Terms of Engagement: Legal Strategy Session (Missouri)
1. Services Rendered. You will receive a consultation with an attorney from HKM Employment Attorneys LLP (“HKM”) or a HKM contract attorney for the price of $475. This flat-fee payment and in exchange for the flat fee, the attorney will review documents, prepare for your session (including any necessary legal research), and meet with you in person or by telephone for one (1) consultation that will last up to an hour. If the meeting with your attorney lasts for less than 60 minutes, you will not have a right to a second meeting.
You agree to pay the $475 flat fee by credit card for this service. When you pay, the charge will be deposited into HKM’s operating account immediately. By signing this agreement, you consent to having the payment be placed into HKM’s operating account.
If HKM Employment Attorneys LLP or the HKM contract attorney concludes that it cannot go through with the LSS for any reason, you will be fully reimbursed. Also, if you decide not to go through with the consultation before the consultation with your attorney, you will get fully reimbursed.
2. Scope. The scope of our engagement will be to provide you with advice regarding the employment issue that you have specified in the description section of the Legal Strategy Session website. No other questions or issues are included or will be addressed.
The roughly one-hour LSS is necessarily limited in scope by the time and nature of a one hour strategy session. This is an attorney client relationship and your communication with HKM attorneys is confidential and privileged. However, this is a limited scope attorney client relationship and we will not be your attorneys on this or any other matter once the consultation is complete. HKM agrees to provide up to one hour of consultation regarding general employment law matters, including, for example, reviewing an employment agreement or explaining the law around family leave or discrimination law. The scope of the LSS DOES NOT include representing you with your employer or any other third party, writing any letters or advocating for you with a third party. HKM does not provide tax, bankruptcy or ERISA advice. HKM will not review and provide advice related to any court filings you may have in litigation where you are otherwise representing yourself. Once the consultation is over HKM will not provide further advice or legal assistance on your matter and the attorney client relationship will terminate.
3. Notice and Consent to Limited Representation. To help you with your legal matters, you, the client, and your attorney, agree that the attorney will limit the representation to helping you with a certain legal matter for a short time or for a particular purpose.
The attorney must act in your best interest and give you competent help. When an attorney and you agree that the attorney will provide limited help:
• The attorney DOES NOT HAVE TO GIVE MORE HELP than the attorney and you agreed; and
• The attorney DOES NOT HAVE TO HELP WITH ANY OTHER PART of your legal matter.
While performing the limited legal services, the attorney:
• Is not promising any particular outcome; and
• Is relying entirely on your disclosure of facts and will not make any independent investigation unless expressly agreed to in writing in this document.
If short-term limited representation is not reasonable, an attorney may give advice, but will also tell you of the need to get more or other legal counsel.
The attorney agrees to help you by performing the following limited services listed below and no other service, unless the a new agreement is agreed to in writing.
The attorney will review documents, prepare for your session (including any necessary legal research), and meet with you in person or by telephone for one (1) consultation that will last up to an hour. If the meeting with your attorney lasts for less than 60 minutes, you will not have a right to a second meeting. During or before the consultation, the attorney will give you advice about your issue regarding the employment issue that you have specified in the description section of the Legal Strategy Session website, answer any relating questions about your issue, advise about legal rights and responsibilities, and perform reasonable legal research and analysis. During this session, the attorney may, based on the situation, review pleadings and other documents prepared by you, evaluate your self-diagnosis of the case and advise about legal rights and responsibilities, advise about alternate means of resolving the matter including mediation and arbitration, evaluate settlement options, engage in negotiation strategies, provide guidance and procedural information regarding filing and serving documents, and suggest documents to be prepared.
Absent a separate agreement, the attorney will not draft pleadings, motions and other documents, perform factual investigation including contacting witnesses, public record searches, in-depth interview of you, perform discovery by interrogatories, deposition and requests for admissions, plan for court appearances, provide standby telephone assistance during negotiations or settlement conferences, refer you, the client, to expert witnesses, special masters or other attorneys, provide procedural assistance with an appeal, provide substantive legal arguments in an appeal, or appear in court.
The representation will be completed and terminated after the consultation with you has been completed.
By clicking below, you agree that the legal services listed above are the ONLY legal services to be provided by the attorney. You understand and agree that the attorney who is helping you with these services is not your attorney for any other purpose and does not have to give you more legal help. If the attorney is giving you advice or is helping you with legal or other documents, you understand the attorney will stop helping you when the services listed above have been completed.
In exchange for the attorney’s limited representation, you agree to pay the attorney’s fee and costs described above, $475.
4. No Guarantee of Outcome. We do not and cannot guarantee the outcome or particular results of this or any other matter, and payment of our fees is not conditioned on any particular outcome or result.
5. Legal Service Provider. HKM Employment Attorneys LLP or an HKM contract attorney will provide you legal services. We or the HKM contract attorney do not provide any federal, state or local tax advice, nor does either entity provide any legal or non-legal services other than as expressly described above.
6. Identity of Client. You confirm that we are not being engaged by any, members of your family or other individuals unless we separately and explicitly undertake such representation in writing. You also confirm that we will not and do not represent any entities, including but not limited to trusts, corporations or partnerships.
7. Client Obligations. To enable us to represent you effectively, you agree to cooperate fully with us. You and your agents will fully disclose to us all facts and documents that you believe may be relevant to the matter we undertake or that we or the HKM contract attorney may request.
8. Fee Split. If the attorney with whom you have your consultation is with an HKM contract attorney of HKM, then HKM Employment Attorneys LLP and the HKM contract attorney will be jointly responsible for your representation and will split the fee therefrom.
9. Termination of Services. Any representation pursuant to this Agreement will cease immediately and without further notice upon completion of the consultation with the attorney referenced in paragraph 1. HKM Employment Attorneys LLP and any HKM contract attorney will then close their files and will have no obligation whatsoever to provide advice, docket milestones, make filings, pursue appeals, take any other steps on your behalf, or monitor or advise you with respect to changes in the law or circumstances that might bear upon or adversely affect you.
10. Continued Legal Services After Consultation. This Agreement encompasses only the consultation described above, along with any preparation time by the attorney for that consultation. If you desire additional legal services after that, you may discuss possible further representation with the attorney providing your consultation during or after the consultation. You have no obligation of any kind to use the Legal Strategy Session service, HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, the HKM contract attorney, or any other specific firm or attorney, for additional legal services.
11. Arbitration and Waiver of Class Action. In the event a controversy arises with respect to this Agreement, with the exception of malpractice claims, jurisdiction and venue shall lie in King County, Washington. All such controversies, shall be subject to binding arbitration before the Judicial Dispute Resolution LLC in Seattle, Washington. Any claim against either Affiliate Firm or HKM Employment Attorneys LLP based out of this Agreement must be brought in your individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class action. You expressly waive any ability to maintain a class action in any forum. The arbitrator shall not have authority to combine or aggregate similar claims or conduct any class action nor make an award to any person or entity not a party to the arbitration. You understand that you would have had a right to litigate through a court, to have a judge or jury decide your case, and to be a party to a class or representative action. However, you understand and choose to have any claims decided individually, through arbitration.
12. Other counsel. You may consult independent counsel to advise you regarding this Agreement, and we encourage you to do so if you like. You also have the right to consult with independent counsel at any time while we represent you or thereafter. However, we are not responsible for any advice that any independent counsel may or may not give you, and such consultation is entirely at your sole cost and expense.
13. Integration Clause. You agree that you have not been induced to sign this agreement by any promises, representations or other statements not expressly contained herein. This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you, HKM Employment Attorneys LLP, and the HKM contract attorney. No waiver, consent, modification or change of terms of this agreement shall bind any party unless in writing and signed by all parties.
14. Questions. You should not sign this agreement if you have any questions, concerns or doubts about it. If you have any questions, concerns or doubts, please contact Dan Kalish at [email protected] or 206-826-5354 prior to signing. If you have any questions, concerns or doubts after signing, please contact HKM Employment Attorneys LLP.