Escrow

How Your Money, Timing & Authority Stay Protected

Published: 28 November 2025 | Reviewed: 28 November 2025

When you fund a court case through a lawyer’s trust account,
your lawyer decides when to draw on your money.

When you fund your case through escrow,
you decide when your money is released.

A trust account cannot prevent lien issues or cost disagreements.
Escrow reduces these risks by requiring
your written approval and clearly defined stages before any cost incurred or funds move.

Escrow protects what clients lose most easily in the traditional model, your:

  • money

  • timing

  • strategy

  • file

  • freedom to change lawyers

How Escrow Works (In 20 Seconds)

You approve the next stage, nothing moves without you.

Funds sit in escrow: visible, separate, and unearned until you release them.

Work happens only inside the stage you approved.

You check the work; Clean Law checks the cost safety.

You release funds only for work you confirm is done.

Any unused money remains yours, not held, not frozen, not touched.

Escrow keeps authority where it belongs: with you, not your lawyer.

What Escrow Really Does

Escrow is a client-controlled release gate, not a lawyer-controlled trust account.
It protects the things Australians lose most easily in litigation.

Money - your safety gate

Nothing begins without your written approval.
Work is paid only when completed and confirmed.
Unearned funds remain yours, untouched.

Timing & Strategy - clean separation of the two lanes

Clean Law: settlement, strategy, cost safety

Your courtroom lawyer: pleadings, evidence, contested hearings

Escrow prevents the quiet overlap where clients end up paying for both lanes at once.

Freedom to move - safe switching, no double payment

Each stage stands alone.
Completed work is paid; unearned funds stay untouched.
Your file must be released before any payment.
You can change courtroom lawyers without losing momentum or paying twice.

Why Escrow Matters for Every Australian Client

Legal disputes are unpredictable.
Cost spiral usually begins quietly, long before clients realise what is happening.

Escrow stops the triggers that quietly inflate legal bills:

Escrow turns legal spending from something you react to into something you direct.
It brings cost safety, timing safety, and strategy safety into one visible structure you control.

Structural Alignment (The Core Difference)

Clean Law charges a small fixed fee to provide escrow and cost-safety oversight.
That fee does not increase just because your matter drags on.

In practice, this means:

  • If your case stays tight and stages are clear, our work stays proportionate to our fee.

  • If your case drags, we do more oversight work for the same fee, we lose, not you.

  • We have no financial reason to approve unnecessary stages, premature trial prep, or scope creep.

This alignment creates structural cost safety.

If YOU save, WE win.
If your case DRAGS, WE lose,
because our fixed escrow fee does not grow with delay.

This alignment is a structural safeguard, not a slogan.

Ethics You Can See - Alignment, Not Promises

Escrow works because our incentives cannot drift away from yours.

Clean Law charges a small fixed fee for escrow oversight.
If your case drags, we lose, because our fee does not rise with delay.

This means:

  • we gain nothing from delay

  • we gain nothing from unnecessary steps

  • no stage begins without your written approval

The protection comes from structure, not assurances.
You don’t rely on anyone’s words,
the aligned incentive structure make integrity visible.

Summary

Escrow protects what clients lose most easily in litigation,
your money, your timing, your strategy, and your freedom to change lawyers.

Two independent lanes ensure you fund only the path your matter actually takes.

Cost safety made structural. Integrity follows.
Your authority stays intact from the first stage to the last.

By Nicky Wang
Principal Solicitor
Legal Liaison Ltd (trading as Clean Law)
Prepared in accordance with public-interest governance,
annual Law Society trust-account audits, and ACNC-reported standards.

Disclaimer: This page is intended to provide general information only and is not legal advice. The contents may not reflect the most current legal developments and do not take into account your individual circumstances. You should not act or refrain from acting on the basis of this information without obtaining legal advice tailored to your situation.