Payments

A retainer is a deposit for legal services that we hold in a dedicated account on your behalf. The funds remain yours until we earn them by performing work on your matter, and any unused balance is returned to you when your case concludes.

No. A retainer is not a fixed estimate of the total cost of your matter. It reflects what we expect it will take to reach the next stage of your case, and the actual fees are billed against it as work is completed over time.

Not exactly. Retainer funds are placed in a holding account and cannot be transferred to the firm until they have been earned. If your matter is resolved for less than the retainer amount, the remaining balance is refunded to you.

An initial retainer is the amount paid up front to formally engage the firm so your attorney can begin working on your matter. After reviewing your case in more detail, your attorney may determine that additional funds are needed to continue.

Initial and refillable simply describe the status of a retainer. The amount paid to start your case is the initial retainer; when additional funds are required to keep the work moving forward, that top-up is called a refillable retainer.

Think of a retainer like a debit card. You pay into an account, and the members of our legal team assigned to your matter draw from it for the various fees associated with your case as the work is performed and recorded.

Yes. Your retainer is monitored closely by both your attorney and our financial team. We do our best to notify you when the balance is running low, and you will always receive a retainer refill request before additional work continues.

Not every matter can be billed as a single flat fee. Some legal work, such as a standard real estate closing, has a predictable one-time cost, while other matters can shift as they develop and are better handled through a retainer.

ARA stands for Automatic Retainer Agreement. It is an arrangement that helps keep your retainer funded so that work on your matter can continue without interruption whenever the available balance falls below the agreed threshold.