The following outlines our terms of engagement includes the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers and our Billing Policy.
Set out below is the information required by the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers of the New Zealand Law Society (“Law Society”).
1.1 The basis on which fees will be charged will be set out in our letter of engagement which will be forwarded to you at the start of any matter we are instructed to undertake for you.
1.2 You authorise us to deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice.
2.1 We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum standards specified by the Law Society. We will provide you with particulars of the minimum standards upon request.
3.1 The Law Society maintains the Lawyers Fidelity Fund for the purposes of providing clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arriving from theft by lawyers. The maximum amount payable by the Fidelity Fund by way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000.00. Except in certain circumstances specified in the Lawyers & Conveyancers Act 2006 the Fidelity Fund does not cover a client for any loss relating to money that a Lawyer is instructed to invest on behalf of the client.
4.1 The Law Society Client Care and Service information is set out below.
Whatever legal services your Lawyer is providing he or she must:
4.2 The obligations lawyers owe to clients are described in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. Those obligations are subject to other overriding duties, including duties to the Courts and the justice system.
If you would like to know more, please visit www.lawyers.org.nz.
5.1 We are required by law to verify your identity.
5.2 In some circumstances we may need to verify your source of funds for a transaction.
5.3 You authorise us to collect information about you to meet our obligations with respect to due diligence information.
5.4 You authorise us to exchange, hold and use such information, and to make any other enquiries we think appropriate to:
a) Confirm information provided to us about you is true;
b) Undertake initial and on-going customer due diligence and monitoring in accordance with the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act (AML/CFT Act);
c) Comply with other legal obligations we may have.
5.5 You accept that we may use 3rd party customer due diligence services to verify your identity and conduct other customer due diligence or monitoring required under the AML/CFT Act.
6.1 We maintain a procedure for handling any complaints by clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly.
6.2 If you have a complaint about our services or charges, you may refer your complaint to the person in our firm who has the overall responsibility for your work as set out in the letter of engagement.
6.3 If you do not wish to refer your complaint to that person, or you are not satisfied with that person’s response to your complaint, you may refer your complaint to Secha Alach, Business Manager:
The Law Society maintains a complaints service. Its details are:
Auckland District Law Society
Chancery Chambers
2-8 Chancery Street, Auckland
PO Box 58 DX CP24001
Phone: (09) 303 5270
7.1 Any limitations on the extent of our obligations to you or any limitation or exclusion of liability are set out in our letter of engagement.
8.1 We are not qualified to give:
a) Investment advice. Please refer to a qualified financial advisor;
b) Specialist tax advice. Please refer to your accountant or tax advisor;
c) Insurance advice. Please refer to your insurance broker;
d) Advice about foreign laws.
9.1 We will hold in confidence all information concerning you or your affairs that we acquire during the course of acting for you. We will not disclose any of this information to any other person except:
a. to the extent necessary or desirable to enable us to carry out your instructions; or
b. to the extent required by law or by the Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers.
9.2 Confidential information concerning you will as far as practicable be made available to only those within our firm who are providing legal services for you.
9.3 We will of course, not disclose to you confidential information which we have in relation to any other client.
9.4 If we hold funds in our trust account on your behalf, you authorise us to:
a) Provide information we hold relating to your United States Foreign Accounts Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) or Common Reporting Standard (CRS) status, or other FATCA or CRS matters, to Inland Revenue and to our banks if they request information to be able to meet their FATCA or CRS obligations; and
b) If you do not provide any such information we request, you acknowledge that we are obliged to report your non-response, identity and reportable balance to our banks and Inland Revenue (who in turn will pass this information to the relevant foreign tax authority).
9.5 If we undertake a conveyancing transaction on your behalf, you authorise us to provide information in respect of the transaction to Inland Revenue and Land Information New Zealand as required by the Residential Land Withholding Tax legislation.
10.1 You may terminate our retainer at any time
10.2 We may terminate our retainer in any of the circumstances set out in the Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers
10.3 If our retainer is terminated you must pay us all fees up to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that date before we release any files to you.
11.1 We may communicate with you by email about the work we do for you.
11.2 Our systems have virus protection software and we have security protocols in place, however we cannot guarantee that electronic communications will always be free from viruses or other defects, are secure, or that they will be received.
11.3 We may occasionally email information we think is relevant and useful to you. If you do not want to receive that information, let us know
12.1 You authorise us (without further reference to you) to destroy all files and documents for this matter (other than any documents that we hold in safe custody for you) 10 years after our engagement ends, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format.
10.1 We have procedures in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest. If a conflict of interest arises we will advise you of this and follow the requirements and procedures set out in the Law Society’s Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers.
14.1 Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person. Before any other person may rely on our advice, we must expressly agree to this.
15.1 These Terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagements whether or not we send you another copy of these Terms.
15.2 We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in which case we will send you the amended terms.
This Billing Policy applies in respect of all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent that we otherwise agree with you in writing. We do encourage certainty where possible as to any fees being charged.
1.1 Fees:
a. If your engagement letter specifies a fixed fee, we will charge this for the agreed scope of our services. Work that falls outside that scope will be charged on an hourly rate basis. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it becomes necessary for us to provide services outside the agreed scope and if requested, give you an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.
b. When our fees are calculated on an hourly basis, the hourly rates are set out in our engagement letter. The differences in those rates reflect the experience and specialisation of our professional staff. Time spent is recorded in 6-minute units, with time rounded up to the next unit of 6 minutes.
c. Other factors to be taken into account in determining our fee include:
1.2 Disbursements and expenses: In providing services we may incur disbursements or have to make payments to third parties on your behalf. These will be included in our invoice to you when the expense is incurred. We may require an advance payment for the disbursements or expenses which we will be incurring on your behalf.
1.3 GST (if any): Is payable by you on our fees and charges.
1.4 Invoices: We will send interim invoices to you, usually monthly and on completion of the matter, or termination of our engagement. We may also send you an invoice when we incur a significant expense.
1.5 Payment: Invoices are payable within 14 days of the date of the invoice unless alternative arrangements have been made with us. Accounts remaining unpaid after a period of 1 month from the date of the account will be liable for interest at the rate of 1.5% per month, calculated on a daily basis.
1.6 Security: We may ask you to pre-pay amounts to us, or to provide security for our fees and expenses. You authorise us:
a. To debit against amounts pre-paid by you; and
b. To deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided any invoice.
1.7 Cost Recovery: If we are required to take any steps, whether in Court or otherwise, to recover overdue accounts, then you will be liable to pay to us in addition to the amount of the overdue account all reasonable costs incurred by us in seeking recovery.
1.8 Third Parties: Although you may expect to be reimbursed by a third party for our fees and expenses, and although our invoices may at your request or with your approval be directed to a third party, nevertheless you remain responsible for payment to us if the third party fails to pay us.
2.1 If you provide instructions for us to act on behalf of a Company or Trust in which you have any interest, then you personally guarantee the liability of that client to us.
3.1 We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients (except monies received for payment of our invoices). If we are holding significant funds on your behalf we will normally lodge those funds on interest bearing deposit with our Bank. In that case we will charge an administration fee of 5% of the interest derived.
4.1 These Terms will apply to our current engagement and to all your future dealings with us (unless modified by us in writing) for each new file opened at your request.
