Helping clients become attractive for investors and joint venture partners.

IS A MONTHLY LEGAL RETAINER ARRANGEMENT RIGHT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?

Our job as corporate attorneys is to make sure clients do everything they can to minimize the risks that are within their control and to avoid conflicts that can land them into litigation, or worse. Our clients view us not only as their lawyers, but also as an integral part of their team, essential to their strategy for success.

“An Ounce of Prevention…”
What we often tell clients is that what we do for them is practice “preventative law.” And the success of what we do is based on the proven principal that the cost to fix basic legal problems can be up to 20 times more expensive than doing things right from the beginning.

Unlike hiring a litigator, a good relationship with a corporate attorney should be ongoing. When you work with one of our litigator colleagues, once the lawsuit is over and the work is done, they’re gone – until you end up in court again! The corporate lawyer’s relationship with a client is an ongoing one where frequent contact is required to truly get the benefits of working together. This contact can take the form of telephone calls or emails, and is, in most cases, subject to an “on the clock” basis at the lawyer’s billable hourly rate. It can be costly.

Stop the Clock!
From experience, we know that some clients dislike the notion that when they pick up a phone that they will be billed on an hourly basis. Psychologically, if something that they have a question about comes up, they may think twice about picking up the phone – which ultimately defeats the benefits of the relationship in the first place.

For these clients, a retainer arrangement may work best. With this kind of arrangement, the client pays a monthly fee that is reflective of the amount of service the client requires on a monthly basis. One option is for the retainer fee to cover routine calls and emails only, with any additional work performed on an hourly or flat fee basis. Alternatively, the retainer can cover ALL the client’s legal work required throughout a month. At the end of a specified period we compare the amount of time we spent on your account relative to the retainer fee, and adjust future payments upwards or downwards to more accurately reflect usage.

Retainer clients pay monthly in advance of services, so we are able to offer clients a generous discount (10% – 20%) from what they would pay for regular hourly services. Additionally, retainer arrangements are cancelable at any time by our clients.

For an example of pricing, a client who requires approximately two hours of telephone and email time per month (approximately one call and one detailed email each week) would incur approximately $730/month in billable time. However, on a retainer basis, the client would pay $595 for the same services. On average, our monthly retainers can range from $595/month for the most basic service, to $11,500/month for the most complex.

Business 101: Cut Costs and Guard Your Assets
What we have found is that clients who prefer to engage us on a retainer basis:

• Use our services more frequently when an issue comes up in their business;
• Develop stronger relationships with our attorneys, so they always have our ear;
• Reduce risk and therefore, exposure to loss and unnecessary legal fees;
• Can more accurately budget for legal expenses; and
• Save money on the amount of fees they would have spent if they had worked on an hourly basis.

To find out more information about retainer fee arrangements, schedule an appointment with us today!

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