RETAINER OR EMPLOYMENT

Concept of term “retainer.” The relation of attorney and client begins from the time an attorney is
retained.23 The term “retainer” may refer to either of two concepts. It may refer to the act of a client by
which he engages the services of an attorney to render legal advice, or to defend or prosecute his cause
in court. It is either general or special. A general retainer is one the purpose of which is to secure before
hand the services of an attorney for any legal problem that may afterward arise. A special retainer has
reference to a particular case or service.24 The word “retainer” may also refer to the fee which a client
pays to an attorney when the latter is retained, known as retaining fee.25 A retaining fee is a preliminary
fee paid to insure and secure his future services, to remunerate him for being deprived, by being
retained by one party, of the opportunity of rendering services to the other party and of receiving pay
from him, and the payment of such fee, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, is neither made
nor received in consideration of the services contemplated; it is apart from what the client has agreed to
pay for the services which he has retained him to perform. Its purpose is to prevent undue hardship on
the part of the attorney resulting from the rigid observance of the rule forbidding him from acting as
counsel for the other party after he has been retained by or has given professional advice to the
opposite party.2