The Nagamoto Retainer: The Virtual Law Firm

TEAMS NOT BRANCH OFFICES
HARNESSING COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
THE POWER OF DELEGATION

THE BRIEF

“Dear Bar. Grace,

I write further to the instructions of our Founder and Chairman, Mr Hitoshi Nagamoto, and he sends his fond regards.

In light of the above we require your Firm to do the following:

1. Indicate if you are willing to accept our offer of Retainer as Legal Representative for Africa and if yes send us your Hourly Rates and draft Retainer agreement.

2. Draft an opinion on the regulatory requirements for starting a business in Nigeria and the implications of running that business through Nigeria into other African countries with emphasis on Enforcement of Contracts across Borders in Africa.

3. We had a partner in Nigeria called Star Enterprises who entered into an exclusive agreement with us, they breached our Contract and started using our Brand “Red Sun” to sell counterfeit phones, we would also like you to advise us on the Litigation process to commence against them, they are based in Edo State.

We expect that you will revert with all the above by tomorrow as Mr Nagamoto and I intend to meet with you on the last day of the IBA conference to discuss your advice in the aforementioned opinions.

Please note that we have sent this same instruction to 2 other Law Firms and will be speaking with the Firm that is able to give us the best advice within the stipulated time frame.

Sincerely,

Miko Hiyabosa
Head, Legal”

ACTIONS

HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE NEED FOR FAST TURNAROUND TIME VERSUS WELL RESEARCHED WORK?

Bar. Grace first sent an acknowledgement email to Miko and attached her Firm Profile, A draft Retainer Agreement and the Firms Hourly Rate that same night. She also created a Task on Case Manager and divided the Brief into Corporate for Hamza and Litigation for Chioma using the Case management Litigation and Non-Litigation folders under NAGAMOTO INDUSTRIES on the dashboard.

She left instruction’s for them to have both opinions ready in the next 6 hours as it was still 10:30 pm in Seoul whilst in Nigeria the time was 2:30 am and thus for the brief to be ready before 12 noon the next day in Seoul the Nigerian team should have concluded it by at most 9 am in Nigeria.

Do you think that is a mission impossible?