Our Relationships
A client should know at the outset what the arrangement is, what it covers, and whether it is meant to end.
Introduction
The word most firms use here is fees, which describes the invoice rather than the arrangement. What actually passes between a lawyer and a client is a relationship, and relationships differ in kind. One client needs a single instrument drawn and will not be heard from again for a decade. Another needs somebody to telephone on a Tuesday about a letter that arrived on Monday. These are not the same engagement, and they should not be papered as though they were.
Nothing at this firm therefore begins on an understanding. Conflicts are screened before a matter is discussed in substance. The engagement letter states what we are retained to do and, with equal care, what we are not. Additional work is added by written amendment and never by assumption.
What follows are the four arrangements under which this firm acts, and the four commitments that attach to every one of them. The arrangement is chosen to fit the relationship, not the other way about.
Arrangements
I
A monthly sum that buys availability rather than hours. The client telephones when a question arises instead of opening a matter each time, and the lawyer is already familiar with the business when the call comes. It is the oldest arrangement in the profession and still the most useful to anyone who needs judgment more often than documents.
Used: clients who would rather ask early than explain late.
II
The standing legal function of a company not large enough to employ one. Agreements read before they are signed rather than after, employment questions answered while they are still questions, and corporate records kept in the condition a buyer, a lender or a regulator will eventually expect to find them.
Used: closely-held companies without counsel of their own.
III
The firm is retained for one defined piece of work: an estate plan, a formation, a closing, a dispute. What is to be done is written down before it begins, and what is not to be done is written down with equal care. The matter ends cleanly, and your record of it remains available to you afterwards.
Used: most planning and transactional work.
IV
An open relationship with no fixed end. A family or a company whose affairs return to this office across years, where the lawyer already knows the history, the instruments, and the people who will be affected by them. Most of this firm’s work arrives this way, and the practice is arranged so as not to interfere with it.
Used: families and companies of long standing.
The engagement
01
Nothing is discussed in substance until the matter has been screened. If we cannot act, we say so at once and, where we can, name someone who may.
02
The engagement letter states what the firm is retained to do and, as importantly, what it is not. Additional work is added by amendment, never by assumption.
03
Advance deposits are held in the firm’s trust account, applied only against statements you have received, and returned on the closing of the matter. The ledger is visible in your portal.
04
Rendered monthly, in plain language, with each entry attributable to a person and a task. A question about a statement is answered before it is paid, not after.
Estimates
We will tell you what a matter is likely to cost, what could change that, and where a less expensive course is available, including the course of not engaging us at all.
