After You Say Yes: NLRG Operating Procedures

You've taken the plunge; you've decided to give NLRG a try. You call us and get connected to an attorney with experience in the relevant area of law. Or, you fill in the form on our web page and an attorney with experience in the relevant field of law calls you. You explain the issue and set a due date. Our attorney asks a few clarifying questions, and then gives you a budget estimate. The estimate seems reasonable and you accept it.

What happens next?

Retainers

Depending on the size of the case and the issue presented, we may require a retainer. Retainer requirements are set by our accounting department, not by our research attorneys. We commonly require a retainer of 50% to 100% from a first-time user. In addition, a 100% retainer is required for all matters in which the requesting attorney has a personal interest, and in all immigration cases. If we require a retainer, we cannot begin work until the retainer is paid.

Retainers are most easily paid by credit card, using the green "Pay Invoice" button in the upper right corner of our home page.  Enter "retainer" in the invoice number field. If you do not yet have an NLRG client number, type "001" in the client number field.

Alternatively, you can send us a check. After many bad experiences, we do not advise clients to send us checks by regular mail; the service is too unreliable. Any form of overnight mail is fine. Our address can be found at the bottom of this page.

A retainer is of course just an advance payment. If the work costs less than the required retainer, which is uncommon but not unheard of, we will happily refund any amount not used, or give you an equivalent credit against the cost of future work.

Remember that for purposes of applying our enhanced rush (3-5 days) and expedited rush (1-2 days) rates, we do not start measuring time until we are able to start work. Since we cannot start work until any necessary retainer is paid, delay in paying a retainer may require use of a higher billing rate, and therefore increase our budget estimate.

Confirmation Letters

Unlike most attorneys, we do not have written retainer agreements. Instead, after you accept our budget estimate, we will send you a confirmation letter by email. The letter confirms the fact that we have been hired, describes the issue briefly, and states the budget estimate and due date. If you do not reply to the confirmation letter, we will begin working under the terms set forth.

In some cases, we may ask you to expressly reply to the confirmation letter. In most cases, however, the confirmation letter is a written confirmation of an agreement previously reached by telephone or email.

Our confirmation letters include a statement of our standard business terms. As you can see, many of the terms state clearly that we are providing advice to a licensed attorney, not representing a nonlawyer client directly. As a logical consequences of this, our bill is the responsibility of the licensed attorney who employed us, and not the responsibility of that attorney's client.

The final business terms set forth our collection terms: payment due within 30 days of the date of our invoice, which service charges applying when payment is made after the 30-day point.

In addition to sending confirmation letters, we record many of our incoming telephone calls. The recording allows us to refer back to your instructions when there is uncertainty about the project. (If there remains uncertainty even after we review the recording, we will not hesitate to contact you.) The recording also serves as additional evidence of the terms of our oral agreement.

Cancellation

You are free to cancel a research project at any time. When we receive a cancellation order, we stop all further work on the project involved.

You cannot cancel a project retroactively. If you authorize work, we expect to be paid for time spent on the project between the date of acceptance and the date of cancellation. We will therefore invoice you for time spent on a project before a cancellation order is received. Since we are charging you for the work, we often enclose an incomplete draft product as it existed at the time of the cancellation order, if we have invested sufficient time to have a draft product prepared.

As noted above, if the cost incurred as of the date of a cancellation order is less than the amount of a retainer you paid, we will happily refund the difference.

Interim Contact

Once we begin work on your project, it is possible that additional facts might be necessary or new legal theories might need to be addressed. Should we need this sort of contact, we will reach out to you directly.

We do not generally seek interim contact with your support staff. Interim contact often involves discussion of legal issues outside the scope of your support staff's expertise. To prepare the product you have asked for, it is sometimes necessary that we have interim contact with you specifically. Such contact helps us ensure that you are presented with work that represents your legal argument.

Budget Extensions

Before we begin work, we always give you a budget estimate. We never exceed the estimate; you have complete control over the cost incurred.

But our budget estimates are only estimates; they are not absolute guaranteees. We set budgets in every case we do; in over 85% of our cases, we finish within the budget.
Sometimes, however, events require that the budget estimate be modified. Our family law attorneys often explain that budget estimates are like alimony and child support: they are subject to modification for a material change in circumstances.

The most common material change in circumstances is addition of issues or products at your end. This sort of request requires additional work at our end. We are happy to do the additional work, but we will need to modify the budget estimate to account for the additional cost.

Another example occurs when the law is more complicated than we expect. When this sort of situation arises, we call you to discuss the situation. You have essentially two options. First, you can agree to increase the budget. Second, you can ask us to do the best job we can within the existing budget. The second option may require that the work product be downgraded. For example, we might prepare a summary memorandum of relevant case law instead of a full memorandum analyzing that law. If we agree to increase the budget, and a full retainer was initially required, we generally require payment of the increase before we incur more cost than the initial budget.

Due Date and Delivery

Unless other arrangements are made, our products will be in your hands by close of business on the day on which they are due. You are free, of course, to ask for a specific earlier time of delivery.

Our written products are generally delivered by email. We normally include both Microsoft Word and PDF files. We can send Word Perfect or other formats if desired; please let us know if you want them.

Shorter products will sometimes come directly from the research attorney assigned to your case, but longer products generally come from our support staff, which formats and proofreads all products, and which prepares tables for appellate briefs. Be aware of the risk that our emails might go to your spam or junk folder; please check that folder before calling about a missing product. If possible, add *.nlrg.com to your spam whitelist.

If transmission problems prevent you from receiving our product, please call us and we will work with you to solve the problem.

Payment

If you paid a 100% retainer, there will normally be no need for additional payment.
If you paid less than a 100% retainer, we will invoice you for the additional amount due. Our invoices normally go out a few days after the final product in the case. Payment is required within 30 days of the date of the invoice. After the 30-day point, service charges will accrue.

If we finish under the amount of your retainer, we will happily either refund the difference or give you a credit against future projects.

Our collection terms are stated in the statement of standard business terms attached to your confirmation letter. Shortly after your project is complete, we will invoice you for any cost not already paid by retainer. You have 30 days to pay before service charges start to accumulate.

Where funds are limited, we are willing to consider deferred payment arrangements.