Terms of Engagement
Our Obligations
1. These terms and conditions will apply to all work undertaken for you, unless another arrangement is specifically agreed. We reserve the right to alter these terms and conditions at any time, and to advise you of new terms and conditions, which will apply to new work undertaken after that date.
2. We will undertake the work you have entrusted to us promptly and efficiently and with reasonable care and skill.
Charges
3. Our charges are based upon time expended as well as the urgency, complexity or importance of a matter, the responsibility involved and the outcome achieved.
4. We will give you, at the earliest possible opportunity, our best estimate of final costs. It is often not possible to give more than an estimate of final costs because of a number of factors and outside agencies involved.
5. In some circumstances, we are prepared to give you a quotation for your work, and we will keep to that quotation if we give it. But please note that it is not possible to give quotations for some kinds of work.
6. Secretarial time and the time of other support staff is included in the hourly rates for professional staff.
7. The expression Disbursements, when used in a statement to you, means moneys paid on your behalf and charged at cost. For larger disbursements, you will be asked to fund these in advance.
8. The expression Office Expenses, when used in a fees invoice, may include internally generated charges and charges paid to service companies owned by the partnership. Examples are photocopying, telephone calls, faxes, courier fees, land title searches, company searches and judgments.
9. We may receive commission when we place insurance or make investments on your behalf.
10. GST is payable by you on our fees and charges.
Billing
11. Our normal procedure is to bill matters on a monthly basis. However in certain circumstances this may be inappropriate.
Payment
12. Our accounts are due for payment by the 20th of the month following the date of the account. However, we reserve the right to stipulate a shorter payment period.
13. Pending payment of our account, we will not usually cease work on your file, but we reserve the right to do so, and we will tell you if we do.
14. If you have difficulty meeting any account please discuss this with us immediately. You may wish to make periodic payments into our trust account on account of your legal costs in advance of the completion of your job. Please advise if you wish to do this.
15. If your fees and expenses are to be paid by a third party, you remain responsible for payment if the third party fails to pay us.
16. We may deduct from any funds held on your behalf in our trust account any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we have provided an invoice.
Interest and Costs on Overdue Accounts
17. If you fail to pay monies on the due date you shall:
- Pay interest at a rate of 2.0% per month (computed from the due date) on all overdue accounts until payment is received in full by us but without prejudice to all or any of our rights and remedies at law;
- Reimburse us for any legal costs (as between solicitor and client), any debt collection fees and any other costs incurred in recovery of an overdue debt.
Time
18. We try to schedule our work several weeks ahead so that it can be carried out efficiently and scheduled in with other work. Please try to keep appointments and meet our deadlines etc, as failure to do so may mean your work becomes urgent, requiring additional attention, possibly resulting in higher charges.
19. Unless we specifically agree, we do not undertake to do work by a particular date or time; but we will do our best to meet your requirements in this regard.
20. We will endeavour to action your work promptly. But there may be times where we are delayed by other people, including other professionals, Government departments and the Courts.
Urgency
21. If you ask us to undertake your work on an urgent basis, we will tell you whether or not this is appropriate, and whether or not we are able to do so.
22. Doing work urgently means more than doing that work in priority to other work, it means also (where appropriate) allocating additional staff, personal delivery of communications and documents, waiting at public offices to personally attend to filing, etc, waiting on the telephone rather than leaving a message, meeting with officials rather than writing, and following up with personal attendances. This may substantially increase the time we must take, and consequently our charges to you will increase.
23. We reserve the right to treat certain parts of your work as urgent without necessarily advising you if in our judgment this is in your best interests, and you will be charged accordingly. This will arise only in exceptional circumstances; in most cases we expect to be able to confer with you in advance.
Professional Indemnity Insurance
24. 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.
Complaints
25. We maintain a procedure for handling any complaints by clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly.
26. If you have a complaint about our services or charges, you may refer your complaint to either a partner or the practice manager.
27. The Law Society also maintains a complaints service and you are able to make a complaint to that service. To do so you should contact the Law Society.
Contentious Business and Litigation
28. Where you engage us for litigation or contentious business, or if in the course of conducting a matter on your behalf, the business becomes contentious, we cannot assure you of a particular outcome. In such cases, the only result we undertake to achieve is the supply of competent and effective legal services carried out with reasonable skill and care.
Lawyers Fidelity Fund
29. The Law Society maintains the Lawyers Fidelity Fund for the purposes of providing clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arising 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. 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.
Confidentiality
30. We will observe strict confidentiality in respect of your work. However, trust auditors may ask to view your file and, in addition, we reserve the right ' at our sole discretion ' to make our files available to our professional indemnity insurance underwriter if we believe we need to do so.
Records
31. We retain our trust account records for at least ten years. Correspondence, files, etc, are routinely destroyed after seven years. Deeds, formal documents, and negotiable securities are retained indefinitely.
Conflicts of Interest
32. 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.
Duty of Care
33. 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.
Trust Account
34. We maintain a trust account for all funds which we receive from clients. If we are holding significant funds on your behalf we will normally lodge those funds on interest bearing deposit with Bank of New Zealand. In that case we will charge an administration fee of 5% on the interest derived.
Termination
35. You may terminate our retainer at any time. 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 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.
Client Care and Service
36. Whatever legal services we are providing we will:
- Act competently, in a timely way, and in accordance with instructions received and arrangements made.
- Protect and promote your interests and act for you free from compromising influences or loyalties.
- Discuss with you your objectives and how they should best be achieved.
- Provide you with information about the work to be done, who will do it and the way the services will be provided.
- Charge you a fee that is fair and reasonable and let you know how and when you will be billed.
- Give you clear information and advice.
- Protect your privacy and ensure appropriate confidentiality.
- Treat you fairly, respectfully and without discrimination.
- Keep you informed about the work being done and advise you when it is completed.
- Let you know how to make a complaint and deal with any complaint promptly and fairly.
37. 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 to the justice system.
How You Can Reduce your Legal Costs and Help Us
38. Achieving client satisfaction is very important to all of us here at Lyon O'Neale Arnold Lawyers Limited. We can help to reduce your legal costs and enhance your satisfaction with our services. Here are some suggestions:
- Tell us if you have important deadlines or time limits
- Tell us what you expect from us, and also if your expectations change. This will help to clarify our role resulting in a healthy working relationship
- Tell us if you have shifted or changed your telephone, fax or email address
- Promptly deal with any important questions or issues which may arise
- Ask us about anything you are unsure about.
Acceptance of these Terms of Engagement
39. These terms of engagement are deemed to apply to you when you instruct us in your own capacity, and to any party or entity related to you such as Family Trusts where you are a trustee, Partnerships where you are a partner or Companies of which you are a Director and/or Shareholder. This means in the interests of the environment and saving both of us time, we do not have to disclose these terms of engagement each time you instruct us under a different entity.
40. You will be bound by these terms if after receipt of the terms you continue to instruct us to act for you.
