Nairobi · Legal parody

The Retainer.

Every objection is billable.

A fictional Nairobi counsel for clients whose paperwork is immaculate and whose explanations need another draft.

Read the case files

Counsel Retainer is an invented character. All clients, cases and correspondence on this page are fictional.

Textured gouache portrait of the invented Counsel Retainer, with a broad face, close-cropped square beard and thin gold-rim glasses, wearing a navy double-breasted pinstripe suit and burgundy tie beside old leather legal volumes in warm amber window light. — Gouache illustration · Not a photograph

Textured gouache illustration of a younger Counsel Retainer with a full afro and gold-rim glasses, wearing a faded light denim shirt and speaking into a wired microphone while holding blank folded paper at a modest neighbourhood poetry show. — A fictional open mic · Gouache illustration

Origin

From open mic to closed-door meeting.

At his first open mic, Counsel Retainer wrote a poem about giving people a voice.

Years later, he found a more lucrative audience: people willing to pay by the hour to keep everyone else quiet.

He still believes in the power of words. Especially “as per my previous email”.

Case Files

Selected (fictional) matters.

Invented clients. Invented disputes. Very real formatting.

Hate Consult (fictional)The Nurse and the Emergency Exit

A nurse politely asked that the emergency exit on the third floor be cleared of decorative planters.

Within the hour, Counsel Retainer issued a formal demand that she cease and desist from using the word “exit” in any public, private or hypothetical setting without the developer’s prior written permission, countersigned in triplicate.

The objection was filed against the door.

Plot Twist Developments (fictional)The Teacher and the Missing Stair

A teacher counted the steps to her flat and asked, reasonably, where stair 4 had gone.

Counsel Retainer rose, adjusted his cufflinks and requested an adjournment until such time as the staircase is emotionally ready to discuss its past.

Stairs 3 and 5 have declined to comment.

Phantom Square Properties (fictional)The Electrician and the Lobby

An electrician offered to install lights in the lobby. Free of charge. Same afternoon.

Counsel Retainer replied with an eleven-page notice reserving the developer’s right to describe darkness as an “exclusive ambient amenity,” with a twelve-page annex defining “ambient.”

The invoice, however, was clearly visible.

We Konya

Legal representative to the Cartel of Comparative Fees.

In the We Konya universe, Counsel Retainer represents this fictional group of developers whose favourite building material is fine print.

Some firms bill in six-minute increments. Counsel bills for the silence between them.

Visit We Konya