LawPay collects money in. Disbo disburses settlement money out.
LawPay is the legal industry's leading payment processor for collecting retainers, cost advances, and client bills via credit card and ACH. Disbo handles the other side of the trust account — outbound settlement disbursements to clients, medical providers, lienholders, and referring attorneys — with 50-state IOLTA compliance and electronic payment built in.
LawPay and Disbo handle opposite ends of a law firm's trust account. LawPay collects retainers and bills in from clients via credit card and ACH. Disbo disburses settlement funds out to clients, medical providers, lienholders, and co-counsel — with per-matter IOLTA sub-ledgers, automated three-way reconciliation, and bar-ready audit packages. Many PI firms use both.
What is settlement disbursement?
Settlement disbursement is the outbound financial workflow that follows a personal injury case resolution — distributing settlement funds from the IOLTA trust account to the client, medical lienholders, co-counsel, and other payees, while maintaining per-matter sub-ledgers and three-way reconciliation required by every state bar. This is distinct from payment collection, which flows in the opposite direction.
Feature comparison: Disbo vs. LawPay
Defaults out of the box — not maximum capability after custom configuration.
| Feature | LawPay | Disbo |
|---|---|---|
Direction of money movement | Inbound — collecting payments from clients to the firm | Outbound — disbursing settlement funds from IOLTA to clients, providers, and lienholders |
Settlement disbursement workflow | Not supported — no outbound payment capability from trust | Full multi-recipient settlement disbursement with settlement statement and ledger entries |
Medical lien tracking and payment | Not supported | Lien intake, negotiation tracking, and same-day electronic payment to providers |
IOLTA sub-ledger maintenance | Not supported — records inbound receipts, not per-matter ledgers | Per-matter client sub-ledgers with automatic debit on every disbursement |
Three-way reconciliation | Not supported | Continuous, automated reconciliation in real time |
Negative balance prevention | Not applicable — processes inbound payments | Blocked automatically before transaction processes |
50-state IOLTA rules engine | Routes to trust vs. operating correctly; no jurisdiction-specific IOLTA rules | 50+ state IOLTA rules applied automatically per matter |
Audit package generation | Payment receipts and basic reporting; not a trust audit package | Complete bar-ready audit package in under 60 seconds |
check fraud Suspicious Activity Reports filed in 2022 — nearly double the 2021 total, a key driver of electronic payment adoption in legal disbursements
FinCEN Alert on Check Fraud (Sep 2023)ACH payments processed in 2024 (up 6.1% YoY) — the payment rail behind Same Day ACH settlement disbursements to clients and providers
Nacha 2024 ACH Network Volume StatisticsIOLTA jurisdictions require monthly three-way reconciliation — a compliance obligation that goes beyond inbound payment collection
ABA Model Rule 1.15 + state bar IOLTA rulesThey solve opposite halves of the law firm trust account problem.
LawPay is the most widely adopted legal payment processor in the US. It handles the intake side of a firm's financial workflow: collecting retainers, outstanding bills, and cost advances from clients by credit card or ACH and routing them to the correct account (trust or operating) without violating credit card processing rules around client funds.
Disbo handles the outbound side — the settlement disbursement workflow that happens after a PI case resolves. That means paying clients their net recovery, paying medical providers and lienholders, transferring earned fees to operating, paying referring attorneys, and maintaining the per-matter IOLTA ledgers and three-way reconciliation that every state bar requires. These are two different workflows. Many PI firms use both.
What LawPay does — and where it stops.
LawPay is a payment processing platform purpose-built for law firms. Its core compliance feature is routing client payments to trust vs. operating accounts correctly — preventing the trust account violations that arise when credit card processing fees are deducted from client funds. LawPay integrates with major practice management platforms (Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther) for billing reconciliation. It does not handle outbound trust account disbursements, lien management, settlement statement generation, per-matter sub-ledgers, or three-way IOLTA reconciliation — which is the disbursement problem Disbo is built to solve.
LawPay collects payments from clients. Disbo disburses settlement funds to clients and medical providers.
LawPay doesn't disburse settlement funds
LawPay processes payments coming in from clients. Paying a client their net settlement recovery, or paying a medical provider their negotiated lien amount — that's an outbound trust account disbursement. LawPay isn't built for it. Disbo is.
No lien management or medical provider payment
Medical lien tracking, negotiation workflow, and electronic payment to providers after lien resolution require a purpose-built lien-aware disbursement platform. LawPay has no lien workflow. Disbo tracks every lien by case and pays providers via Same Day ACH or RTP the day the lien is resolved.
No per-matter IOLTA compliance enforcement
LawPay confirms that inbound client payments route to the correct account. It doesn't maintain per-matter sub-ledgers, run three-way reconciliation, prevent negative sub-ledger balances, or generate bar audit packages. Disbo provides the full IOLTA compliance layer for the disbursement side of the trust account.
IOLTA compliance as a system — not a feature checkbox.
Prevention, not detection
Disbo blocks negative balances before the transaction processes. Discovery at month-end is already a violation.
50-state IOLTA rules engine
Every matter carries a governing jurisdiction. Disbo applies that state's IOLTA reconciliation, retention, and notification rules automatically.
Audit-ready in 60 seconds
A complete audit package — client ledgers, three-way reconciliation, disbursement histories — generates from an immutable trail in under a minute.
Choosing between Disbo and LawPay
LawPay is best for
LawPay is best for firms that need to collect client payments — retainers, outstanding bills, cost advances — by credit card or ACH and route them correctly to trust or operating accounts. It is the market-leading solution for that specific problem.
Disbo is best for
Disbo is best for PI firms that need to manage the outbound side of their IOLTA trust account — disbursing settlement funds to multiple payees, tracking and paying medical liens, maintaining per-matter sub-ledgers, and generating bar-ready audit packages. Many firms use LawPay and Disbo together — one for intake, one for disbursement.
Disbo vs. LawPay FAQ
Do LawPay and Disbo compete with each other?
No. LawPay processes inbound client payments (retainers, bills via credit card or ACH). Disbo handles outbound settlement disbursements from the trust account. They solve opposite sides of the same financial workflow. Many PI firms use both: LawPay for collecting from clients, Disbo for disbursing to clients and providers after settlement.
Can LawPay pay medical providers after a PI case settles?
No. LawPay is designed to accept payments from clients, not to send payments to medical providers, lienholders, or clients from the trust account. For outbound settlement payments, you need a disbursement platform or your bank's ACH/wire initiation service.
Does Disbo replace LawPay?
Not for intake-side payment collection. LawPay handles a specific compliance problem (routing credit card payments correctly to trust vs. operating) that Disbo doesn't address. If you collect retainers or bills by credit card, you still need a legal payment processor. Disbo handles the disbursement side of the trust account after settlement.
Can I use Disbo if I currently use LawPay?
Yes — they're complementary. LawPay stays in your workflow for collecting payments from clients. Disbo is added for settlement disbursements, lien management, IOLTA compliance enforcement, and trust account audit packages. The two don't overlap.
What does LawPay's trust account routing actually do?
Credit card processors typically deduct processing fees before depositing the remaining amount. For client trust account payments, this would mean the firm is using client funds to pay processing fees — a trust account violation. LawPay deposits the full client payment to trust and charges the processing fee to the firm's operating account separately, maintaining compliance.
Compare Disbo to other platforms
See how Disbo's IOLTA compliance approach stacks up against other practice management tools.
Ready to move beyond LawPay's trust accounting to full IOLTA compliance?
See how Disbo's compliance engine prevents violations, enforces 50-state bar rules, and generates audit-ready reports automatically.
256-bit Encryption · IOLTA Ready · SOC 2 (Coming Soon)