"The Ghost Writer" begins promisingly: Adam Lang, a Tony Blair-like former prime minister, loathed for his complicity in advancing the American-driven war on terror, is living in a kind of wounded but prideful exile on Martha's Vineyard, surrounded by retainers.
The best ones are not typically consultants who are motivated by retainers and fees but by very successful entrepreneurs who have been there and done that, and who genuinely want to help us because they were in our shoes just years ago.
And when it comes to billing arrangements, Mr. Marsh recommends paying by the hour rather than by retainer: "I prefer the simple billable hours model.
You'll find fee-only advisers working in three ways: hourly, through a flat fee, and by retainer.
As tourists queue up along Bellevue Avenue every day awaiting admission to Gilded Age palaces turned museums, like the Breakers or the Elms, they are not likely to have much inkling that, behind the nearby hedges, there remains intact a world of emerald-barnacled dinosaurs attended by uniformed retainers and underwritten by ironclad fiduciary trusts.
He was murdered by his retainers.
It was a splendid affair, served by aged retainers with white napkins draped over their forearms, and the young Gyurcsany was in attendance.But that was then.
Protected by a colourful parasol held by a retainer, he conducted prayers, scattered holy water about and finally put a torch to a bonfire of straw to signify the start of the festival before hosting an open-air dinner for his several hundred guests.
In 1582, Oda Nobunaga committed suicide after a revolt led by his retainer Akechi Mitsuhide; Hideyoshi immediately made peace with Mōri, and then moved east to avenge Nobunaga by defeating Mitsuhide, which he accomplished at the Battle of Yamazaki.
"T he Tale of Genji," considered by many to be the world's first novel, was written a thousand years ago, in the Heian period, by a retainer of Empress Akiko at the Imperial Palace, in present-day Kyoto.
Money may not be everything, but when all else is hurting anyway it is a powerful tool for continued aggrievance – and every divorce lawyer's better interest is served by his retainer being topped up for as long as possible.
