For Advisers, Counsel, and Physicians

You are likely reading this because a principal you advise has raised this, or is about to. This page is written for you and contains what you need rather than what he would like you to find persuasive.

What it is, in your terms

A retained deep-work mentoring engagement with a single practitioner. It is not coaching and is not offered as such. The stated mechanism is neither material nor psychological, so it sits outside every licensed and accredited category and makes no claim to sit inside one. That is disclosed at the outset in writing and acknowledged in writing before anything proceeds.

Nothing here is medical, psychiatric, psychological, legal, or investment advice, and engagements are declined or deferred where a health matter is live.

The three things you will want to check

Undue influence. Safeguards are covenanted rather than promised: an absolute bar on gifts, bequests, and testamentary benefits, with a duty to refuse and to notify your office if one is attempted; a bar on equity, co-investment, loans, and business dealings in either direction; a written independent-adviser acknowledgement; a required designated person with standing to raise a concern directly; and annual client attestation that no benefit has flowed outside the fee. Full text at Independence.

Capacity and screening. A written capacity screen at intake, with hard exclusions for conservatorship, active health crisis, acute grief, and indications of cognitive decline. Approaches are also declined where the principal cannot identify a person with standing to raise a concern.

Confidentiality and identity. Three levels, including a pseudonymity architecture in which the identity linkage is held by outside counsel rather than by the practitioner. Engagements in which the principal's identity is unknown to the practitioner are refused as policy, for reasons at Confidentiality.

Financial structure

Fees are fixed and not negotiated in either direction. Contracting is with an entity where the client prefers. Money paid in advance is not treated as earned until the work is done: a reserve is held in a separate account from the operating one, covering every unworked portion of every active retainer plus one year of operating cost, and its segregation is stated in the agreement. Termination without cause is available to both parties with a defined refund formula, and full refund applies in the event of death or permanent withdrawal. Continuity and succession provisions apply at the retained level and above.

Scope and cadence

An engagement is defined in writing before it begins: the objective, the number and length of sessions, the days in residence, the volume and duration of standing operations, and the form of written assessment at the close. Operations continuing beyond the end of an engagement are disclosed at the outset and may be declined by the client in writing at any time.

What is deliberately not on this page

The account of how the work operates is substantial, specific, and outside anything you are professionally positioned to evaluate. A compressed version would be misleading, and it is not your question. It is disclosed in full to the principal, in writing, before commitment.

Your question is whether the safeguards are real. Everything above is in the agreement and available for your review before your client signs anything.