Terms of Engagement
These Standard Terms of Engagement (Terms) apply in respect of all work carried out by us for you, except to the extent that we otherwise agree with you in writing.
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SERVICES
1.1 The services we are to provide for you are outlined in our
Letter of Engagement.
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FINANCIAL
2.1 Fees: Our current hourly rates are set out in
our Letter of Engagement. We may review our hourly rates
periodically and you will be notified of any change that may affect
you.
2.2 How Does The Firm Charge: Fees are charged in
accordance with guidelines laid down by the Rules of Conduct and
Client Care of the New Zealand Law Society. In fixing the fee we
are entitled to take account of considerations such as:
a the time labour spent
b the skill, specialised knowledge and
responsibility required;
c the importance of the matter to you and the
results achieved;
d the urgency and circumstances in which the work
is undertaken and any time limits, including time limits imposed by
you;
e the degree of risk assumed by us in undertaking
the services including the amount or value of any property
involved;
f the complexity of the matter and the difficulty
or novelty of the questions involved;
g the experience, reputation and ability of the
personnel carrying out the work;
h the possibility that the acceptance of the
instructions will preclude employment of us by other clients;
i the reasonable costs of running a law
practice.
2.3 Estimate of Costs: Any costs estimate will be
our "best guess" as to what the fees and other costs are likely to
be. If the work does not proceed as we had expected due to
unexpected complications, or if the work proves more complicated
than originally anticipated, we will charge for all additional
work. If it appears that the estimate will be exceeded, we will
advise you of the reasons and obtain further instructions from
you.
2.4 Fixed Fees: If our Letter of Engagement
specifies a fixed fee, we will charge this for the agreed scope of
our services. Work which 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.
2.5 Hourly Rates: Where our fees are calculated
on an hourly basis, the hourly rates are set out in our Letter of
Engagement. 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.
2.6 Disbursements and Expenses: In providing
services we may incur disbursements or have to make payments to
third parties on your behalf. These may include expenses such as
Court filing fees, barrister fees, experts fees, toll calls, faxes,
photocopying, travel expenses, couriers and fees of agents who
serve documents or conduct investigations, searches and
registration. These disbursements and expenses 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. We may also require that you enter a
payment arrangement directly with the third party providing the
relevant services.
2.7 GST (if any): Is payable by you on our fees,
disbursements and expenses.
2.8 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.
2.9 Payment: Invoices are payable within 14 days
of the date of the invoice, unless alternative arrangements have
been made with us. We may require interest to be paid on any amount
which is more than 7 days overdue. Interest will be calculated at
the rate of 5% above our firm's bank overdraft rate applying at the
date the payment became due. If we have to take steps to recover
any unpaid account, the costs of recovery (including debt
collectors' charges) are all payable by you.
2.10 Pre-Payment and Deduction: We may ask you to
pre-pay amounts to us for our fees, disbursements 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, disbursements and expenses or disbursements for which we
have provided an invoice.
2.11 Security For Costs: We may require security
for our fees, disbursements and expenses which security may take
the form of a mortgage or general security agreement. We may also
require another person to guarantee your payment of our fees,
disbursements and expenses.
2.12 Third Parties: Although you may expect to be
reimbursed by a third party for our fees, disbursements 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.
2.13 Joint and Several Liability: If there is
more than one person comprising our client, each person is jointly
and severally liable for payment in due time of all our accounts
and other charges.
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CONFIDENTIALITY
3.1 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.
3.2 Confidential information concerning you will as far as
practicable be made available only to those within our firm who are
providing legal services for you.
3.3 We will of course, not disclose to you confidential
information which we have in relation to any other client.
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TERMINATION
4.1 You may terminate our retainer at any time.
4.2 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. If we stop work because payment is not received by us
within 14 days of issue of our invoice we will have no liability
for any loss suffered by you when work is stopped for this
reason.
4.3 If our retainer is terminated you must pay us all fees due up
to the date of termination and all expenses incurred up to that
date.
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LIEN
5.1 Where work has been done by us and we have not been paid by
you, then we have the right to retain the original documents and
the correspondence on your files until such time as all outstanding
fees, disbursements and expenses have been paid. This is known as a
lien. This is important if circumstances arise where you decide for
whatever reason to instruct another law firm. You must pay all
outstanding fees, disbursements and expenses before we release your
files to your new solicitors. Alternatively that other law firm may
be obliged to give an undertaking to us to pay all outstanding
fees, disbursements and expenses before your file is released.
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RETENTION OF FILES AND DOCUMENTS
6.1 You authorise us (without further reference to you) to destroy
all files and documents for any matter (other than any documents
that we hold in safe custody for you) 7 years after our engagement
on that matter ends, or earlier if we have converted those files
and documents to an electronic format.
6.2 Subject to the lien in paragraph 6 and if you wish to inspect
these files and documents or require copies to be made, we may
charge for this.
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CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
7.1 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.
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DUTY OF CARE
8.1 Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person.
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TRUST ACCOUNT
9.1 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 a bank. In that
case we may charge an administration fee of 5% of the interest
derived.
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GENERAL
10.1 These Terms apply to any current engagement and also to any
future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of
them.
10.2 We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in
which case we will send you amended Terms.
10.3 Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and
New Zealand courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction.