Most law firms and lawyers require that clients pay them an initial “retainer” in order to secure the services of a divorce lawyer. However, many people that I have met with often have questions of what a “retainer” really means and what is done with it once it is paid by them to the lawyer.
An example I often use is this: you are not buying a commodity. Said another way, you are not buying a washer-and-dryer. You are paying for a service. The service is the lawyers time, experience, and knoweldge of the legal system. Think of the lawyer as your advocate and guide.
Now, when attorney’s are selling their service, they want to ensure they will get paid for their efforts. In a perfect world, the Apple Valley divorce lawyer would not need to ask for a retainer and could simply agree to a reasonable fee arrangement. However, often times, clients do not pay their bills. It is simply a fact of practicing law.
Sometimes, clients may not want to pay their bill because they are unhappy with the lawyer’s services. That is certainly understandable. However, the attorney has to make a reasonable living and everyone can understand that if work is done, it needs to be paid for.
Also, when a retainer is paid, the lawyer is obligated to place any money paid up-front into a trust, bank account. The lawyer cannot simply use that money for his or her own purposes. The lawyer must, instead, hold that money in trust as something called a “fiduciary”. The fiduciary role means that the attorney has to care for the money in such a way that it is protected and not used maliciously or without benefit to you. Typically, the lawyer will put the money into retainer and then send you a bill for his or her services. If that bill is not paid, the lawyer is allowed to take the money out of the retainer trust account to pay the bill. If the bill is paid, the lawyer simply leaves the money in the account until the end of the representation and then pays it back to you.
In this way, you can think of the “retainer” as a security deposit for the lawyer’s services.
