To retain a lawyer essentially means to hire a lawyer to assist you with your legal matter. There are two parts to hiring a lawyer: a retainer letter and the payment of a retainer. Hiring a lawyer is a two-step process: first, we will provide you with a retainer letter which details the nature of the lawyer-client relationship; second, is the retainer fee which must be paid to engage us. A retainer is essentially a down payment on your legal services. It is held in trust by our firm, and as we perform legal services on your behalf, we withdraw our fees from the trust account. We provide a statement of account for those services. Once it has been depleted, we will ask for an additional retainer if more work is required to be performed on your behalf. If your matter is resolved and there are still retainer funds being held in trust for you, the remaining funds will be returned to you.