Spell out the retainer

Failure to agree the exact terms of the retainer with your client can be a recipe for disaster.

It can lead to complaints when your client discovers you have failed to do something he was expecting you to do, and may also lead to allegations of negligence.

The cause of complaint often goes deeper than simply failing to ensure that the client understood and agrees the terms of the retainer.

Often it can be traced back to the solicitor assuming that the client accepted what the solicitor understands to be the limits of the retainer.

However, it often transpires that the client expected the solicitor to deal with all aspects of the matter on which he was instructed, while the solicitor - because he lacks expertise in a particular area - did not.

This is of even greater importance when the solicitor's retainer is expressed in general terms.

The issue was illustrated when a firm of solicitors was asked to act for a charity; the solicitors were appointed as managers.

The firm and the charity's trustees appear never to have discussed what was meant by managers and what functions the managers were, or were not, expected to perform.

A few years later, the trustees consulted a firm of accountants, who began to query several aspects of how the charity was being managed, particularly the tax situation.

It emerged that nothing had been done about tax during the two years of the solicitors' involvement.

Before the solicitors had been appointed, one of the trustees had done a small amount of tax management.

However, when the solicitors were appointed as managers, the trustee assumed they would take on that responsibility, and as a result stopped dealing with the tax.

The solicitors, though, had no expertise in tax and did not regard that aspect of the charity's affairs as part of their remit.

They assumed that the relevant trustee would continue to deal with it.

The solicitor was ordered to pay the client 1,881.25 compensation and to reduce the bill by 500.

Every case before the adjudication panel is decided on its individual facts.

This case study is for illustration only and should not be treated as a precedent