer to Attorney and Law Firm Guide to Mandatory IOLTA.

Joining IOLTA doesn't affect the administrative duties of managing a trust account. After conversionto IOLTA, the only change is that the account will generate interest. That interest will be reflected on your bank statement as having been earned and paid to the IOLTA program. There are no tax consequences for you or your client. Interest earned and paid on IOLTA accounts is reported to the Internal Revenue Service via a Form 1099 generated by the financial institution and bearing CCV's taxpayer identification number.

To enroll, just complete and submit to an Eligible Financial Institution (those that are approved to hold IOLTA accounts in New Mexico) the Attorney Notice to Eligible Financial Institution. This form instructs your financial institution to convert your existing trust account to an interest-bearing IOLTA account. If you don't currently have a trust account, by completing the same easy form, you can open one and establish it as an IOLTA account. PLEASE READ AND FOLLOW CAREFULLY THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THE NOTICE.

If, after reviewing the above information, you still have questions, please call the IOLTA program at 505-764-9417 or 1-800-451-1941 (in New Mexico, but outside Albuquerque) or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Rule 24-109 (approved 05/11/11) ( 2011-08-30 17:20:35)The Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA) program is an idea that originated in British, Canadian and Australian jurisdictions in the 1960s. In the US, IOLTA was pioneered in Florida and now exists in every state in the country. The New Mexico IOLTA program was created by the State Supreme Court in 1984, and was a voluntary program until April 1, 2002, when it was converted to opt-out.

Effective January 1, 2009, New Mexico's IOLTA program was converted to mandatory with a comparability requirement, the details of which are described in full in Rule 24-109. It requires that all New Mexico attorneys who hold IOLTA eligible funds participate in IOLTA and that the funds be held at Eligible Financial Institutions. Compliance and enforcement are described in Rule 17-204.

Through IOLTA, attorneys and law firms place IOLTA-eligible client funds in a pooled interest-bearing trust account.  The interest is remitted to the Center for Civic Values and is distributed at the direction of the Court to provide free civil legal assistance to the poor, law-related education for the public and improvements in the administration of justice. To enroll in IOLTA, please refer to the Enrollment section. To learn more about compliance, see the Attorney and Law Firm Guide to Mandatory IOLTA.

Annual grant allocations are based on the recommendations of the Access to Justice grant committee. More than $5 million has been awarded since the program's inception, and IOLTA has long been one of the largest non-governmental entities funding civil legal services for poor people in the state. Learn more about IOLTA grants.