Standard Terms of Engagement & Client Care Information

As required by the Law Society's Conduct and Client Care Rules, we provide you with the following information: Lawyers must follow certain standards of professional conduct which are set out in the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers. Under these rules, any legal services your lawyer is providing, your lawyer must comply with the following:

• act competently, in a timely way, and in accordance with instructions received and arrangements
• 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 in which 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.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us or contact the Law Society.

The services we will provide for you are outlined in the engagement letter which includes specific details relavent to your matter and who is responsible for providing the services to you on our behalf. The following are standard terms and conditions of your engagement with us and apply to all clients engaged.

From 1 July 2018, we are required by law to obtain more information from our clients under the AntiMoney Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009. The purpose of this Act is to prevent money laundering or the financing of any terrorism. By having this information, we will have more knowledge about the transactions we are undertaking on behalf of our clients. If we have any suspicions, we have an obligation to report this. When we meet with our clients to discuss new legal matters, we will require what is called “customer due diligence” (CDD) which includes verifying each client’s identity, date of birth and address. For companies or Trusts, we will also require further information about other people involved in the company or Trust, such as the Directors, Shareholders, Trustees or Beneficiaries. We may also ask questions about the source of the money, and the reason for the proposed work. Please be aware that we require the above information/documentation before we can carry out any work for our clients, and if it cannot be provided then we will be unable to act.

The fees we charge or the manner in which they will be arrived at, are set out in the engagement letter. Unless we advise otherwise, all fees incurred are calculated on an hourly basis at various rates depending on the level of experience of our lawyers.

The hourly rates for our professional staff are:

• Directors $345 – $367.50 per hour (GST inclusive)
• Associates $287.50 per hour (GST inclusive)
• Solicitors $230.00 per hour (GST inclusive)
• Law Clerk or Paralegals $115.00 per hour (GST inclusive)

The differences in rates reflect the experience and specialisation of our professional staff, which is recorded in six-minute units, which is rounded up to the next unit of six minutes. We will only charge you for the agreed scope of services. Any work which falls outside that scope will be charged on an hourly rate basis as agreed by you. We will advise you as soon as reasonably practicable if it becomes necessary to provide services outside the agreed scope and, if requested, give you an estimate of the likely amount of the further costs.

Having a fixed fee arrangement may be more beneficial and cost-effective. It also provides more certainty around the actual cost of services to be provided in most services provided by the firm. If this applies to your matter, then it will be noted on the engagement letter and a schedule of fixed fee option attached for your consideration. If you agree to the fixed fee arrangement, you must provide written confirmation that this is your preferred billing option. If you do not, then the hourly rate basis will apply.

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 include such items such 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 include items such as experts’ costs or counsel’s fees). These will be included in our invoice to you, shown as “disbursements” when the expenses are incurred (or in advance when we know we will be incurring them on your behalf).

Travel costs such as airfares or mileage for travel necessary carrying out your instructions will be charged to you either immediately upon booking or when you are due for your next invoice. Mileage will be charged at the current rate per kilometer approved by IRD for the relevant time.

In addition to disbursements, we may charge a fee of 5% of our fee in our invoice to cover out of pocket costs which are not included in our fee and which are not recorded as disbursements. These include items such as photocopying and printing, postage and phone calls. to cover costs of setting up your files, forms, postage, toll calls (if any) and retention of your file. If significant photocopying is required, we may charge for this at .17 cents (plus GST where applicable) per page (black and white) and .35 cents (plus GST where applicable) per page (colour).

If a director or employee of Tuitala Law Limited acts as executor or trustee, a trustee responsibility fee may be charged in addition to any fee for legal services (if permitted under the terms of the will or deed) at the relevant lawyer rates as outlined in these terms of engagement.

New Zealand Goods and Services Tax (GST) is payable by you on fees and charges, unless you are exempt.

Our invoices are payable in New Zealand dollars, unless we agree otherwise. We will invoice at regular intervals either at the completion of each stage of your work completed for you, or on a weekly or fortnightly basis depending on your fee structure. You will then receive a final invoice at the completion of your case.

All invoices are due for payment as per our engagement letter and your choice of billing cylce (this varies between each matter). Generally speaking fixed fees invoices are payable immediately upon completion for immediate payment and hourly rate invoices are due for payment within 14 days of the date of invoice.

You authorise us to deduct our fees and other expenses from funds held in our trust account on your behalf on provision of an invoice to you, unless those funds are held for a particular purpose.

If a third party agrees to pay for our services as part of your engagement with us, you remain responsible for payment if the third party fails to pay our invoices.

If you have difficulty in paying any of our accounts, please contact us via email: accounts@tuitalalaw.com within three days of receiving our invoice so that we may discuss payment arrangements.

If your account is overdue we may:

1. require interest to be paid on any amount which is more than 14 days overdue, calculated at the rate of 15 % above the overdraft rate that our firm's main trading bank charges us for the period that the invoice is outstanding;
2. stop work on any matters in respect of which we are providing services to you;
3. require an additional payment of fees in advance or other security before recommencing work;
4. recover from you in full any costs we incur (including on a solicitor/client basis) in seeking to recover the amounts from you, including our own fees and the fees of any collection agency.

We operate a trust account. All money received from you or on your behalf in advanced of any work done or invoice rendered will be held to your credit in our trust account.

Payments out of the trust account will be made either to you or to others with your authority. Written authorisation from you (and if we are acting for more than one of you, from all of you) will be required when payment is to be made to a third party. Before making a payment to another account we may require verification of the account details by provision of (for example) a copy of a deposit slip, cheque or bank statement showing the account number, a signed authority from you including the bank account details, or a signed letter from the relevant financial institution providing bank account details.

A full record of our trust account is kept at all times. A statement of trust account transactions detailing funds received and payments made on your behalf will be provided to you periodically and at any time upon your request.

Please note that we do not have an interest bearing trust account. This means that funds that are paid to our trust account will not be able to accrue interest.

The New Zealand 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 way of compensation to an individual claimant is limited to $100,000.

Except in certain circumstances specified in the Lawyers and 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 a client.

We carry indemnity insurance that exceeds the Law Society requirements.

We maintain a procedure for handling any complaints from clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly.

If you have a complaint about my services or charges, please contact the Director, Semisi Pohiva, via email: semisi@tuitalalaw.com or via phone 0275092799 in the first instance so that it may be dealt with under certain complaint procedures.

If you wish to make your complaint to the Law Society, you can contact the Law Society's Complaints Service.

To the extent allowed by law, our aggregate liability to you (whether in contract, tort, equity or otherwise) in connection with our Services is limited to the amount available to be payable under the Professional Indemnity Insurance held by the firm.

When we are acting for you on a matter, we will not (without your consent) act for another client against your interests on the same or any closely related matter. Nor (without your consent) will we act for another client where we hold confidential information concerning you or your affairs that we have acquired while acting for you, where disclosure of that information to that other client would be likely to affect your interests adversely.

If a conflict of interest arises, we will tell you and, if bound to do so by the Law Society's Conduct and Client Care Rules, or if we choose to do so, we will terminate our engagement.

We will hold in confidence all information concerning you and your affairs that we acquire while acting for you. We will not disclose this information to any person, unless you expressly or impliedly authorise me to do so, except to the extent required to represent you or as permitted by the Law Society's Conduct and Client Care Rules.

Our duty of care is to you and not to any other person. We owe no liability to any other person, including for example any directors, shareholders, associated companies, employees or family members unless we expressly agree in writing. We do not accept any responsibility or liability whatsoever to any third parties who may be affected by our performance of the Services or who may rely on any advice we give, except as expressly agreed by us in writing.

Our advice is not to be referred to in connection with any prospectus, financial statement, or public document without our written consent.

You are the only person who may rely on our advice. We owe no duty or liability to any other person, including for example any associated companies, shareholders, directors, employees, or family members. If you want any other person to be able to rely on my advice, our written agreement is required.

Our advice is opinion only, based on the facts known to us and on our professional judgement, and is subject to any changes in the law after the date on which the advice is given. We are not liable for errors in, or omissions from, any information provided by third parties.

Our advice relates only to each matter in respect of which you engage us. Once that matter is at an end, we will not owe you any duty or liability in respect of any related or other matters unless you specifically engage me in respect of those related or other matters.

Unless otherwise agreed, we may communicate with you and with others by electronic means. We cannot guarantee that these communications will not be lost or affected for some reason beyond my reasonable control, and we will not be liable for any resulting damage or loss.

We will keep a record of all important documents which we receive or create on your behalf on the following basis:

1. We may keep a record electronically and destroy originals (except where the existence of an original is legally important such as in the case of wills and deeds).
2. At any time, we may dispose of documents which are duplicates, or which are trivial (such as emails which do not contain substantive information), or documents which belong to us.
3. We are not obliged to retain documents or copies where you have requested that we provide them to you or to another person and we have done so, although we are entitled to retain copies for our own records if we wish to do so.
4. We will provide to you on request copies or originals (at our option) of all documents to which you are entitled under the Privacy Act 1993 or any other law. We may charge you our reasonable costs for doing this.
5. Where we hold documents that belong to a third party you will need to provide us with that party’s written authority to uplift or obtain a copy of that document.
6. Unless you instruct us in writing otherwise, you authorise us and consent to us (without further reference to you) to destroy (or delete in the case of electronic records) all files and documents in respect of the Services 7 years after our engagement ends (other than any documents that we hold in safe custody for you or are otherwise obliged by law to retain for longer). We may retain documents for longer at our option or indefinitely for documents such as Will instructions and enduring powers of attorney, relationship property, long term leases and creating of trusts or matters where evidence may be required after the standard limitation period has expired.
7. We may, at our option, return documents (either in hard or electronic form) to you rather than retain them. If we choose to do this, we will do so at our expense.
8. We own copyright in all documents or work we create in the course of performing the Services but grant you a non-exclusive licence to use and copy the documents as you see fit for your own personal or commercial use. However, you may not permit any third party to copy, adapt or use the documents without our written permission.

Where you give us an instruction, and we rely on that instruction in something we do, you may not revoke that instruction. Subject to this, you may terminate our engagement at any time.

We may terminate our engagement at any time if:

• you misrepresent or fail to disclose to me relevant facts.
• you mislead or deceive us in a material respect.
• you adopt a course of action that we believe may be inconsistent with our professional obligations.
• we consider that a conflict of interest has arisen.
• you do not pay our invoices by the due date.

We may also terminate our engagement in any other circumstances requiring or justifying termination in terms of the Law Society's Conduct and Client Care Rules.

If our engagement is terminated, we may retain your files until our invoices are paid and these terms of engagement will continue to apply to the extent that is appropriate.

While acting for you, we may collect and hold personal information concerning you. This information may be used by us to provide services to you. You authorise us to obtain from any person, or release to any person, any information necessary for that purpose, and you authorise any person to release to us information that we may require for that purpose. Under the Privacy Act 1993, you have the right of access to, and correction of, your personal information held by us.

While acting for you, we may collect and hold personal information concerning you. This information may be used by us to provide services to you. You authorise us to obtain from any person, or release to any person, any information necessary for that purpose, and you authorise any person to release to us information that we may require for that purpose. Under the Privacy Act 1993, you have the right of access to, and correction of, your personal information held by us.

We may disclose your name and address to third parties such as credit agencies to perform a credit reference or to undertake credit management or collection processes if it is reasonable to do so.

The information we collect and hold about you will be kept at our offices and/or at secure file storage sites (including electronic file storage sites) elsewhere. If you are an individual, you have the right to access and correct this information. If you require access, please contact Semisi Pohiva.

This document contains our standard terms of engagement. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, these terms of engagement will govern our relationship. By instructing me to act for you, you will be deemed to have agreed to them.

These terms apply to any current and all future engagements. However, we may vary these terms from time to time and, if we do so, we will inform you of the varied terms. If you continue to instruct us following a variation, you will be deemed to have agreed to the varied terms.

You agree that we may provide you from time to time with other information that may be relevant to you, such as newsletters and information bulletins or correspondence. At any time you may request that this not be sent to you. You agree also that we may collect your personal contact details and include you in our mailing lists for marketing purposes.

If you have any questions about these terms, please do not hesitate to contact the director, Semisi Pohiva, via email on semisi@tuitalalaw.com or via phone 027 509 2799.