Services · 02 · Monthly retainer

Your legal department, four countries wide.

The company is registered — now it signs, hires, leases and answers letters. A named lawyer on a monthly retainer runs the legal life of the business across Bosnia, Albania, Croatia and North Macedonia, so operations never queue behind a document.

Coverage4 in 1countries under one retainer, one named lawyer, one monthly invoice
Response48hstandard response window on retainer matters — agreed in writing
Hourly meter0the fee buys outcomes and response times, not hours
Fee review4×/yrquarterly volume review — the retainer adjusts up or down, in writing
Scenarios

When this is your service.

The retainer exists for companies that have passed the registration stage and now generate legal work by simply operating. Three situations we see weekly:

Operating flow

The contract pipeline

Suppliers, distributors, landlords, clients — a steady flow of agreements that someone must read before the signature, in the local language and under local law.

People

Relocating key staff

Executives and specialists moving into the region need work and residence permits, employment contracts and payroll positions that hold up at the border and at the labour inspectorate.

Regulators

The letter arrives

Tax office queries, inspections, licence renewals. Answered on time and in the right tone, these are routine; ignored for three weeks, they become case files.

Process

How the retainer starts.

No discovery marathon. One scoping conversation, a written retainer offer, and a named lawyer in your channel within days.

01

Scope the volume

One call to map your contract flow, headcount plans and regulatory exposure. You receive a retainer offer in writing: monthly fee, included volume, response times.

02

Meet your lawyer

A named lawyer — not a rotating bench — joins your channel of choice. They read the corporate file first, so the first question is never “can you send the incorporation documents”.

03

Run the rhythm

Documents in, documents out, with agreed response times. Permits, filings and renewals sit in a calendar we keep, not in someone's memory.

04

Review quarterly

Every quarter we compare the retainer to actual volume and adjust it in writing — up or down. You are never silently over- or under-buying counsel.

What a retainer month absorbs

Typical share of matters handled, %. Illustrative mix across active retainers.

Contracts & commercialContracts & commercial: 40%40%Employment & permitsEmployment & permits: 25%25%Corporate housekeepingCorporate housekeeping: 20%20%Regulators & disputesRegulators & disputes: 15%15%

Illustrative distribution; your mix is measured at the quarterly review.

Case notes

How this plays out in the region.

Two case notes from the practice this service is built on — international owners, regional facts, and the method doing its job.

DACH owner · manufacturing · Bosnia

Twelve permits, one calendar

The situation

A German-owned plant with 40 staff — six of them third-country specialists — ran permits and filings from a spreadsheet nobody owned. An inspection letter arrived during the summer shutdown and sat unanswered for three weeks.

The work

The retainer took over the file: a single permit-and-filing calendar, standardised employment contracts in both languages, and the inspectorate answered on time and in the right register — then a schedule of every renewal for the next 24 months.

The outcome

The inspection closed without penalty; no permit has lapsed since. The monthly fee is now a line item the CFO describes as insurance that answers email.

US owner · software · North Macedonia

A back office that stopped improvising

The situation

A US software company had grown a 15-engineer Skopje team on contractor agreements copied from another country — workable until a major customer's vendor audit asked hard questions about employment compliance.

The work

Conversion to compliant local employment without losing anyone: contracts, IP assignment done properly, bonus structures papered to survive diligence, and the audit answered with documents instead of explanations.

The outcome

The vendor audit passed; the contractor-risk line came off the customer's risk register — and off the cap-table conversation at the next funding round.

Case notes are composites: drawn from real regional practice, with details merged and anonymised. They illustrate the method — no two engagements, and no two outcomes, are identical.

Pricing

A monthly fee, agreed in writing.

The retainer is a fixed monthly fee for a defined volume of work, quoted after the scoping call and confirmed in writing. Anything outside the scope — a dispute that goes to court, a one-off project — is quoted separately before the work starts, never invoiced after it.

The rule

No hourly meter. The fee buys outcomes and response times, not hours. If a month is quiet, the quarterly review adjusts the fee; if a month is heavy, that is our problem to staff — the invoice does not move.

One desk

Usually paired with.

Each service reuses the documents, translations and KYC already in your file — the second engagement is always faster than the first.

Scoped work is quoted once, in writing, with a named deliverable and a deadline — the quote does not move after you accept it. Payment is processed by Stripe; the invoice is issued by Voixa Consultors S.L.

Start here

Counsel that already knows your file.

Send a short brief — company, countries, what the next quarter looks like. We answer with a retainer offer in writing: fee, volume, response times, named lawyer.