Financially Legal

The State-by-State Guide to Auto-Billing Stored Payment Methods

Written by Dan Lear | Jun 29, 2022 5:28:00 AM

Amazon stores your credit card. Uber or Lyft might have it too. Do you use Netflix, Disney Plus, or other platforms to regularly consume goods and services? 

 

Making it easy for customers to pay has significant benefits: It reduces the cost and burden of collections, shortens cash cycles, increases revenue, and provides a better client experience. 

 

But storing electronic payment methods is not the way lawyers have traditionally been paid. Storing credit card information used to be a risky and cumbersome proposition, but that’s changed. Lawyers now have access to technology that enables them to store and - in accordance with the client agreement - subsequently charge a credit card (or even a bank account) easily and securely.  

 

Just because lawyers can do something, however, doesn’t mean they should. This guide addresses the question of whether lawyers are “allowed” to use this technology. Given the popularity of our State By State Guide to Shifting Processing Fees for cards, we thought a state-by-state review of the rules governing storing and charging payment methods would be helpful. Download the guide below.