Disclaimer: This article is not a substitute for legal advice. No action in regard to your particular matter should be taken until you have first sought full legal or professional advice from a lawyer fully retained to act on your behalf.
A joint retainer can arise in a situation where both parties request one lawyer assist them to deal with their matter.
Most family law lawyers will shy away from offering a couple a joint retainer option based on a possible conflict of interest. However, there is a niche area in which such joint retainers could and do work, without a conflict of interest arising.
In the situation where the parties are amicable and have a general idea of how they wish to deal with their rights and obligations arising from either the start of a new relationship or from issues arising from the breakdown of their relationship, the opportunity to hire one lawyer to assist them is advantageous. It keeps down any costs and conflict.
At the beginning of a relationship, a joint retainer can work where a couple is in agreement as to the drafting of a domestic contract and its contents, whether it is a cohabitation agreement or a marriage contract.
Joint retainers in family law are also a way of assisting separating couples, whether married or common-law, who are not actively disagreeing and wish to navigate their separation or divorce in an amicable way to achieve a fair and reasonable resolution of the breakdown of their relationship. It is also a way of ensuring that the couple will continue on with their new futures as friends and have the ability to amicably co-parent their children.
In the joint retainer scenario, the lawyer does not offer legal advice nor does that lawyer represent either party in the negotiation. A jointly retained lawyer is limited to offering general legal information to the parties only and cannot take sides. The couple is then open to use this legal information to assist them in fine tuning their agreement as they wish.
Notwithstanding the joint retainer option, the couple needs to also realize that they still have the ability to each get Independent Legal Advice (“ILA”) from their own lawyer retained specifically to provide ILA in order to ensure that they have made a good deal and, once they have done so, they can then confidently sign their agreement.
If you have questions about joint retainers in family law, contact Michelle Mehl, here.