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"Outside General Counsel" Monthly Fee Service- Illegal/Unethical
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Date: March 16th, 2015 9:43 PM Author: Green charismatic location i met a friend of a friend today who has a small biz. he pays some shitlaw firm $2500/mo to do basically jack shit whether he needs them for anything or not. they dont even send him a bill of the services he uses.
i googled around and this appears to be the sort of service he has: http://www.morisi.com/general-corporate-counsel/ (he doesnt use them, as far as i know -- this just an example of what it seems to be)
is this unethical lies & fraud? seems like it would be an excessive fee if they're doing ZERO work.
this guy is a goyim who is bad with money, and i was trying to tell him he's getting ripped off. |
Date: March 16th, 2015 9:44 PM Author: passionate marketing idea trailer park oh no (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502462) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 9:49 PM Author: indigo confused field why wld this be unethical.. its very common i think, ur basically paying to have someone on retainer whenever u want (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502499) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:07 PM Author: Green charismatic location isn't a retainer supposed to be an ADVANCE on legal fees, and they have to refund the money if it's not used?
and fees cant be excessive. if they're doing 0.1 hrs of work for $2500, that's excessive. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:49 PM Author: Irate mad cow disease A retainer is different. An advance is applied to earned fees & expenses or returned. A retainer is paying for your availability. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503425) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:55 PM Author: Green charismatic location yeah. it's unclear from the scholarship below that this is even a "true retainer." (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503470) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 9:49 PM Author: passionate marketing idea trailer park illegal to pay in-house lawyers if they have slow weeks? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502505) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:07 PM Author: Green charismatic location lulz (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502636) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:10 PM Author: Violent Aggressive Menage Organic Girlfriend are u dumb? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502666) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:12 PM Author: Green charismatic location *is an inhouse attorney*
*sets up a trust account for deposit of biweekly paychecks* |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:34 PM Author: violet meetinghouse laser beams 180 way to try and not pay taxes. Also 180 reason why the IRS loves auditing IOLA accounts.
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:39 PM Author: Green charismatic location pls respond (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503372) |
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Date: July 28th, 2017 10:07 PM Author: Green charismatic location (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#33877698) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 9:53 PM Author: French appetizing native https://www.law.uh.edu/libraries/ethics/opinions/401-500/o431.html (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502533) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:14 PM Author: Green charismatic location ty. so, the takeway i get is that it COULD be excessive if the atty is doing very little work. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502704) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:24 PM Author: French appetizing native This is probably the most important passage from that opinion as it relates to your "friend":
A true retainer, however, is not a payment for services. It is an advance fee to secure a lawyer's services, and remunerate him for loss of the opportunity to accept other employment. 7A C.J.S. Attorney and Client § 282 (1980). If the lawyer can substantiate that other employment will probably be lost by obligating himself to represent the client, then the retainer fee should be deemed earned at the moment it is received. If, however, the client discharges the attorney for cause before any opportunities have been lost, or if the attorney withdraws voluntarily, then the attorney should refund an equitable portion of the retainer. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:28 PM Author: Green charismatic location yeah i agree. i dont know how the fuck a shitlaw firm who is running this sort of racket can possibly justify that they lost any opportunity.
this is also important:
"3. The fee may be excessive if not determined by relevant factors such as the degree of likelihood that other employment will actually be precluded, and the experience, reputation and ability of the lawyer. See DR 2-106. (9-0)."
it sounds like it could go either way. bottom line is that this goy should shitcan this firm. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:00 PM Author: contagious coral new version It may be stupid but I doubt it's unethical. Even biglaw firms do shit like this -- charge a flat annual/monthly fee to cover a specific type of work for clients, whether they use it or not. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502587) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:11 PM Author: Green charismatic location i've never heard of big firms doing this, but then again, i don't do corp and i presume this is more of a corp thing. do biglaw send an hourly statement for the work they did, even if it's flat fee?
also, it's different to me to pay for potentially NO WORK vs. some biglaw firm charges a client a flat fee to do a specific set of regular tasks, where it's presumed that the flat fee is a reasonable approximation of the value of the work. for example, i know patent firms charge flat fees to manage the client's patent docket. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:21 PM Author: violet meetinghouse laser beams When I was in-house at a payday lender we had flat fee AFA arrangements like this with biglaw (literal V10 firms) for all manner of work -- anything that could get regulators or the plaintiff's bar smelling blood no matter how shitlawish in appearance.
$2500 a month aint nothing too. We had some midlaw firms collecting 15k a month and maybe handling one shitty collections matter in one state. But that's the risk you have when you do an AFA agreement -- the firm gets paid X regardless of what it does. That's the only reason they agree to flat rate everything in the first place. It comes back to bite the firm when you dump 1200 cases at $1200 a file each on the firm the next month. At that point they are happy for the volume but cry when they think how much more they could be bleeding you at $250 an hour.
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:23 PM Author: Green charismatic location i dont even know wtf this guy is getting for $2500. the firm linked in the OP seems to charge clients for additional work. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502769) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:26 PM Author: violet meetinghouse laser beams What's he do? Government contracting? He may just need them to sign off on opinions he has people prepare in-house.
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:29 PM Author: Green charismatic location he has a small retail company. no govt or anything highly regulated. he literally doesnt need monthly legal advice. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502823) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:31 PM Author: violet meetinghouse laser beams I dont know bro. Maybe they do his payroll? Maybe he's a retard? I never could get suckers to write me $2500 a month checks for no work hence why I work in-house for the man.
I wish I knew people dumb enough to pay me 30k a year to do nothing.
I suspect they do SOMETHING for him. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:46 PM Author: Twisted Theater $2500 per month is excessive for this type of service if it's truly a small company without much regular legal work. $500 to $1000 per month is market. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502963) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:56 PM Author: Green charismatic location this guy is a good goy who is losing money bc he's a retard. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503068) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:35 PM Author: contagious coral new version CR. Big, sophisticated clients do this too even with very high numbers. We had a large financial services company that was paying us millions per year to handle a particular type of work. In-house legal departments like having budget certainty. They don't have to worry about coming hat-in-hand to the business people if some file explodes and costs $5M worth of billings. Would rather just pay $2M every year and be done with it. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27502859) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:52 PM Author: Twisted Theater only lawyers would try to say something like this is unethical. the ethics rules and the profession are dumb as fuck w/r/t to billing and the billable hour. we allow lawyers to take up to 40% of an injured plaintiff's award for damages ACTUALLY SUFFERED BY THEM plus costs, yet try to claim $2500 per month from a sophisticated business client for on-call general counsel services might be excessive? give me a break.
lawyers should be able to charge whatever they want for their services. IOLTA accounts should only be used to hold actual funds held in trust, like an advance for costs or a payment of a settlement. requiring that fees be put first into a trust account, then moved to operating only once actually billed and the work is completed is retarded. tons of other service industries require upfront payment and then have some way of dealing with refund requests. only law is so dumb as to create IOLTA accounts and complex rules and spend time doing audits and actively punishing people that don't do it right.
it sounds like your friend is overpaying, but people overpay for shit all the time. dumbass lawyers handcuff themselves with their stupid ethics rules around compensation and advertising. |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:55 PM Author: contagious coral new version cr. securities class action litigation is even worse. LOL at suing on behalf of shareholders FOR THEIR OWN MONEY, extracting your pound of flesh, and then giving it back to them. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503056) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 10:58 PM Author: Twisted Theater titcr. these stupid rules and the retarded rules on advertising are almost enough to make me want to get involved with bar committees. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503091) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:13 PM Author: Green charismatic location this guy is a moron and apparently not too sophisticated, but otherwise CR. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503210) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:24 PM Author: Twisted Theater relevant article: http://myshingle.com/2014/02/articles/marketing-ideas/legal-subscription-services-revisited-ethics-edition/ (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503285) |
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Date: March 16th, 2015 11:54 PM Author: Heady peach cuckold lol @ ethics rules (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#27503459) |
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Date: July 28th, 2017 10:09 PM Author: Puce bat shit crazy national security agency You're paying for guaranteed access to the person on a predictable cost basis. I seen it done pretty regularly but it is super negative ev unless you are guaranteed to have a work flow for the guy. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#33877706) |
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Date: July 28th, 2017 10:15 PM Author: violet meetinghouse laser beams .... (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=2831743&forum_id=2#33877735) |