What is Legal retainer-ship?
In today's complex legal environment the corporate entities and professionals must be very careful in all of the commercial dealings, communications, agreements and contracts. The reason being any communication can be viewed as a contract or not just 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 every dealing today is also very high. Moreover certain actions have to be taken within a particular time frame otherwise negative inferences can be drawn by the courts in later stages. In this situation, companies choose to interact a law firm with multi-discipline experience and international experience of advise them within their everyday legal issues. Such an arrangement helps the companies to get professional advice under one roof in a pre-determined cost for the services what they are going to 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 worrying about the bills, since the fee is fixed in advance for per year, on the cornerstone of the budgeted work load for many non-litigation work. Later even if the job load advances the determined fee won't be changed within any particular one year period.
How Law Firm Legal Retainer Ship will facilitate You
There are few facts you must find out about Law Senate Legal Retainer Ship, that may 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 answer the consultation requests from the clients on issues arising out of varied branches of law. The Firm also allots a passionate lawyer for ensuring customer friendly communication and effective service. The clients may use email, courier or personal consultation to get their issues resolved. Like 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 will get the response and comments of the relevant lawyer and inform the client within the pre-fixed time. Hence the specialty of the whole process is the consumer friendly, high quality, swift and economical 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 mentioned said fixed fee isn't uniform for many, it is finalized after estimation of work and how big is the Company.
- Litigation & Representation Services in pre-determined fee schedule: The Firm will handle virtually all kinds of litigation, arbitration and appearance before authorities in a predetermined fee schedule on case to case basis. The lawyers of the Firm regularly come 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 hard for the Companies to get them updated in regards to the pending cases from the old-style lawyers. But Law-senate law Firm sends periodical (Weekly/ monthly) reports in regards to the pending cases and matters to all of its client. The Firm also has the facility of e-storage of documents, even yet in a later stage after a long time, 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 counsel Models:
Earlier Companies used to appoint independent lawyers and pay them separately for consultations, settling legal documents, legal documentation and appearance in several Courts and tribunals. This model gives surprises and financial strain to the Companies since the expenses under legal heads are neither predetermined nor pre-budgeted. Hence the Companies within their endeavor to cut legal costs ended up in low quality and un-professional legal services which resulted in losing of cases etc.,
Appointing in-house counsel or law officers:
To take care of above said legal matters some companies elect to appoint their own in-house counsel or law officers lawyer. The appointment of in-house counsel or law officers may improve the specific situation but won't lead to the full solution for the next reasons:
- Appointing experienced law officers is very expensive in the current salary market. Hence small, medium companies and professionals can afford only a newly graduated or less experienced in-house counsel. This kind of less experienced person might be doing only the co-ordination work between independent lawyers and the company.
- Even when experienced folks are appointed they will have their expertise in several fields of law only. Hence they need to consult independent lawyers on one other issues. Independent consultation is again an expensive matter and finding the correct lawyer is really a challenging job.
Appointing Independent lawyers as consultants:
Law is a complicated field which is growing every day. There are so-many divisions of law and hence no lawyer can claim that he or she is aware of all the divisions of law. Furthermore independent lawyers won't manage to ensure the high quality of service as a result of limitations in infrastructure, facilities, staff etc.
Benefits of legal retainer-ship:
Even though there are numerous advantages for the tiny, medium industries, Professional organisations, hospitals, educational Institutions, NGOs, charitable Institutions etc., in following legal retainer-ship model compared to conventional legal adviser model, the next are the important ones,
- Legal counsel on multiple legal subjects from experts under one roof
- Unlimited non-litigation services
- Litigation services on a special fee schedule
- Annual customized fixed fee for unlimited consultation and documentation services
- Dedicated lawyer for every single client
- E-document facility
- Periodical reporting in regards to the pending matters
Who is likely to be benefited from Legal retainer-ship Model?
Large companies may appoint their own team of experienced in-house counsel supported by law officers and para legal staff in view of the higher level of legal work. Additionally they engage big size law firms and purchase each service separately because they may not bother in regards to the legal expenditure. But the next kinds of Companies and Institutions is likely to 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 helpful for those organizations who are not interested in spending money for legal departments or permanent legal counsel of every practice part of Law. When you have any query about legal retainer ship then you can ask anytime.
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