Background
Founded in 1996, RWR Legal is a legal consultancy business law firm with offices in both Austin and San Antonio, Texas. Their primary focus is on entrepreneurs and executives in start-ups and upcoming businesses, providing advice in such areas as intellectual property, disputes, litigation, entertainment law, real estate, immigration, and more. As of 2018, RWR Legal has a total staff of 11, with 8 attorneys and 3 others in administrative roles.
Finding the right fit
RWR Legal knew that switching to online payments was the right decision. However, they struggled to find a solution that was suitable for their business. “We lost a fortune trying to find different systems,” said Shari Ressler, co-founder and managing partner at RWR Legal. “For a long time, the only small systems you could get were for particular areas, like estate and trust or personal injury. If you were a small, sophisticated, full-service business firm like ours, you couldn’t find a system.”
Based on experience, Richard Radbil, law firm administrator at RWR Legal, felt that not all credit card processors were created equal. “One of my greatest fears was what the credit card processor was doing without telling me. We may run a charge, and it would be out of our supposed limit, but we never knew what our limit was. Our whole account could be frozen up for no good reason.”
Faster payments, better features
Once RWR Legal started processing payments through LawPay in conjunction with their practice management software, they felt they found the answer they were looking for. Shari Ressler noticed an improvement in their billing process almost immediately. “The ability to get your bills out fast makes such a difference. It used to take us days to do billing. Now we get it done in a day.”
Richard Radbil was happy to see that LawPay took operating and IOLTA accounts into consideration when processing transactions. “With LawPay, we can designate where a deposit is going. Before, everything went into our operating account, and we would transfer it back to the IOLTA account. Now, we can send a trust request and it can be paid right into the IOLTA account.”
Developers that listen
Shari Ressler particularly appreciated how their practice management software provider and LawPay would implement features based on feedback. “Trying to find a system that would actually speak to us and work for us was very challenging,” she said. “When we found our practice management software and LawPay, we finally found systems that would address our needs and also grow with us—they talked to us about what we really needed. That was the first time that had happened.”
Overall, RWR Legal felt that switching to LawPay was the right choice. “I don’t usually embrace third-party programs like this,” said Richard Radbil, “but LawPay is the best credit card processor I’ve ever seen.”
About the author
John Lehman