Client Care
This domain tests the practical side of the retainer: how instructions are taken, scoped, priced, communicated and ended. Examiners favour scenarios where a client later complains about cost or about work the firm never agreed to do, and ask what a careful firm would have done at the outset.
Taking instructions
- Run a conflict check before accepting, and identify the true client, whether individual, company or group, and who is authorised to give instructions.
- Verify identity and source of funds as part of customer due diligence.
- Issue an engagement letter covering scope and exclusions, fee basis and estimate, disbursements, billing cycle, who handles the matter and who supervises, expected timeline, what the client must supply, the internal complaints route, file retention and how the retainer may be terminated.
- Record instructions in a contemporaneous attendance note and confirm them in writing.
Keeping the client informed
The client owns the decisions: settlement, plea, whether to appeal. Advise in writing where the stakes are high. Report at agreed intervals, acknowledge correspondence within a stated time, explain the procedure and the likely cost of the next step, and give bad news early rather than at the hearing.
Complaints, costs and ending the retainer
Operate a written complaints procedure and try to resolve matters internally; unresolved conduct issues can go to the Disciplinary Committee of the General Legal Council. Deliver a bill of costs with the account, and remind the client of the right to have costs taxed. On termination, return the client's papers, subject to a proper lien for unpaid fees, account for all client money, and hand over promptly to the successor lawyer.
Worked example
A client retains the firm to buy a house at East Legon. The engagement letter scopes the work as Lands Commission search, title investigation, drafting the assignment, stamping and registration, with disbursements estimated separately. The client later asks the firm to evict a sitting tenant. Reasoning: that is a separate contentious matter, outside scope. The firm issues a fresh engagement letter with a new fee basis rather than absorbing the work or billing it silently, which is what turns a happy client into a complaint.
Traps that cost marks
Acting for both buyer and seller in the same transaction. Guaranteeing an outcome. Accepting instructions from a director without confirming board authority. Relying on an oral retainer. Using a lien as a permanent excuse for holding documents.