STANDARD TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT

These Standard Terms of Engagement (“Terms”) apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or not we send you another copy of them. We are entitled to change these Terms from time to time, in which case we can send you our amended Terms if requested. Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts have exclusive jurisdiction.

1                  Services

1.1               The services we are to provide for you are outlined in our engagement letter.

2                 Financial

2.1               Fees 

a           The fees we charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at, are set out in our engagement letter.

b           If the engagement letter 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. Time spent is recorded in 6 minute units, with time rounded up to the next unit of 6 minutes

c           Hourly fees may be adjusted (upwards or downwards) to ensure the fee is fair and reasonable to take into account matters such as the complexity, urgency, value and importance of the Services. Full details of the relevant fee factors are set out in Rule 9 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008 (Rules). .

2.2              Disbursements and Third Party Expenses:  In providing the Services we may incur disbursements and payments to third parties on your behalf. You authorise us to incur these disbursements (which may incur such items as search fees, court filing fees, registration fees and travel and courier charges) which are reasonably necessary to provide the Services. You also authorise us to make payments to third parties on your behalf which are reasonably required to undertake the Services (which may incur items such as experts’ costs or counsel’s fees).  These will be included in our invoice to you, show as “Disbursements” when the expenses are incurred (or in advance when we know we will be incurring them on your behalf).

2.3 Office Expenses (Administrative expenses): In addition to disbursements, we may charge a fee to cover out of pocket costs which are not included in our fee and which are not included in our fee and which are not recorded as disbursements. These include items such as photocopying, printing, stationery, telecommunications and file storage.

2.4              GST (if any):  Our services will usually attract Goods and Service Tax (GST). If this is the case, GST is payable by you on our fees and charges.

2.5              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.

2.6              Payment:  Invoices are payable within 7 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 20% p.a.

2.7              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 an invoice.

2.8              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.

3. Communications:

3.1 We will obtain from you contact details, including email address, postal address and telephone numbers. We may also require you to complete an AML (Anti Money Laundering) compliance check either via mobile phone or in person. We may provide documents and other communications to you by email (or other electronic means). You will advise us if any of your contact details change.

3.2 We will report to you periodically on the progress of any engagement and will inform you of any material and unexpected delays, significant changes or complications in the work being undertaken. You may request a progress report at any time.

4                 Confidentiality

4.1               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.

4.2               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.

4.3               We will of course, not disclose to you confidential information which we have in relation to any other client.

5                 Termination

5.1               You may terminate our retainer at any time.

5.2               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

5.3               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.

6                 Retention of files and documents

6.1               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)  after expiry of the applicable term required by legislation, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic format.

7                 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.

8                 Duty of Care

8.1               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.

9                 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 will charge an administration fee of 5% of the interest derived.