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The Retainer Agreement states: "The scope of legal services to be provided include:...selection and retention of experts and investigators as necessary." Now he wants me to pay to retain an expert witness. I believe that this contract says that he will retain the expert. If I don't settle or pay for the expert, he will withdraw from the case. We need to retain the expert before Oct 15.
1 ANSWER
To me, the retainer is just saying that the attorney will help to find the proper experts, not that the attorney will pay for those experts. Indeed, I believe that the attorney would violate his/her ethical obligations by paying for an expert, as an attorney is not allowed to promote litigation (a form of champerty). Thus, even where the attorney is on contingency and takes no fee except a share of what the client receives, the client is still responsible for filing fees, court reporter fees, copying costs, expert fees, etc.
Answered on Oct 03rd, 2013 at 2:35 PM