The question in the wrong order
The question companies ask is "should we retain a lawyer?" — which cannot be answered, because it skips a step.
The answerable question is what has the business already committed itself to? Legal exposure does not scale with revenue. It scales with the number of promises made to other people: to customers, to suppliers, and to employees.
A company with high revenue that sells for cash, delivers immediately, and employs nobody permanently carries less exposure than a smaller one with thirty employees, credit terms with ten suppliers, and a contract template downloaded from the internet.
Three signals that the moment has arrived
One — legal questions are sitting unanswered. If, in a given month, sales or HR had to decide something without being sure it was correct and went with instinct, exposure is accumulating that nobody is counting.
Two — old documents are being used for work that has changed. The template written when the company only sold goods tends to survive into the period when it also sells services, even though the delivery, warranty and ownership clauses do not transfer between the two.
Three — things are arriving with deadlines attached. Demand letters, labour inspector orders, and correspondence from regulators all start their clock on the day they are received, not on the day the company finds a lawyer.
What belongs in the retainer agreement
Agreements that work in practice tend to be short, but they answer four things clearly.
Included scope — stated as categories of work rather than an exhaustive list of everything possible: answering queries, reviewing incoming contracts, issuing correspondence.
The line where separate work begins — drafting a full new agreement, attending off-site negotiations, filings with authorities, and appearing in court. Left unstated, the two sides will discover they disagree in month three.
Named responsibility and response times — a named lead, an agreed channel, and separate windows for routine and urgent matters.
Confidentiality and file return — including what happens when the engagement ends: return of the original file, a status summary of open matters, and revocation of powers of attorney.
Questions worth asking before you sign
Questions that force an answer about method reveal more than asking whether a firm handles a given area.
- If we send a contract for review today, what happens next — who reads it, and what form does the answer come back in?
- When a matter becomes litigation, does the team change?
- Have you worked with businesses like ours, and what tends to go wrong in this kind of business?
- If you act for another client who becomes our counterparty, how is that handled?
The last question matters more than most companies think, because conflicts of interest tend to surface mid-matter rather than at signature.
Start with three documents, not a full overhaul
Most companies do not need everything reviewed in the first month. The work that pays first is the three document sets used every day.
The template you send to customers, because it is the most repeated document you have — so a single defect is reproduced with every customer.
Employment documents — contracts, work rules, and warning letter templates — because this set decides the outcome of nearly every labour dispute.
How you collect when a customer does not pay, from the form of the demand letter through to the sequence of steps before deciding to sue.
Those three cover most of what sends a mid-sized business to court. Shareholding structure, governance, and investor readiness can wait until the business reaches that point.
Read next
- Overview of business and corporate legal services
- Service detail: retained corporate legal counsel
- Employment side: employment compliance review and the guide on labour compliance audits for employers
- Once a matter reaches court: defending an employer in the Labour Court