Why Today’s Legal Services Industry Needs Online Payments

From landmen to private investigators, the professions that find themselves adjacent to the legal field are varied and exciting in their own rights. For instance, expert witnesses can make or break a case. A good paralegal is worth their weight in gold. Jury consultants can be the difference between a panel liking your client, or abhorring them. Mediators can make it so that your client never sees a courtroom and settles amicably with the opposing party. Compliance specialists can keep a company out of trouble, and court reporters can protect your record. Between process servers and e-discovery specialists, attorneys rely on many different types of people in order to effectively run their law firms.

Even as technology evolves, the need for those in the legal service industry has not dissipated. Automation cannot replace the physical need for the process server, or the critical thinking skills needed from an expert witness.

As these fields are more in demand than ever, it is incumbent upon them to ensure that they are maximizing their profits and getting paid on time, every time. Especially in the era of COVID-19, mediators and contract paralegals alike should take care to offer options to their clients, be they attorneys or private citizens.

The Legal Services Industry During the Pandemic

Once courts adjusted to the new normal, everyone who touched the legal industry was forced to adjust right alongside their judicial colleagues and begin to adapt their services to the pandemic.

As social distancing and working from home continue to be the new norm, professionals in the legal services industry have had to change the way they do business. Namely, they have had to completely overhaul how they take payments. Suddenly, court reporters who traditionally have only allowed for cash or firm checks to take payments have expanded their options to include payment cards. Mediators, now employing their services over Zoom, have likewise started offering online payment options. When litigants, attorneys, and others in the legal services industry do not want to leave their homes, how else will they get paid timely if not online?

Benefits of Taking Credit Cards

Chief concerns of those employed in the legal arena are: (1) who is going to pay them; and (2) how will they get paid? Traditionally, many businesses (such as mediators or court reporters) would only take a firm check or cash for their services.

The inability to allow for someone to pay by credit card might hamper a business’s ability to get more money in their pocket. For instance, if a litigant wants a transcript from a court reporter, and they don’t have the available funds and their attorney won’t front them the money for said transcript, it is imperative that the litigant be able to pay for the records themselves with a credit card. Businesses should ask themselves if they could potentially be losing out on revenue if they don’t allow for credit card payments. What’s more, the requests to pay by card will only increase as the pandemic trudges along.

As time goes on and debit and credit card usage increases (approximately 80% of consumers now prefer to pay for goods and services with a payment card), so does the necessity for businesses to provide their clientele with payment options beyond the traditional firm check or cash. Especially now, given the socially-distanced state of affairs, how does a mediator or landman get paid if they are not at the office and do not want to venture unnecessarily outside of their home to procure payment? An easy option for those in the legal services industry is to start offering payment via credit card, which would help make a business completely contactless.

With LawPay, a business’s clients will be able to pay their mediator, their expert witness, and their other legal-adjacent professionals with credit cards, debit cards, and eChecks. As technology advances, so too must those businesses in the legal arena.