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Having a Lawyer on Call for $300 a Year

What happens when you»re at the airport with a bag of braided hair from Africa and customs officials demand $3,000 in duties and $1,600 in fines? «Call your lawyer,» recommends Andrei Knyazev of Knyazev & Partners, a Moscow firm that offers round-the-clock legal service for a yearly retainer.

When one of Knyazev»s clients, a woman from Ivory Coast, found herself in a hairy situation with airport customs, she immediately turned to her lawyers. Well-to-do Russians and foreigners alike are discovering the value of hiring a lawyer on a retainer, a common practice among wealthy people in the West. «We're basically still living in an era of bandit capitalism,» said Vladimir Levin, one of the country»s top criminal defense lawyers.

«People haven»t learned how to coexist in a peaceful manner, so a lot of times our services come into play.» Having amassed a reasonable amount of money, people are going to have legal problems whether they like it or not, Levin said. »There»s always friction with the government and tax authorities.» The concept of a family lawyer has not yet taken root in Russia, but the idea is gaining ground. »This is somebody who will take care of the insurance papers when you get into a car accident.

Or if you kill the neighbor»s dog that bit you, they deal with the police,» said Levin. Many Russians are still slow to see the point in keeping a lawyer on call -- until they need one. When armed men burst into his apartment and robbed him at gunpoint, Vladimir Troitsky, a real-estate dealer, decided to hire an attorney to deal with police and expedite the investigation. »I didn»t think I would hire him on a permanent basis,» said Troitsky.

«But after the police caught the robbers and my lawyers won me punitive damages of $1,000, I thought they could be useful for other things too.» Since then he has used his lawyers to draw up his prenuptial agreement, fill out real estate contracts and deal with insurers after a car accident. Russians and foreigners frequently have different legal demands. »My foreign clients get into a lot less drunken fights than my Russian ones» Knyazev said.

«For foreigners it»s usually problems with the police, landlords or their Russian significant others.» »If a police officer -- or anybody else -- is trying to use a person»s ignorance of the law to extort a sum of money, then a phone call usually solves the problem,» Levin said. «But if the client is on the wrong side of the law, that»s when legal services really come in handy.» If the problem turns into a serious case, clients and lawyers usually agree on a separate contract that covers the proceedings.

«Once a case is initiated it might not cost more than the retainer, or it could be many times more,» said Levin. «But I have a principle: If a client is in trouble and doesn»t have the money right then and there, I»m not going to make him sell his car just so he can pay me».

In Russia there are few rules regulating lawyers» fees. In the United States, by comparison, there are some set charges, such as a flat fee paid in advance or an hourly rate, something rarely seen in Russia. Sometimes American lawyers agree to a fee contingent on the damages a client may be awarded in a civil suit, a practice also coming into vogue in Russia. »We haven»t become as pedantic as U.S. lawyers yet. We don»t charge for anything and everything.

We try to be reasonable,» Levin said. Prices for the retainers vary widely. Levin, who has a few dozen permanent clients, charges between $200 and $300 per month to dispense with legal help at any time of day or night. Knyazev & Partners, which has about 1,000 clients, charges $300 per year for its services. Some of Russia»s best-known lawyers, like Yukos lawyer Genrikh Padva and criminal defense lawyer Genri Reznik, cost many times more, said Levin.

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