A live dispute is not one task. It is a sequence of deadlines over weeks or months — a reply due on Friday, a hearing on Tuesday, a settlement figure to answer, a letter that should not be answered at all. Engagements structured around a single document at a single moment serve that badly, and they are also the reason many people put off taking advice until the position has already hardened. The advisory retainer is a monthly engagement under which the matter is run continuously: the correspondence is drafted and sent as a strategy rather than in instalments, deadlines are tracked, and there is somebody to ask before an email is sent rather than after.
Why an ongoing engagement, rather than a notice
In most individual disputes — with an employer, an institution, a bank, or a counterparty — the outcome is decided on a written record, and that record is built well before any proceeding is filed. A single legal notice sent into that situation without a surrounding strategy is usually met with a holding reply and absorbed. What tends to change a position is sustained, specific and documented correspondence: putting particular questions the other side must either answer or visibly decline to answer, requiring disclosure of the material being relied on before responding on merits, and fixing the other side to one version of events early, while it is still cheap for them to give one.
That is work that has to be done continuously and consistently. It is also work in which the wrong reply, sent quickly and without advice, can cost more than any subsequent step recovers.
Matters taken on retainer
The retainer is designed for individual clients rather than institutions. It is most commonly used in:
- Employment and workplace disputes — disciplinary enquiries and show-cause notices, performance improvement plans used as exit devices, employment bond and training-cost demands, deductions from full and final settlement, and post-exit disputes over relieving letters, experience letters and vested stock. This is described in detail on the employment lawyer for employees page.
- POSH proceedings — advisory and drafting support through an Internal Committee inquiry, for a complainant or a respondent, where the process itself is contested. Rule 7(6) of the POSH Rules bars a legal practitioner from appearing before an Internal Committee, so the engagement is advisory: the representations, replies and objections are prepared, and they issue over your own name.
- Bank account freezes and liens — where an account has been frozen on a cyber-fraud reference and the matter requires sustained correspondence with the bank, the police and the relevant authorities. See the bank freeze SOP checker.
- Legal notices and recovery — where a demand has been received or has to be pursued, and the exchange is expected to run over several rounds.
- Documents withheld by an institution — degree certificates, transcripts, relieving letters or records held back by a university, a college or a former employer.
What the retainer covers
- Review of the documents on the file and an assessment of the position, updated as the matter develops.
- Drafting of all correspondence in the matter — replies, demands, representations, and communications to the other side, to an internal committee, or to an authority.
- Review of anything you are asked to sign, reply to or attend, before you do.
- Scheduled discussion at agreed intervals, and availability between those intervals where a deadline is running.
- Tracking of dates, limitation and internal timelines in the matter.
- Preparation of the file so that, if a proceeding does become necessary, the record supports it.
What it does not cover
Stated plainly, so there is nothing to discover later:
- Institution of proceedings, and appearance before a court, tribunal or authority. These are engaged separately, and the basis is agreed in writing before anything is filed.
- Court fees, statutory charges, process fees, and out-of-pocket expenses such as travel where an appearance outside Delhi is required.
- Matters unrelated to the dispute the retainer is taken for. A new matter is a new engagement.
- Any assurance as to outcome. What is undertaken is the conduct of the matter, not a result.
Fee basis
The structure matters more than the number. Individual clients in a dispute are usually asked, elsewhere, for a substantial lump sum at the outset — at precisely the moment when income may have stopped and the outcome is least certain. That is the single most common reason people delay taking advice until their position has already been damaged. This practice does not work that way for individual matters of this kind.
Instead the engagement is charged as a scoped monthly retainer, agreed in writing, payable month to month and spread across the life of the dispute rather than demanded in advance of it. There is no lock-in and no minimum term, so the cost tracks how long the matter actually runs. Either side may bring the retainer to an end, and where it ends the file position, the pending steps and any deadline then running are set out in writing so the matter can be continued elsewhere without loss.
The monthly figure depends on the nature of the matter and the volume of correspondence it is expected to generate, and is set against a scope that is defined in writing before anything begins, so that what is covered and what is not is settled at the outset rather than argued about later. It is discussed openly at the consultation, before any commitment, and confirmed in writing before any work begins. There are no billable-hour surprises: the monthly figure is the monthly figure, and anything falling outside it — filing, appearance, court fees — is identified and agreed separately before it is incurred.
Where a matter proceeds to a retainer immediately after a consultation, the consultation fee is adjusted against the first month. Entry options, including a document review with a written note, are set out on the consultation and fees page.
Working remotely, and from outside Delhi
Most of the work in an advisory retainer is documentary. It consists of reading, drafting and scheduled discussion, and none of it requires anyone to be in the same room. A substantial part of this practice’s retainer work is conducted for clients who are not in Delhi and who never attend the office.
In practice that means:
- Documents are exchanged electronically. Nothing needs to be couriered or delivered in person unless a proceeding specifically requires an original.
- Discussion is by telephone or video, at a time fixed in advance rather than whenever a call happens to connect.
- Every discussion is followed by a written record of what was decided, so the position does not depend on anyone’s recollection of a call.
- Drafts are sent for your approval before anything is issued in your name.
- Where a matter does require appearance before a court or authority in another city, that is identified early and addressed as part of the engagement, whether by appearing, by instructing local counsel, or by seeking appearance through video conferencing where the forum permits it.
Employment matters in particular are frequently governed by contractual jurisdiction clauses pointing to the employer’s registered office, so the applicable forum is often Delhi regardless of where the employee is living and working.
How the work looks in practice
The following are drawn from matters conducted on this basis. Names, employers, sectors and identifying details have been removed. Outcomes depend entirely on the facts of the particular matter, the documents available and the conduct of the other side; nothing below is an assurance that a comparable result can be obtained in any other case.
Three months’ salary withheld, and an unexplained deduction
The situation. A solution architect at an analytics company resigned and served his notice period in full. The employer had stopped processing payroll two months before his last working day: no salary, no payslip and no provident fund remittance for three successive wage periods, throughout which he remained in service and during which the employer’s own records recorded nil loss of pay. The accumulated arrears were then reduced by a large deduction described in the employer’s own statement only as a “one-time deduction”, under a head it never identified despite being asked five times in writing. Release of the balance was made conditional on his signing an acknowledgment that operated as a general release of all claims.
The approach. A documented sequence establishing, from the employer’s own records, that no loss of pay had been recorded; that the deduction was unauthorised and unexplained; and that payment of admitted wages could not lawfully be made conditional on a release of disputed claims.
The outcome. The full withheld amount was released within a month.
A show cause notice, an undisclosed case, and a next-day inquiry
The situation. A senior manager at a large multinational services company was called into a meeting of which no minutes were kept, and was then served with a show cause notice allowing three days to reply. The company relied on chat extracts to characterise his conduct while refusing to produce them, taking the position that as a participant in the conversations he was in no position to question the inferences drawn from them. It then directed him to appear before an inquiry officer the following afternoon, on a few hours’ notice. In the course of its own correspondence it conceded that no specific policy or rule had been identified as breached.
The approach. Replies under protest and without prejudice — denying the allegations, confirming willingness to attend a fair and impartial inquiry, and declining nothing — coupled with a schedule of the particulars required before any reply on merits, a rejoinder pressing the refusal to disclose, and escalation to leadership. Each procedural lapse was recorded in writing as it occurred, and the concession that no rule had been breached was fixed on the record rather than argued about later.
The outcome. The inquiry was withdrawn and he exited on clean terms.
Restrictions imposed before any complaint existed
The situation. An employee was made the respondent in an internal committee proceeding and was subjected to interim restrictions, including a direction to work from home, before any written complaint existed on the file.
The approach. Because Rule 7(6) of the POSH Rules bars a legal practitioner from appearing before an Internal Committee, the engagement was advisory and drafting throughout: a sequence of escalating written representations, issued over the client’s own name, identifying each departure from the procedure the statute prescribes — constitution of the committee, the existence and disclosure of a written complaint, the material relied on, the opportunity to respond and the statutory timelines — framed against the Supreme Court’s directions in Aureliano Fernandes v. State of Goa.
The outcome. The proceedings were dropped within a month and the work-from-home direction was withdrawn.
A training-bond demand after thirty-two of thirty-six months
The situation. An employee who had served roughly thirty-two months of a thirty-six-month training bond resigned and was met with a demand for the entire bond amount.
The approach. A reply setting out the position under Section 74 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 — that recovery is confined to reasonable compensation for loss actually suffered — together with a pro-rata computation against the months actually served, a request that the employer substantiate the training expenditure it claimed to have incurred, and escalation beyond the local human resources function when the initial position did not move.
The outcome. The demand was withdrawn.
What these have in common is not the subject matter. In each, the position moved because a sequence of written steps was built over weeks, each one narrowing what the other side could later say — not because a single document was sent once.
How an engagement starts
- A consultation, on the facts and the documents, to establish what the position actually is and whether a retainer is the right structure. If it is not, that is said.
- A written engagement setting out the scope, the monthly fee, what is excluded and how the retainer may be ended.
- A documents list, so that the file is complete before the first substantive step rather than after it.
- The first step in the matter — which, where a deadline is already running, is taken the same week.
Conflicts are checked before a consultation is arranged. Where a conflict exists it is disclosed rather than worked around.
Considering an ongoing engagement?
A preliminary case assessment captures the matter type, the stage it has reached, the documents available and any deadline already running, so the first conversation starts from the record. If you would rather begin with a single consultation, that option is on the fees page.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a retainer and a one-time engagement?
A one-time engagement suits a discrete task with a defined endpoint — a single notice, a contract reviewed before signing, a written opinion on whether a demand is enforceable. A retainer suits a live dispute generating a sequence of deadlines over weeks or months, where the correspondence must be run continuously and each step has to be consistent with the last. Where a matter suits a one-time engagement, it is taken that way and that is said at the outset.
Does the retainer include filing and appearances?
No. It covers advisory and correspondence work in the ongoing dispute. Instituting a proceeding, appearing before a court or tribunal, court fees, statutory charges and out-of-pocket expenses are separate and are agreed in writing before they are incurred. Where a matter moves into litigation the basis of engagement is revisited rather than assumed.
Can a matter be handled entirely remotely?
In most advisory and correspondence-led matters, yes. Documents are exchanged electronically, discussion is by telephone or video at a fixed time, and every step is confirmed in writing. Where appearance in another city is required, that is addressed as part of the engagement.
Can the retainer be ended?
It runs month to month and either side may end it. Where it ends, the file position, the pending steps and any deadline then running are set out in writing so the matter can be continued elsewhere without loss.
Is the consultation fee adjusted against the retainer?
Where a matter proceeds to a retainer immediately after the consultation, the consultation fee is adjusted against the first month. Fee terms are confirmed in writing before work begins.