Retainer
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
1.
The act of employing or engaging an advocate, barrister, attorney, counsel, solicitor, or proctor, to appear and prosecute or defend. The word is also used for the notice served by an attorney, &c., on the opposite party or attorney, that he has been retained; in which use it is by elision for notice of retainer: and for the fee paid to a lawyer upon his undertaking a cause; in which use it is by elision for retaining fee.
2.
The right which an executor, who is a creditor of his testator, has to retain so much of the testator's assets as will pay his own debt is called the right of retainer; and the term would not be inapplicable in other cases of a depositary or trustee of funds who should claim to withhold a portion to reimburse his expenditures. Retention is also applied to this right.
3.
A servant, not menial or familiar, — that is, not continually dwelling in the house of his master, but only wearing his livery, and attending sometimes upon special occasions, — is, in old English usage, called a retainer. Cowel. ing property until a debt due to the person claiming the right of retention shall be paid. Bell.
See Retainek.