Work with NLI
Engagements & Pricing
NLI begins by identifying the problem, record, likely practice and track, useful work product, responsible user, and professional dependencies. The written scope—not a track label—defines the relationship.
How Work Begins
Start with fit, not a product.
Send a concise account of your role, the problem, forum and jurisdiction, deadlines, adviser status, existing record, adverse facts, prior rulings, constraints, and the work you believe would help. An inquiry does not commit NLI to accept the matter.
Engagement Types
The relationship follows the responsibility and duration of the work.
Every type remains subject to written scope, capacity, conflicts, record quality, and required professional support.
Fit review
A bounded assessment that tells you whether NLI can help, what is missing from your record, which instrument would be useful, which professionals you will need, where the boundaries fall, and a preliminary scope and fee range.
Defined project
A particular instrument or body of work with declared inputs, deliverables, milestones, fee, revisions, exclusions, authorized use, and closure.
Standing retainer
Periodic triage, early record and risk review, scheduled sessions, priority response, or conversion into separately scoped project work.
Pricing Policy
Publish honest estimates; confirm the actual fee in writing.
NLI does not present unapproved fixed prices for projects or retainers.
Current working estimate
Fit review: $500–$1,000
This estimate is subject to confirmation before payment or work. Any credit toward a larger engagement applies only when the written scope says so.
Projects and retainers
Range follows the record and scope
A preliminary range may be supplied after review. A fixed fee, estimate, milestone schedule, or retainer is valid only in the written agreement.
Record factors
Volume, organization, custody, completeness, adverse material, missing evidence, and confidentiality constraints.
Matter factors
Urgency, forum, parties and institutions, posture, public sensitivity, deadlines, and appellate or implementation requirements.
Work factors
Deliverable complexity, research, counsel or expert coordination, revision needs, travel, and hard costs.
Reduced or no-fee discretion
NLI may choose reduced-fee or no-fee work based on mission, public benefit, capacity, funding, and responsible scope. This is discretionary, not an entitlement or representation of acceptance.
How Long the Work Takes
Most instruments are delivered in days, not months.
These are the schedules NLI has typically met on comparable work. They are not guarantees, and none of them is binding until a written scope states a date.
2–3 business days
A single memorandum or focused analysis responding to a development in a live matter.
2–5 business days
A revision, negotiation, or closure package built on a record NLI has already reviewed.
3–5 business days
An instrument architecture — a settlement agreement framework, filing or hearing architecture, or a record-correction package — assembled for your professionals to review.
5–7 business days
Strategy, coalition, or amicus work requiring independent research beyond the supplied record.
1–2 weeks
Legislative or institutional-reform packages, including draft language, supporting analysis, and briefing materials.
Scope dependent
Integrated work coordinated across several routes at once. NLI states a schedule for each component before work begins.
The clock starts when a written scope is signed and the operative record is complete, not at inquiry. An incomplete record is the most common cause of delay, which is why the fit review identifies what is missing before a schedule is agreed. Compressed schedules may be available by separate written agreement. Each engagement is independently commissionable: you may retain NLI for a single deliverable or for coordinated work across several.
Matter Classification and Mission Alignment
NLI identifies why it is undertaking the work before substantive work begins.
Public significance may inform fit, but it does not determine the merits, guarantee acceptance, or authorize secondary use of engagement material.
Service matter
Undertaken principally to help a person or institution address a defined problem.
Public-interest initiative
Undertaken principally for education, jurisprudential development, institutional correction, or reform.
Mission-aligned engagement
Serves a retaining party while also addressing a recurring legal or institutional problem.
Fit review identifies whether research, publication, public accountability, advocacy, or reform is contemplated. The written scope separates client deliverables from institutional work and states publication authority, attribution, funding or sponsorship disclosure, confidentiality, and the right to decline secondary use.
The Four-Step Engagement
Substantive work begins only after written acceptance and scope.
Inquiry
NLI reviews role, problem, urgency, conflicts, record, capacity, and intake safety.
Fit review
NLI identifies likely practice and track, useful instrument, missing material, responsible user, boundaries, matter classification, and a preliminary fee range.
Written scope
The parties fix purpose, record, deliverables, responsibilities, milestones, fee, payment, revisions, confidentiality, exclusions, attribution, termination, and any separately governed public-interest purpose.
Delivery & correction
NLI supplies the agreed work, marks open questions and limits, reviews material corrections, and identifies the next responsible action.
What Is and Is Not Included
No label silently expands the scope.
Included only when written
- Defined record intake and organization
- Named analytical instrument or deliverable
- Declared milestones and review rounds
- Coordination with identified counsel or professionals
- Delivery notes, limits, open questions, and correction route
Not automatically included
- Unlimited drafting, meetings, record review, or response
- Legal representation, advice, privilege decisions, filing, or advocacy
- Expert, accounting, valuation, therapeutic, fiduciary, or mediation services
- Travel, filing fees, vendors, or other hard costs
- Campaign, publication, or public-relations activity
- Any outcome, savings, acceptance, settlement, or institutional action
Responsibilities and Boundaries
NLI supplies the decision-science work defined in the written scope. The client supplies complete and materially accurate information, preserves originals, discloses adverse facts and deadlines, retains required professionals, and decides whether to file, send, publish, sign, or rely on the work.
Counsel and other authorized professionals retain advice, representation, privilege, strategy, filing, advocacy, certification, and professional responsibility. Courts and institutions retain judgment and remedy.
NLI may decline, suspend, or terminate work for false or materially incomplete records, unlawful or abusive use, conflicts, inadequate capacity or competence, unavailable required professionals, misleading use outside scope, or deadlines that cannot responsibly be met.
Ask NLI to Review the Fit
You do not need to identify the correct practice or track. Do not send privileged, sealed, classified, highly sensitive, or time-critical material through the initial inquiry form.