IOLA Account- Suspicious

Not something that we see much suspicious activity on but recently we have had an IOLA account where the attorney wrote a check off the IOLA for $50,000 to another attorney in his practice. That check was deposited to the attorney's personal account. The memo line said "flood". On the same day the attorney that deposited the $50,000 check, wrote a $10,000 check to the other attorney from the same IOLA account and that attorney cashed it at the Bank. The memo line said "flood".

I don't think this is appropriate and indeed suspicious. Anyone else? I checked our state's IOLA site and I can find guidance on NSF but nothing like this...

I’m not an IOLA expert, but this sounds highly unusual to me. I doubt calling the attorney will get you any where, as they tend to hide behind privilege.

As I always preach, if you can’t get information you need to justify the activity and it appears suspicious, file a SAR.

Have the Branch call the attorney; if they can not explain the transactions to your satisfaction, file a SAR

jennyfromtheblock: Can you identify a deposit that was the source of this money? I'm wondering whether there was, for example, a $180,000 settlement of a lawsuit that was deposited and the attorneys were supposed to get a 1/3 contingent fee.
If so, there might be a $120,000 payment to the client (possibly with "flood" on the memo line) and the attorneys are splitting the $60,000 contingent fee.

Ted, thanks for the info...I will take another look.