This document contains important information regarding our working relationship which you should know.

Our working relationship is important to both you and Argyle.

The Legal Profession Act 2004 was brought into effect to protect the rights of consumers/clients to clarify and place requirements on solicitors to duly inform their clients of the terms of the retainer and any review/updates of the scope of works and fees.

As a proactive and transparent firm, we would like to put into plain English some of these legal requirements to take the mystery out of some of the terminology that you will now hear as our client.

We understand that your objective is to achieve the outcome you desire in the most cost effective and timely manner possible, having regard to the circumstances, whilst being appraised of all relevant options, choices, issues and consequences that your instructions and actions may have, limited of course to the scope of work you instruct us to undertake. Our commitment to you is to strive to deliver the best service and outcome possible for you at a reasonable cost.

In turn, we respect the trust you have placed in Argyle and shall strive to reward your trust with our performance so that you feel more than satisfied and confident in continuing to use our services and ideally feel confident in recommending our firm to your associates and colleagues.

To ensure you understand the basis upon which we provide our services, and therefore enable you to work with us to maximise the benefit you can obtain, we list below some relevant factors which you should be aware of:

Confidentiality

 

By retaining Argyle, we will preserve the confidentiality of all communications with you and all matters and information disclosed by you. Argyle will not disclose or permit to be disclosed confidential information about you, your business or your matter without your consent. This duty of confidentiality continues even after your retainer with us comes to an end.

The only limits on our confidentiality of your affairs is our obligation to make disclosure pursuant to any law or order of any court or tribunal.

Conflict of interest

 

Before we accept a retainer from you, we will conduct an internal search to ascertain whether we would have a conflict of interest in acting on your behalf. We have a policy of not accepting instructions from a party if, by doing so, a conflict of interest would arise with the interests of another client, or there is the potential for or the perception of a conflict with the interests of another client.

We will notify you immediately if we consider circumstances warrant you being notified of any possible conflict of interest issue.

Our primary aim is to provide our services to you on an unfettered basis for your benefit. Our view is that we should not accept your instructions if this cannot be done or, alternatively, you have a right to know if there is a potential for a conflict to arise.

Privacy

 

Argyle is committed to a policy which will ensure the privacy and security of your personal information. To this end, we are committed to the National Privacy Principles established under the Privacy Act 1988.

If you have not received a copy of our privacy policy, please let us know and we shall furnish you with a copy.

Scope of work

 

The basis of our understanding of what you require our assistance in respect of is very important to both you and ourselves. The scope of work will set the parameters of expectations, responsibility, cost and timing.

In our retainer, which will be provided when we receive your initial instructions or in due course, we seek to set out the scope of work, which we define as the ‘Work’. It is important for you to understand the limits on the Work, as that will set the limits on the services we will provide to you.

Most commercial matters involve issues that touch on or have an aspect which involves tax, stamp duty, GST, Corporations Act, Trade Practices Act, contracts, common law, industrial relations, other legislative issues or similar elements. In some circumstances, clients wish us to advise on all aspects of law which influence or affect their particular matter, whilst in other circumstances or with other clients, the scope of our services can be limited to deal with only some aspects or even one aspect. Obviously the wider the breadth of areas of law you desire our advice on, the greater the cost to you and the longer the work will take to perform.

Estimates and quotes

 

After we have determined the scope of work you wish us to undertake, we will provide you with either a quote or an estimate of our fees.

A quote is a fixed sum costing. We usually provide quotes for work which does not involve dealing with third parties and is relatively procedural where we can project manage the matter with certainty. It is also possible to provide quotes for performing parts of matters, for example, preparing a sale document, prior to negotiating any amendments with a third party. In other circumstances, if you require a quote on a matter involving a third party it would necessarily be a conservative sum due to the inherent vagaries involved in such a matter. If you request additional work to the work quoted then this will be done at our usual hourly rates.

An estimate is our best prediction of the likely cost of performing the particular services. We usually provide estimates for work which involves dealing with third parties, as it is impossible to assess accurately how third parties will act or react on particular dealings. This reality is due in part to the Australian legal system being adversarial, which presumes parties are entitled to look after their own interests without having regard for the interests of parties with whom they deal. Further, matters which require negotiations involve parties seeking to impose their respective wish or desire on one another, usually limited by commercial reality, and thus can be straightforward or can be protracted.

Estimates are given based on the information available to us and in good faith relying on our previous experience of such matters. But as our estimate is merely our best prediction of the cost of the matter given at that time, it is to be expected that sometimes the actual costing may be either less than or greater than our estimate.

The retainer must be in writing and expressed in clear plain language or a language other than English, if the client is more familiar with that language. One of the few exceptions to providing you with an estimate of fees is where the total legal costs in the matter, excluding disbursements, is not likely to exceed $750 (exclusive of GST).

Should we find that for any reason our estimate is likely to be significantly exceeded, we will attempt to notify you at the earliest opportunity, explain the reasons why and obtain your further instructions.

 

Revised estimate

 

We must disclose in writing to you any substantial change to our original retainer as soon as is reasonably practicable after we become aware of that change.

 

If the matter is a litigious one, we must disclose to the client an estimate of:

• the range of costs that may be recovered if the client is successful in the litigation; and
• the range of costs the client may be ordered to pay is the client is unsuccessful.

Retainer and disclosure of terms

 

Our retainer and disclosure of terms include our understanding of the scope of the Work and our quote or estimate for performing same. These documents will also detail other important information regarding our relationship you should know, such as how disbursements (including in-house disbursements and third party disbursements) will be charged, and our expectations of you. It also sets out the hourly charge rate for the delegates likely to be working on your matter as well as the billing arrangements.

We will also ask you to put funds into our trust account which may be used to pay our fees and disbursements. If we are required to brief a barrister or get advice from an expert in the required field, we will always ask for that money to be put into trust and we will not brief any outside parties until these funds are in trust.

Trust account

 

All solicitors have a trust account. From time to time, we will ask you for money to be put into our trust account for payment of our fees and other major disbursements. Any money that you give us for future payment of costs must be held by us in our trust account.

 

Under most conditions, we cannot disburse this money without your consent. However, if we have sent you an invoice and you have not objected to withdrawal of the money within 7 days after being given the invoice (we usually allow 10 days to take into account the postal system), we will then withdraw the amount required to pay either in full or as a part payment of any outstanding invoice.

If you object within the 7 day period, you must then apply for a review of the legal costs, within 12 months. You do that by lodging the prescribed form with the Manager, Costs Assessment, Supreme Court of NSW.

Trust accounts do not attract interest; therefore, if you have a large amount of money to be held for you, it will be put into a controlled money account.

Controlled money

 

A controlled money account is usually used for larger amounts of money that need to be maintained by us for longer periods, as opposed to trust money. This account attracts interest and will only be drawn down with your written authority. Usually the money is required for a deposit on property or other large transactions.

 

Tax deductibility of fees

 

A relevant consideration for most clients is whether legal fees are tax deductible. Not all legal fees are tax deductible, as it depends upon the nature of your matter and the work you require us to provide. Should you require any further information regarding this issue, please request a copy of our “Legal Fees Can Be Deductible” memorandum.

How we charge

 

Our costs are based on the time spent performing the Work. Legal staff have hourly charge rates (calculated in 10 units of 6 minutes per unit, rounded to the nearest 6 minutes). In exceptional circumstances a premium may be charged. The criteria for this are the urgency, complexity and value we are able to add in providing our services.

We will also try to keep your costs down by delegating some aspects of the work on your matter to appropriate staff with lower charge out rates, unless you particularly request that only one person attend to all file matters.

How you can help to control costs

 

By knowing how we charge, there are many things you can do to help keep our costs down. These include:

1. See us before signing anything. It will usually save you time and money in the long term.
2. Prepare for our meetings so that you can provide us with cogent and clear instructions and information.
3. Make sure you provide us with all relevant information, papers and instructions at the outset of your matter.
4. Respond promptly to requests for further information or to do something to help us. If we have to chase you up, it takes extra time which you are paying for.
5. You should do things that we would otherwise have to undertake at your cost, such as instructing valuers, obtaining reports, liaising with banks and the like. Please check with us first though, so we can co-ordinate our respective efforts to produce the best result.
6. Remember that each time we need to contact you, or you contact us, or we need to perform any work on your file, you will be charged. Accordingly, if several parties are clients and interested in our advice it is wise to appoint one person to liaise with us (and for that person to keep the others informed).
7. Requesting we provide you with written advice on various aspects of your matter will be more expensive than accepting our verbal advice, so consider carefully whether you require any or all advices to be in writing before instructing us in regard to same.
8. If you have us negotiate on your behalf, be aware that the time we spend on the negotiations will be charged to you. Also remain vigilant for signs of the negotiations becoming protracted, or worse, intractable.It is always preferable for you to control the matter with our advice.

Invoices

Our invoices can be in the form of a lump sum bill or an itemised bill. The format that you require is usually arranged at the beginning of the matter; however, if you receive a lump sum bill you may request an itemised bill and we must comply with that request within 21 days after the date on which the request was made.

Our standard procedure is to invoice on a monthly basis. By engaging Argyle you are accepting and agreeing to our payment terms (ie. within 30 days). Failure to pay within the terms may result in our inability to continue working on your matter until our payment terms are met. Any amounts not paid within our terms attract interest at the prescribed rate.

Prescribed rate of interest

The prescribed rate is the Cash Target Rate, plus 2%, which means the percentage specified by the Reserve Bank of Australia. As at 1 April 2011, this rate was 4.75%. This rate plus 2% = 6.75%, which is the rate you may be charged on overdue amounts. If you choose to pay by credit card, the merchant fees applicable at that time (and noted on your invoice) may also be charged to you.

Progress Reports

On reasonable request, we must provide you with a written report of the progress of your matter. We are entitled to charge for preparing this report.

We are also obliged, on request, to give a written report of any legal costs incurred by you, but we cannot charge for this service.

Unless you are familiar with retaining professionals you may consider our costs to be expensive, but costs are always relative to the benefits obtained. Accordingly, we recommend you assess that the benefit exceeds the costs before you request us to provide advice or further assistance to you. In this way you are in control of our relationship and can maximise the benefits you derive.

This information has been provided by way of service to you to assist you in understanding our work relationship. Clearly there are other issues which might be relevant to your individual circumstances. Should you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the person you have instructed to assist you or Janice Duncan on (02) 8263 6600.