Useful Information

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.

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 will 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.
   2.2   Disbursements and expenses: In providing services we may incur disbursements or have to
   make payments to third parties on your behalf. These 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.
   2.3   GST (if any): Is payable by you on our fees and charges.
   2.4   Invoices and Payment: To help you budget 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.
   Should you have difficulty in meeting any of our accounts, please contact us without
   delay so we may discuss payment arrangements.
   2.5   If our account to you or any part of it remains unpaid, beyond 14 days from the date of the
   invoice, we reserve the right to stop all work on your matter or terminate our representation for
   you in a manner which is consistent with our obligations.
   2.6   You will be liable for all costs associated with the collection and recovery of your overdue and
   unpaid account (including costs on a solicitor/client basis and any credit agency fees) and we
   reserve the right to charge you interest on all overdue amounts at the rate of 15% per month on
   the outstanding amount.
   2.7   Information you have provided may be used to assist in the collection of your overdue account
   and we may obtain from and give to any third party (including credit agencies) information which
   will assist us to obtain payment of the outstanding debt. Any fees incurred in connection with
   obtaining payment of the outstanding debt (including Court Filing Fees) are recoverable, and
   payable by you.
   2.8  Security: We may ask you to pre-pay amounts to us, or to provide security for our fees and
   expenses. We may also deduct from funds held on your behalf, any fees, disbursements or
   expenses for which we have provided an invoice.
   2.9  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.
   2.10  Credit balances: from time to time at the conclusion of the service, there may be a balance
   held for your credit in the trust account. These will be transferred to another ongoing file of the
   client, if one exists. Due to the administrative costs in dealing with small balances, credit
   balances of less than $15 will not be refunded, however will be collected and donated in a lump
   sum 6-monthly to our charity of choice being the Southland Charity Hospital.
3. 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.
4. 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.
   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.
5. Retention of files and documents
   5.1   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) 7 years after our
   engagement ends, or earlier if we have converted those files and documents to an electronic
   format.
6. Conflicts of Interest
   6.1   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.
7. Duty of Care
   7.1   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.
8. Trust Account
   8.1   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.
9. General
   9.1   These Terms apply to any current engagement and also to any future engagement, whether or
   not we send you another copy of them.
   9.2   We may change these Terms from time to time, in which case we will send you amended Terms.
   9.3   Our relationship with you is governed by New Zealand law and New Zealand courts have nonexclusive
   jurisdiction.