Question: Our company is seeking for a law firm that provides legal retainer services. Please quote.
Answer:
First of all, we would like to thank you (hereinafter referred to as “Client”) for your interest in SB Law’s services We understand that Client requested us to provide legal retainer services. Thus, we are pleased to present herewith our proposal outlining the scope of services together with our fees and terms of engagement in rendering our services.
RETAINER SERVICES OF SB LAW:
A. Scope of Works:
Our provision of services shall be as follows:
- Legal advice for matters arising during business operation of Client;
- Updateing legislation in relation to Investment Law and Enterprise Law, Labor Law and other relevant laws. Whenever there is a new relevant law or enactment of any existing law, SB Law shall provide legal update notice to Client with details of the updated content;
- Preparation of minutes/resolutions in respect of Director’s Meetings, notices, consent, and proxies for Client;
- Preparation of standard Director’s resolutions and related documents pertaining to change of directors, secretaries and registered office;
- Reviewing and/or preparing and finalizing drafts of communication between the Client and its partners, customers or competent authority;
- Reviewing and/or preparing customer service contract, labor contract, lease contract, warning letters etc. to be executed between Client and other relevant parties;
- Representing Client before and liaison on their behalf with the Competence Authorities or individuals, organizations as authorized
B. Performance of Services:
The working relationship between SB Law and Client shall be based on the premise that SB Law shall act as the legal division of Client and the communication for different services shall be either in any or all of the following form:
- Email;
- Telephone and/or facsimile;
- Direct
Both SB Law and Client agree that at no point of time shall the Services Performance provided by SB Law create an employer-employee relationship between the Consultant or Lawyer entrusted by SB Law (hereinafter referred to as “Consultant”) and Client. The Consultant shall have no right to receive any employee benefits including, but not limited to, health and accident insurance, life insurance, sick leave and/or vacation. The working hours of the Consultant with Client shall be determined by SB Law but shall be reasonably enough to cover all the obligations towards Client.
The service charges of SB Law are applicable to, though it is not limited to, telephone calls, correspondence, e-mails, meetings, legal analysis and research, review and drafting of documents, depositions, conferences and travel. Client shall not be typically charged for occasional calls which would last for a few minutes, up to a maximum of five (05) minutes. Any call beyond ten (10) minutes shall be automatically billed.
All the meetings shall be fixed by appointment and both SB Law and Client shall stick to the schedule. In case of any cancellation, an advance notice of minimum 12 hours shall be adhered. Missed meetings or cancellations without sufficient notice will be billed to Client.
Client shall appreciate that SB Law is a law firm doing business with many other clients and therefore Client shall provide a reasonable, fair and realistic notice to SB Law for their requests and projects. In case of an emergency SB Law will arrange reasonable time to prioritize the Customer's request. However, SB Law may need a reasonable time to collect, exchange detailed clarification of projects in order to meet expectations and provide the best support and highest quality work.
C. Standard Working Hours And Retainer Fee:
From our preliminarily discussion, we assume that with current business operation of Client, SB Law shall render its legal retainer services for a number of working hours per month (hereinafter referred to as “Standard Working Hours”).
SB Law shall warrant that its Consultant shall be available during normal working hours (from Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:30 pm. National Holiday and weekends shall not be classified to normal working time). Time for which charges applied to Services requested by Client in Extra Time other than normal working hours as defined herein shall be duplicated. In case the Standard Working Hours in a month is not depleted, the redundant time shall be automatically added into the Standard Working Hours of the next month. However, the Accumulated Standard Working Hours in a month must not exceed 180% normal Standard Working Hours of 01 month. At presence, SB Law provide following Service Packages:
| Service Package | Standard Working Hours/01 month | Professional fee (VND) |
| Primary Package | 05 | 8,000,000 |
| Standard Package | 10 | 14,000,000 |
| Premium Package | 15 | 20,000,000 |
Additional work beyond the scope of Legal Retainer Services as defined in Item or beyond the Standard Working Hours must be negotiated separately and will be billed separately at the full standard hourly rate (5,672,000VND/01 working hour) according to service category with payment due upon receipt.
D. Billing Procedures
SB Law invoices will be sent one week after commencement of the next service period start date. Amounts are due three (03) working dates before commencement of each service period start date. Professional fee must be paid in full regardless whether Client has depleted standard working hours in related month or not. Paid retainer fee shall be non-refundable.
If the volume of work implemented by SB LAW exceeds registered Standard Working Hours, SB LAW will inform and propose Client for confirmation about the extra fee equivalent to the extra time (the actual working time over standard hourly rate i.e. 5,672,000VND/01 working hour). The extra fee will be automatically transferred to the service fee of following month.
In case Client’s specific assignment is complicated and will be in need of deep participation of SB LAW in such assignment and it leads to the required working hours more than the standard working hours, SB LAW will inform Client, and then, Client will choose the following options (1) or SB LAW will implement such assignment under the Retainer Service Contract; (2) or SB LAW and Client will sign another contract to implement such assignment.
We typically render monthly statements. Each statement will include the fees for services rendered and the disbursements for services provided, such as postage, telephone, photocopying, word processing, delivery, computer research, staff overtime on specific rush projects, filing fees, messenger service and independent filing or search services. In some instances, disbursements for in-house services may include the indirect expenses associated with providing the service. Extra amount other than Retainer Fee shown on these statements are payable within ten (10) days after the date of the statements. Statements that are not paid within ten (10) days are assessed a late payment charge at the rate of one and one-half percent (1½%) per month on the unpaid balance.
E. SERVICES PERIOD:
The service period shall be 06 months from the signing date of the contract. Within 01 month before the expiry date of this Contract, should no Party otherwise notice in writing, the Legal Retainer Contract shall be automatically extended to 06 (six) months counted from the following date.
