Accepting credit card payments is becoming the norm for law firms. If your firm is still accepting only cash or checks, you’re missing out on a large portion of potential clients. Over 70% of Americans have at least one credit card. As of last year, credit cards made up nearly 40% of all transactions at point-of-sale locations. And when it comes to e-payments, card payments and ACH are the most popular options. It’s faster and more secure, for clients and merchants alike, to make payments by card. Firms that provide a variety of payment options can attract more clients, get paid faster, and collect more. To run a modern and efficient law firm, you must be able to accept credit card payments through an e-payment platform.
ePayments, Compliance, and Simplifying Your Workflow
Maybe your firm’s hesitation in accepting credit cards or ePayments is the ethics and compliance issues surrounding them. With ePayment options, attorneys can easily set up payment plans, flexible billing options, and charge for past-due invoices. These are all ways to streamline your time and increase efficiency. But, with each of these options, there are jurisdictional rules to consider. It can be overwhelming for attorneys to navigate those on top of the other day-to-day work to run a law firm. The better option is to work with a software company knowledgeable about legal accounting, including IOLTA and PCI requirements. You can easily manage your trust and operating accounts and client payments through a single system.
Working with a payment system built for law firms allows you to flow credit card payments into client accounts seamlessly. Those payments can go directly into a trust account or towards a deposit, helping you stay compliant. This workflow runs even more smoothly by having your client’s payment information on file, stored in a secured credit card vault. You’ll save time, get paid more quickly, and provide a more polished client experience.
LawPay was built exclusively for attorneys and their needs. They make it easy for law firms to get paid by securely storing client credit card and eCheck information in their Card Vault.
LawPay’s Secured Credit Card Vault
With LawPay’s Card Vault, you can store your client’s preferred payment method in a secure vault and update it later. There are two ways to store a client’s payment information: Add New Card or Request Card. Add New Card is where your firm inputs the payment information. This is useful when a client is in the office or wants to provide payment information over the phone. Your client can give you their credit card info and authorization to make charges to the card. Simple, straightforward, but potentially prone to data entry errors. Sometimes you want clients to input that information themselves.
Request Card sends an email to your client with a link to a secure form to input their card information. Clients will enter their own information so no one at your firm will ever see the card or account number. Clients are also able to input multiple payment methods. So if clients want to keep a credit card and eCheck on file, LawPay can support that. As clients fill out the form, they’ll also be required to give your firm authorization to make charges. This way, you’ll have a signed digital record of your client’s approval to keep their payment method on file.
After a client’s credit card information is collected and vaulted, only the last four digits of the card and expiration date will be visible. You can charge a saved payment method with just a few clicks and view those charges in minutes. Once a client makes a payment, you can create a payment schedule for future payments on the vaulted card. Need to make changes on vaulted payment methods? Simply click “Manage Cards” and edit payment methods without needing a full card number. Want to view transactions on vaulted cards? LawPay allows you to quickly run transaction reports and export into something like Excel in just a few clicks. Easy, right? It gets better.
With its flexible features, Card Vault, and LawPay, are 100% PCI compliant. This means it follows all industry and jurisdictional regulations, standards, and best practices. So if you’re a LawPay user, you’re also PCI compliant!
Dedicated Support
Being PCI compliant is great, but knowing how to handle difficult or complex payment issues is important, too. For example, in taking credit card payments, sometimes clients will dispute a charge on their credit card. If a client disputes a charge, credit card processors may attempt to take back money in the disputed transaction. Client funds are to be held inviolate. No other entity should be able to access those funds. This could mean a third party accessing funds deposited into trust, or money that potentially belongs to a different client. Either way, this is a big ethics no-no, and a complicated issue to resolve by yourself.
As a LawPay client, you’ll have a dedicated risk management team to help with chargeback cases. When you reach out to the LawPay risk team for help, whether by phone or email, you’ll always reach a real person. LawPay understands the legal market and can help guide you through tricky situations, like chargebacks. This is truly a special and unique feature.
And if you prefer to try and troubleshoot issues yourself, you can access LawPay’s comprehensive support library. Their support library is available even if you’re not logged into LawPay. Their library boasts hundreds of useful articles, templates, and even CLE courses to support and improve how you run and manage your firm.
Demo Video
Rachel from LawPay recently gave us a demo of the secured Credit Card Vault feature and how it works. Take a look at the video below to see a walkthrough she provided our Legal Tech Advisor, Zack Glaser.
How to Get It
If you’d like to learn more about LawPay and how its secured credit card vault can help you get paid more quickly, contact them at lawpay.com to learn more or schedule a demo.
Want to learn more about LawPay? Check out our full review for a features list, other demo videos, and community comments. Remember that Lawyerist readers get an affinity benefit through the review page.
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Last updated October 7th, 2022
