LOS ANGELES, Sept. 24, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Disbo, a trust accounting and settlement disbursement platform for personal injury law firms, today announced outsourced check disbursement, extending its IOLTA disbursement software beyond ACH payments to include paper checks in the same workflow.
Outsourced check disbursement lets a firm initiate checks from its trust account alongside ACH payments in a single disbursement run. Disbo prints and mails the checks, tracks delivery, and records each payment against the corresponding case ledger for three-way reconciliation — the same process used for electronic payments.
Paper checks remain common in personal injury settlements: some clients, medical providers, and referring counsel require them, and they're harder to track than ACH. Left unresolved, outstanding checks can sit open for weeks or months — a liability problem as much as an operational one, since aging trust-account checks can trigger state escheatment (unclaimed property) obligations if a firm has no consolidated way to catch them before they go stale. Disbo's outstanding-check aging report gives firms a single view of uncashed checks across the trust account, with automated reminders to follow up before that happens.
"Firms didn't need us to tell them checks are risky. They needed someone to take the manual work off their plate without sacrificing visibility," said Nathan Sumekh, founder and CEO of Disbo. "Now every payment out of trust, whether ACH or paper, moves through the same approval and reconciliation workflow and shows up in the same reporting system."
Disbo's check disbursement capabilities include:
- Check initiation alongside ACH payments, in the same disbursement run
- Check printing and mailing directly from the firm's IOLTA trust account
- Tracked delivery
- Outstanding-check aging reports
- Automated reminders for uncashed checks, to help firms avoid escheatment exposure
- Two-person approval
- Case-ledger recording and three-way reconciliation
- Pass-through pricing under $5 per check
According to the 2025 AFP Payments Fraud and Control Survey, checks were the payment method most often subjected to fraud in 2024. FinCEN has also warned financial institutions about mail theft-related check fraud involving stolen and altered checks — a risk that compounds the longer a check sits outstanding.
For California law firms in particular, consolidated visibility into outstanding trust-account checks supports the recordkeeping, accounting, and prompt-distribution obligations required under trust accounting rules.
Frequently asked questions
What is outsourced check disbursement?
Outsourced check disbursement is a service where a third-party platform prints, mails, and tracks paper checks issued from a law firm's trust account, then reconciles each payment against the case ledger — removing the manual printing, mailing, and tracking work from firm staff.
Why do outstanding trust account checks matter for law firms?
Uncashed trust-account checks can remain open for months without follow-up. Beyond fraud exposure, aging checks can trigger state escheatment (unclaimed property) reporting requirements if a firm has no system to flag and resolve them before they go stale.
Does Disbo replace ACH payments with checks?
No. Disbo supports both — firms can send ACH and paper check payments from the same disbursement run, with both reconciled through the same three-way process.
How much does Disbo charge per check?
Pass-through pricing under $5 per check, billed alongside Disbo's standard per-payout pricing.
About Disbo
Disbo is a trust accounting and settlement disbursement platform built for personal injury law firms. It handles payments to clients, medical providers, and referring counsel in a single run, with three-way reconciliation, outstanding-check aging, and audit-ready reporting. It also gives lien-based medical practices visibility into cases from referral through payment.
press@disbo.com
(213) 886-5443
