§ Advisory Retainers
Monthly counsel · Planned cadence · Scoped hours
Counsel, beforeit becomes urgent.
Advisory retainers are for growing teams that would rather ask before a question becomes a problem. Three tiers — Core, Growth, and Counsel Desk — each with hours, scope, and response windows spelled out in writing.
- Core
- from $950/mo
- Growth
- from $1,850/mo
- Counsel Desk
- from $3,500/mo
§ 01 — Why a retainer
Before a question becomes a problem.
Growing companies generate legal questions in bursts — a contract, a hire, a contractor, a policy, a workplace issue. Most of them are easy to answer in an hour. Almost all of them are expensive if left until something goes wrong.
A retainer is a structured way to ask those questions, review the documents, and keep a thin paper trail — on a cadence that matches how you operate.
§ 02 — Three tiers
Core, Growth, Counsel Desk.
Hours, scope, and response windows are published. Unused hours and out-of-scope work are governed by the retainer agreement, which is written before any work begins.
Core Advisory
Best for: Small businesses that need monthly legal support
Monthly advisory time for contracts, policies, and employment triage.
- Up to 2 hours of advisory time per month
- Contract and policy questions
- Employment issue triage
- Monthly risk notes
- Preferred response window
Growth Advisory
Best for: Growing companies with hiring, contractor, and contract volume
Support for teams actively hiring, contracting, and negotiating. Recommended for most clients.
- Up to 5 hours of advisory time per month
- Employment and contractor support
- Contract review queue
- Quarterly legal risk review
- Preferred booking
Counsel Desk
Best for: Founder-led teams needing outside general counsel support
Outside general counsel support with planned cadence, matter tracking, and leadership time.
- Up to 10 hours of advisory time per month
- Employment, contract, and governance support
- Priority review windows
- Monthly leadership call
- Matter planning and risk tracking
§ 03 — What the hours cover
A representative month.
Contract and policy review
Vendor contracts, client agreements, contractor paperwork, and the policy updates that come with growth.
Employment triage
Offers, terminations, workplace issues, classification questions, and restrictive-covenant reads.
Risk notes
Monthly risk notes on open questions, with a running list of matters and their status — what is waiting on whom.
Quarterly risk review (Growth+)
Structured review across contracts, employment, and governance — with the changes worth making in the next quarter.
Governance and resolutions (Counsel Desk)
Board and shareholder resolutions, corporate record upkeep, and matter planning on a planned cadence.
Leadership call (Counsel Desk)
Monthly call with founders or operators to plan the quarter, escalate the hard questions, and align on priorities.
§ 04 — How a retainer starts
Five steps to a live retainer.
Business consultation
Sixty-minute call to understand the business, the team, the existing paper, and the risk patterns you are seeing.
Scope and tier
A recommended tier with hours, scope, and response windows — with room to right-size before signature.
Retainer agreement
Written retainer agreement covering scope, hours, fees, out-of-scope rates, confidentiality, conflicts, and termination.
Kick-off
Intake on live contracts and policies, the existing paper trail, and the open questions to work first.
Monthly cadence
Standing availability, monthly risk notes, and a running matter list. Quarterly reviews on Growth and Counsel Desk.
§ 05 — Related
Related practice.
§ Start an advisory retainer
Make legal a planned expense — not an emergency one.
A business consultation starts the process. The retainer is written before any work begins, with hours, scope, and response windows in black and white.
Toronto · Ontario