JOINT RETAINER AGREEMENT

• We are required to get our clients’ agreement whenever we are acting for more than one client regarding the same matter. This includes when someone has an accompanying dependent family member who is 18 or over or when we act for both an employer and an employee for immigration matters. When this happens a law firm is said to be “acting jointly” for more than one party. Acting jointly means that we will be retained by all of you to act on the same matter, regardless of who is paying us. We are allowed to act jointly for clients only when their interests are not in conflict. We believe your interests are currently not in conflict. However, it is possible that your interests could conflict in the future. The following will apply to our acting jointly for each of you.
• We owe each of you a duty of undivided loyalty. This means that we must act in each of your best interests at all times and must not favor the interests of one of you over the interests of another, or allow anything to interfere with our loyalty to each of you or our judgment on each of your behalf’s. If we are unable to fulfill this duty of undivided loyalty to each of you, we will have to stop acting for anyone regarding this matter.

• We must disclose all relevant information to all of you. So there cannot be any information that is confidential between you. For example, if any of you asks us not to disclose something to the other, we may be in a conflict of interest. Should we receive information from any source that makes it clear we are in a conflict by acting for you jointly, we must cease acting for all of you in the matter and we would not be able to disclose the information that created the conflict of interest.

• If we act for one of you in a matter separate from this one, and we receive confidential information from that separate matter that is relevant to this matter, we will have to withdraw from this matter unless we receive the consent of the client in the separate matter to disclose that Information.

• If a conflict arises between you, we may be permitted to assist you in attempting to resolve the conflict if you wish. If it is resolved, we may continue to represent you in this matter.

This is a part of all of our Retainer Agreements. It was put online on this webpage on March 2, 2017 and there have been no changes to it since that date.