Trust money is sacred
Client funds are never "the firm's" money, even briefly. Every IOLTA and trust account is reconciled three ways, every month, before anything else on the calendar.
Our firm · Founded 2012
A firm built by someone who has sat where you sit.
Redwood was founded by a firm controller who got tired of handing partners reports that raised more questions than they answered. Fourteen years later we're the accounting department 140+ law firms call their own.
2012Founded by Jonathan Reyes, CPA
How we started
Good lawyers, making decisions on bad reports.
Before founding Redwood, Jonathan Reyes spent nine years as controller of a 300-lawyer firm. He watched partners with brilliant legal instincts approve draws, greenlight lateral hires and price contingency risk off financial statements that were three weeks stale, wrong at the matter level, or simply unreadable by anyone without an accounting degree.
The trust accounting was usually fine — most firms take that seriously, because a bar examiner is watching. What was missing was everything else: which matters actually made money, whether a partner's draw matched what their book was producing, and whether the firm would still be solvent if two big matters settled late. In 2012 he left to build the firm he wished he'd had access to — one where the books close on a calendar, the reports are built for partners rather than accountants, and trust compliance is a baseline, not the whole job.
Why "Redwood"? A redwood grows slowly, stands for centuries, and shares a root system with every other redwood around it — one tree's roots brace its neighbors against a storm no single trunk could survive alone. That's the firm we set out to build: durable, unhurried, and resting on a foundation designed to hold up more than one firm's weight.
Our mission
Our mission
Give every managing partner the financial clarity a Fortune 500 CFO takes for granted — closed on a calendar, reported in language partners actually use, and defensible to the last dollar.
140+
Law firms served, from 2 to 120 lawyers
$2.1B
Client trust funds reconciled annually
6
Business day the books close by, every month
0
Trust-account findings in client bar audits since 2019
§ 01 What we stand for
Four principles, kept on every file
These aren't values on a wall — they're what we're reviewed against internally, and what a managing partner can hold us to on any engagement.
Close on time, every time
Business day six is not an aspiration. It is the standard we staff to, calendar to, and report against — for every client, every month, without exception.
Report what partners need
Not a trial balance. A page a managing partner can read in five minutes and act on — matter margins, draw status, the number that actually changes a decision.
Discretion
Partner compensation, matter economics and firm finances are privileged conversations. What we see stays inside the engagement team, full stop.
§ 02 Milestones
Fourteen years, one steady practice
From a one-person controller shop to a firm with clients in nine states — every step taken the way we tell our clients to grow: deliberately, on a foundation that can carry the weight.
Meet the professionals-
2012Founded
Redwood opens in San Francisco
Jonathan Reyes leaves a 300-lawyer firm's controller seat to open Redwood with three clients — a solo litigator, a five-partner boutique and a family-law practice — all referred within his first month.
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2014Trust desk
Dedicated trust accounting practice launches
Adaeze Okafor, CPA, joins to build a three-way reconciliation process rigorous enough to hand directly to a bar examiner — the process still in use, largely unchanged, today.
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2017BD 6
The business-day-six close standard is set
After a client's departing partner dispute turned on financials that were six weeks old, the firm commits every client to a hard BD6 close — and has hit it every month since.
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2019Partner tax
Partner tax practice formalized
Samuel Hart, CPA, JD, joins from a Big Four partnership-tax group to run multi-state composite returns and K-1 coordination for firms whose partners live across state lines.
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202150 firms
Fiftieth client firm signs on
The firm crosses fifty client engagements and adds Elise Morgan to lead a dedicated Controller Services practice for firms that want a full outsourced finance function.
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2023Matter economics
Matter-level profitability becomes standard
Priyanka Das, CPA, builds a matter economics practice covering realization, WIP aging and contribution margin — now included in every Firm Controller engagement.
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20259 states
140th client, clients in nine states
A multi-office regional firm becomes the 140th active engagement. Zero trust-account findings in any client bar audit since 2019, across every state Redwood serves.
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2026Today
$2.1B in trust funds reconciled a year
Books closed by BD6, every month, for every client — the same standard set in 2017, now running at a scale that would have seemed unlikely in a two-room office in 2012.
§ 03 Our professionals
The people who will actually sign your close.
Every engagement is staffed by a named team from this page — not a rotating pool of seasonal preparers. The person who reviews your trust reconciliation in January is the same person in July.
Jonathan Reyes, CPA
Founding Partner
CPA (California) · Former Controller, 300-lawyer firm · 22 years in practice
Jonathan founded Redwood after nine years running the books for a 300-lawyer firm. He still reviews every Firm Controller engagement's monthly package and leads the firm's largest lateral and merger transactions.
- Firm strategy
- Mergers & laterals
- Controller oversight
Adaeze Okafor, CPA
Director of Trust Accounting & Compliance
CPA (California) · State bar trust-accounting CLE instructor · 15 years in practice
Adaeze built Redwood's three-way reconciliation process and has taken client firms through bar audits in six states without a single finding. She signs every trust report the firm issues.
- IOLTA & trust
- Bar audits
- Compliance
Samuel Hart, CPA, JD
Partner Tax Director
CPA & JD (California) · Former Big Four partnership tax · 18 years in practice
Samuel holds both a CPA license and a law degree, which makes him fluent in partnership agreements as well as K-1s. He runs multi-state composite filings for partners spread across nine states.
- Partnership tax
- Multi-state composite
- Estimates
Elise Morgan
Controller Services Manager
Clio Certified Consultant · QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor · 11 years in practice
Elise leads the firm's outsourced controller function — the monthly close, the partner docket and the practice-group scorecards clients read on the sixth business day of every month.
- Monthly close
- Partner reporting
- Systems
Priyanka Das, CPA
Matter Economics & FP&A Lead
CPA (California) · Former litigation-finance analyst · 10 years in practice
Priyanka builds the matter-level profitability models that tell partners which work is actually worth taking. She has modeled realization and margin for firms in litigation, IP and contingency practice.
- Matter economics
- Forecasting
- Rate analysis
Credentials, memberships and affiliations
AICPA Member CalCPA ALA — Association of Legal Administrators State Bar CLE Provider Clio Certified ConsultantMarks shown as text for this demo. Memberships and designations are illustrative of a firm of this type and are not claims about a real business.
Our office
450 Sansome Street — or your firm's own conference room, virtually
Most engagements start with one in-person scoping session, then run through a secure portal, video review meetings and a monthly close call. Clients in San Francisco are welcome any time; clients in the other eight states we serve rarely need to visit at all.
- Address450 Sansome Street, Suite 1100
San Francisco, CA 94111 - HoursMon–Fri 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM PT
Close week: until 8:00 PM - Client portalSecure document exchange, e-signature and reporting for clients in 9 states
- ParkingValidated garage parking beneath the building; steps from the Sansome/Sacramento corner
Confidentiality & ethics
What we do with a law firm's finances stays inside the engagement.
We hold the same records a firm's own bookkeeper would — client trust ledgers, partner compensation, matter-level economics. We built our practices around that responsibility from day one, not as an afterthought.
- Conflict checks before every engagement — we confirm no staff member has a relationship with an opposing party or matter before touching a client's books
- Privilege-aware handling of engagement records, so work product tied to a client matter is segregated from general accounting files and never discussed outside the assigned team
- SOC 2-aligned controls on data access, retention and staff offboarding, reviewed annually as part of our own internal audit
- Named engagement teams — a fixed group of professionals per client, so partner-level detail is never seen by staff outside that team
§ 04 Client story
What a named engagement team looks like after five years.
Re: Firm ControllerCorporate & transactional
We've had the same three people on our account since 2021 — Elise on the close, Priyanka on matter economics, Jonathan in the room for anything that touches partner comp. When we brought on two lateral partners last year, Redwood modeled the comp impact before we made the offer, not after we regretted it.
§ 05 Next steps
Meet the team before you need them.
A 30-minute scoping call with a partner, a fixed-fee proposal within three business days, and a first close on the calendar within a month.