What is Legal retainer-ship?
In today's complex legal environment the corporate entities and professionals must be very careful in all the commercial dealings, communications, agreements and contracts. The reason being any communication can be considered as a contract or not a binding contract by judicial forums in a later stage when litigation reaches courts. These kinds of communications include appointment letters, suspension letters, removal letters, email communications, statutory notices, reply to notices, warning letters, letters notifying delays, letters expressing disagreements etc., The stakes in most dealing today can also be very high. Moreover certain actions need to be taken within a particular time frame otherwise negative inferences could be drawn by the courts in later stages. In such a situation, companies choose to engage a law firm with multi-discipline experience and international experience of advise them in their day to day legal issues. Such an arrangement helps the companies to get expert advice under one roof in a pre-determined cost for the services what they will avail from that firm. Law-Senate law firm is serving many companies on "Annual retainer-ship basis" which helps the companies to get quality legal consultation without fretting about the bills, because the fee is fixed beforehand for per year, on the cornerstone of the budgeted work load for many non-litigation work. Later even when the work load advances the determined fee won't be changed within this 1 year period.
How Law Firm Legal Retainer Ship will facilitate You
You can find few facts you have to learn about Law Senate Legal Retainer Ship, which will clear you why legal retainer ship ought to be availed:
- Un-limited non-litigation legal Service in fixed cost: The Firm agrees on a fixed annual fee for un-limited chamber legal work including consultation, settling of contracts, settling of legal documents, settling of legal communication, labor related documentation, employment related documentation, issuing legal notices, answering legal notices, arbitration notices, demand notices etc., The Firm has lawyers from various branches of law in its panel and in-house to react to the consultation requests from the clients on issues arising out of varied branches of law. The Firm also allots a separate lawyer for ensuring customer friendly communication and effective service. The clients may use email, courier or personal consultation to get their issues resolved. For example in case there is settling of legal documentation, the client can email the proposed draft of the document to the firm's dedicated lawyer. The dedicated lawyer can get the response and comments of the relevant lawyer and inform the client within the pre-fixed time. Hence the specialty of the entire process is the consumer friendly, top quality, swift and cost effective administration of the required legal services. The said fixed annual fee is excluding Litigation, arbitration, drafting of contracts and appearance before authorities and tribunals. The above said fixed fee isn't uniform for many, it's finalized after estimation of work and the size of the Company.
- Litigation & Representation Services in pre-determined fee schedule: The Firm will handle almost all types of litigation, arbitration and appearance before authorities in a predetermined fee schedule on case to case basis. The lawyers of the Firm regularly appear in Supreme Court of India, High courts, Competition Commission of India, Consumer Courts, National Consumer Commission, EPF Appellate Tribunal, Company Law Board, Electricity Tribunal, Mines tribunal, Petroleum tribunal, Civil Courts, Criminal Courts, Central Excise & Tax authorities, Revenue authorities etc., The Firm charges special reduced rates for the clients who engages the firm on annual retainer-ship basis. Hence this arrangement with this firm will help the clients to cut their legal costs.
- E-reporting and online storage: It's very burdensome for the Companies to get them updated concerning the pending cases from the old-style lawyers. But Law-senate law Firm sends periodical (Weekly/ monthly) reports concerning the pending cases and matters to all of its client. The Firm also has got the facility of e-storage of documents, even in a later stage after many years, the firm can supply copies of the documents from its e-storage points. Since law-senate is a modern law firm with all modern facilities and technology it serves its clients with Zero error quality.
Conventional Legal services Models:
Earlier Companies used to appoint independent lawyers and pay them separately for consultations, settling legal documents, legal documentation and appearance in various Courts and tribunals. This model gives surprises and financial strain to the Companies because the expenses under legal heads are neither predetermined nor pre-budgeted. Hence the Companies in their endeavor to cut legal costs wound up in low quality and un-professional legal services which triggered losing of cases etc.,
Appointing in-house counsel or law officers:
To deal with above said legal matters some companies elect to appoint their particular in-house counsel or law officers. The appointment of in-house counsel or law officers may improve the situation but won't lead fully solution for these reasons:
- Appointing experienced law officers is extremely expensive in the present salary market. Hence small, medium companies and professionals are able to afford only a newly graduated or less experienced in-house counsel. This type of less experienced person may be doing only the co-ordination work between independent lawyers and the company.
- Even when experienced individuals are appointed they will have their expertise in several fields of law only. Hence they should consult independent lawyers on one other issues. Independent consultation is again a pricey matter and finding the right lawyer is a challenging job.
Appointing Independent lawyers as consultants:
Law is a complex field which is growing every day. You can find so-many divisions of law and hence no lawyer can claim that he or she is aware of all the divisions of law. Moreover independent lawyers won't be able to ensure the top quality of service as a result of limitations in infrastructure, facilities, staff etc.
Features of legal retainer-ship:
Even though there are many advantages for the little, medium industries, Professional organisations, hospitals, educational Institutions, NGOs, charitable Institutions etc., in following a legal retainer-ship model than the conventional legal adviser model, these will be the important ones,
- Legal services on multiple legal subjects from experts under one roof
- Unlimited non-litigation services
- Litigation services on a particular fee schedule
- Annual customized fixed fee for unlimited consultation and documentation services
- Dedicated lawyer for each client
- E-document facility
- Periodical reporting concerning the pending matters
Who will soon be benefited from Legal retainer-ship Model?
Large companies may appoint their particular team of experienced in-house counsel supported by law officers and para legal staff because of these higher level of legal work. Additionally they engage big size law firms and purchase each service separately because they could not bother concerning the legal expenditure. But these types of Companies and Institutions will soon be greatly benefited by legal retainer-ship model,
- Medium and small size companies
- Distributing Companies & Agencies
- Hospitals
- Private educational institutions
- Schools & Colleges
- FDI partners
- BPOs and Call centres
- NGOs and charity organisations
- Professionals & Consultants etc.,
Simply speaking legal retainer ship is ideal for those organizations who are not enthusiastic about spending money for legal departments or permanent legal counsel of each practice part of Law. When you have any query about legal retainer ship then you can certainly ask anytime.
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