How do I Receive Payments?
Once a Lawyer bills a service, Clients are immediately charged. From there, Goodlawyer’s payment processor, Stripe, splits the payment into two transactions. The Legal Fee is paid directly from the Client to the lawyer. Payments typically take 3-7 business days to process and may be lumped with other transactions.
Note: Once a Lawyer reaches $3,000+ in transfers, our payment provider, Stripe, will require said Lawyer to verify their identity using Stripe’s secure system.
Note: If a client is paying with debit, the processing time may take longer for the bank to release the funds. Invoices paid with debit will be marked as “pending” until the funds clear. Every bank is different!
How Can I Ensure the Amount of Funds Received is Correct?
The best way to ensure that the amount received is correct is to compare the invoice to your bank account statements.
Note: Stripe will often merge payments together as lump sums. For example, if a $500 job is billed on Monday and a $500 job on Tuesday, the payment may arrive as $1,000 on Friday.
Who Should I Contact if There is a Failed Payment?
The Goodlawyer Operations Team manages payments closely. If a payment ever fails for whatever reason, we will typically follow-up with you and/or the customer within 48 hours. Even so, the Goodlawyer platform will automatically retry failed payments every 3 days, so if you ever have a failed payment, you should immediately message your client and let them know. You can also get help from the Legal Concierge™ Team on Slack. If you believe there has been an error with a transfer (ie. incorrect amount, incorrect tax rate, etc.) please contact accounting@goodlawyer.ca.
How Long Does it Take to Receive Payment after I Bill a Service?
Stripe usually delivers payment within 3-7 business days.
How Does Goodlawyer Help Lawyers Comply with Code of Conduct Regulations Concerning Referral Fees and Fee Splitting?
Under Goodlawyer’s Terms of Use:
Legal Fees and Service Fees
The Payment Services enable Clients to pay Legal Fees to Lawyers and disbursements and taxes. The Legal Fees payable for Legal Services are the amount agreed to by the Lawyer and the Client on the Platform when the Legal Service Contract is entered into, subject to any promotions, discounts or change orders that may apply. Posted Legal Fees do not include taxes or disbursement charges. All such taxes and disbursement charges will be added to the Aggregate Fee and will be itemized in the applicable final invoice for Legal Services.
On top of Legal Fees, Goodlawyer charges Clients a transaction-based service fee in consideration of their use of the Platform to enter into a Legal Service Contract (“Service Fee”). Service Fees are variable and are disclosed as part of the Aggregate Fee payable by a Client regarding a particular Legal Service Contract.
When a Client pays for a Legal Service over the Platform, they are presented with the fee breakdown before completing the purchase (e.g., Legal Fee, Service Fee, Disbursements, Taxes, etc.)
While the Client sees one bill, behind the scenes, there are two transactions occurring simultaneously.
The Legal Fee is paid directly from the Client to the Lawyer (using Stripe as our payment processor). No Legal Fees go through Goodlawyer. Stripe pays Legal Fees directly to the lawyer’s bank account of record.
Concurrently, the Service Fee is portioned and sent directly to Goodlawyer. Because the Client pays Goodlawyer directly, Lawyers are not deemed to exchange "Lawyer Referral Fees" under their Code of Conduct.
Additionally, the transaction and fee attribution are transparent to the Client (i.e. they can see what portion of the overall expense goes to the Lawyer, and to Goodlawyer respectively). Lawyers do not breach the fee splitting prohibitions under their Code of Conduct.
Downloading Your Transactions Records
Lawyers can download individual PDF records or a complete record of all their Goodlawyer transactions in a specified date range from their Billings page: https://lawyer.goodlawyer.ca/invoices
After selecting a date range, lawyers can download an .xlsx file that contains:
- A spreadsheet that shows a breakdown of every transaction the lawyer completed over the Goodlawyer platform for a specified date range.
- A spreadsheet that shows key totals for tax and accounting purposes.
For more information, please read Tax & Accounting Records