Reminder

In essence, this service enables an SME to have a part-time in-house lawyer who creates and maintains the legal function of a business.

The full range of in-house services are set out here though only the larger businesses will include all of them. Most of them will only need one or two on a regular basis.

For SMEs the role of a legal function is probably best described as having two sides:

• One side is the most common association with lawyers: to help the business react to certain issues with the most obvious being disputes.

• The second side, the more proactive is to sit alongside other key parts of the business – finance, commercial – and help the business be a business. Larger businesses will have a standing request that nothing is signed off until approved by the in-house lawyer. For SMEs, increasingly you see Generative AI being used for this part.

The How

In general, the client commits to a number of days per month where we make ourselves available. This means that the business must have enough work to justify the commitment. We can help with that assessment as it isn’t in our interest not have enough work to justify the commitment. It is probably worth noting that commitment could change over time ie start higher and then reduce down after a period of time. Also it is possible that more days are needed in the first few months but then once the legal function is established, the number of days goes back down.

For who

Only those SMEs that have regular legal needs over the year or even for a short period of time, for example as part of project that takes 2-3 months.

The real benefit of the in-house retainer against the Sam Retainer and the Ad Hoc Service is that the hourly rate used for the day rate is lower.

Also, we prioritise clients under In-house Retainers and do not take on more than can be managed. If we have enough to fill the working days of a month, then we will not take on anymore so there is a limit.

Name and object

This one doesn’t have a name – to quote a famous line: it does what it says on the tin.

The icon – a legal function acts as gear that works with other moving parts of the business.