How to Read Your Law Firm's Balance Sheet in 2026: A Managing Partner's Line-by-Line Guide (Including the Trust Lines Most Partners Misread)

Most managing partners can read a P&L but freeze at the balance sheet — and the balance sheet is exactly where trust liabilities, unbilled work, and solvency hide. Here's a plain-English, line-by-line guide to reading your firm's balance sheet, with the legal-specific lines generic accounting tools get wrong.