Making Firms Do It Your Way

"The attorney-client relationship is sadly misunderstood by many on both sides of the table.

Our Company has no in-house lawyers, and I am not a lawyer. Drawing on our substantial experience in turning to outside law firms for litigation and other legal services, we have woven themes from our most troubling encounters with attorneys into our own legal engagement letter. The letter attempts to clarify the more important areas of our attorney relationships. Our internal process works like this: We will contact a law firm that seems to have a specialty we need. We interview their attorneys, and if they seem good, we agree to hire them.

They then send us their engagement letter, usually a five-page document, explaining all their rights in relation to how they're going to get paid, but saying little or nothing about their methodology or responsibilities for the job they're contracting to do.

We normally sign their engagement letter unchanged and return it to them with a copy of our agreement, asking that they fill it out, sign it, and return it, or call and discuss any part of it.

This has been our recent batting average in the process:

• At three law firms the managing partners signed it, unchanged.

• One major Los Angeles firm couldn't bring itself to sign it, but a partner sent back a one-page letter saying they understood it, agreed with it, and would try hard to follow it.

• A fifth, New York firm, specializing as a plaintiffs firm, decided it didn't want to represent our affiliate anymore. They were particularly upset with paragraph 10: "We will both pay for our own mistake." The senior partner told me, in an apparent fit of anger, that the agreement was "a contract of slavery."

A look at our company's agreement may give the legal profession another prospective on the attorney-client chasm."