Do you know what a client attorney retainer agreement is? Before you sign a retainer's agreement it is very important that you have a clear knowledge of what a client and attorney retainer agreement contains and implies. You must consider the points stated below before signing the retainer's agreement.
- To start with, you need to go through the entire client-attorney agreement very carefully
- You must have a clear idea about the purpose behind the retainer agreement
- You must have a clear understanding about the financial terms and conditions involved in the retainer agreement
Read the entire agreement very carefully:
- It is very important to go through the retainer agreement very thoroughly. The signing of the contract enables you with the knowledge about the agreements that you have entered into. Take your time to evaluate the entire contract. In any situation, it is imperative that the associate gives you the required time to evaluate the agreement properly. Apart from this, it goes without saying that the associate is liable to answer the questions that may arise in your head. Once you have made sure that you have spent enough time to study the agreement, it is wise to ensure that you are carrying a copy of the agreement before leaving the office of the associate.
Get a clear idea about the purpose of the contract:
- The retainer agreement lays down the basic rules for the client-associate relationship. The contract also seeks to reinforce the faith between the client and the associate. However this should not be taken for granted. There are several occasions were complications may arise in scenarios where the retainer agreement is not fully comprehensible or deceitfully written for the associate's advantage. The client and associate relation tends to get into troubled waters under these circumstances. That is why it is very crucial that you have a thorough understanding of the entire agreement.
- The financial conditions and terms involved in the contract must be very comprehensible to you. The nature of the fee agreement can be conditional, flat, or hourly. At times it can also be a combination of both. You must have a clear idea about the total expenses involved in the whole process. Apart from the filing fees, there are also expenses for the journeys undertaken, parking fees, the mail sent and couriers, and also the telephone bills. If the associate charges you for every hour, you will naturally want to assess minimum time increments or minimum billing of unit. In that case you will allocate the right payment for the job.
For instance, some of the agreements may provide that you are going to be charged in units of $10 per hour or maybe $25 per hour. That is, if an attorney charges $ 200 per hour and bills in the mode of minimum increments of $25 per hour, one simple task that took an associate 60 seconds would charge you $50! A bill unit in general of .10 per hour is not very uncommon. The fee agreement is supposed to be fair, logical, and entirely comprehensible to you. In case you have further questions, be sure that you have all your queries answered and you are fully satisfied with the explanations provided.
Thus from the entire discussion it must be clear that it is highly imperative that you have a clear idea about the entire contract before you sign it.
