I’ve written about accepting credit cards for law firms in the past (here and here), but with the release of the Verizon iPhone, I’m finally able to get an iPhone of my own and I’m ditching my blackberry for something a bit more powerful.  One of the first things I’m going to try is accepting credit card payments with my iPhone.

There are quite a few competitors out there for on-site smartphone credit card readers but I’ll just mention the leading contenders.  First up and the one that I will try will be Square (pictured right). It’s founded by the one of the guys from twitter and in my opinion is the simplest to use and smallest to carry around.  Another leading provider is Mophie (pictured center) who has partnered up with Intuit to bring us a sleek credit card reader that fits over the whole iPhone.  It looks more stable than Square but unless we’re swiping credit cards continuously during the day, I don’t really see a need to have a permanent attachment to my iPhone.  The last one I’ll mention is Payware (pictured left).  I would not recommend this device for lawyers because of the sheer bulk of the machine and the overload of unnecessary tools that lawyers will never get to use (such as a bar code scanner).

Several things I should mention for attorneys thinking about using one of these machines is even though it’s very convenient, you must know the local rules on fees and how to collect them.  In Massachusetts, you cannot use any of these machines to take a retainer.  If however, you’re like me and take only flat fees, then these machines can be used.  If you want to take a credit card for a retainer, then check out the previous posts I’ve linked to above on directions on how to do that.

Lastly, if you’re practicing bankruptcy, you cannot accept credit cards of any kind.