We provide the following information in compliance with the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers of the New Zealand Law Society (Law Society). The following information describes some key elements of those rules, and explains some recourse you have as a consumer of legal services.
Client Care and Service
Whatever legal services we are providing, we must:
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; and
Let you know how to make a complaint and deal with any complaint promptly and fairly.
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.
People Responsible for Your Work
We will advise you of the people who will have overall responsibility for your work on each matter.
Complaints
We have complaints procedures that are designed to ensure that any complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly.
If you have a complaint about our services or charges, please talk to the Beattie Rickman Legal person you usually deal with or the director responsible for your work.
If you do not wish to talk to that person about your complaint, or you are not happy with that person's response to your complaint, please contact our managing director, who can be reached by:
e-mail at travis@brlegal.co.nz; or
telephone +64 7 839 0495.
The Law Society also maintains a complaints service and you can make a complaint to that service by going to:
www.lawsociety.org.nz,
You can use this Online complains form, and send to complaints@lawsociety.org.nz;
Call 0800-261-801;
or Visit them at 109 Anglesea Street, Hamilton 3204
Professional Indemnity Insurance
We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum standards specified by the Law Society. We can provide you with particulars of the minimum standards upon request.
Lawyers' Fidelity Fund
The Law Society maintains the Lawyers' Fidelity Fund to provide protection against client losses arising from theft by lawyers. The most the Fidelity Fund can compensate you is $100,000.00. The Fidelity Fund will not usually cover loss relating to money a lawyer is instructed to invest on behalf of a client.
Terms and Conditions
What Are The Terms And Conditions About?
The following terms and conditions will form the basis of the professional relationship between Beattie Rickman Legal ("we") and the client ("you") and unless we agree in writing to different or additional terms, these terms and conditions will apply for each matter that you instruct us to act for you.
Your Instructions
We will only act on your clear instructions. Where instructions cannot be reasonably obtained from you, we will stop work until these are received.
We will act in your best interests and take all reasonable steps to keep you informed of the steps taken to carry out your instructions. We will use all due care and skill in carrying out your instructions subject to any ethical and/or legal duties.
Our duties are owed to you. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, those duties do not extend to other closely associated parties, for example, shareholders or related companies, directors or employees, or parents or other family members.
If you instruct us on behalf of someone else, you are liable to pay the account that we render for work done together with all disbursements and charge for general office services.
If you are instructing us as a director or officer of a company, then you are liable to pay the account in the event of that company failing to pay.
If, after your matter has ended, further issues or developments arise, we will not advise you on these issues unless you instruct us to do so.
Confidentiality
We will hold in strict confidence all information that we acquire through our work for you, and which concerns your business or your instructions to us. The only exceptions are where you authorise us to disclose such information or where we must do so by law.
Whenever we obtain confidential information from you, we will, as far as practicable, distribute the information only to those within the firm who actually need that information to carry out your instructions.
Conflicts Of Interest
We have policies in place to identify and respond to conflicts of interest. If a conflict of interest or potential conflict of interest arises, we will consult with you about the best way to resolve the matter.
Legal Advisers Only
We are not accountants, financial advisers, insurance advisers or management advisers. We confirm that we have not given, nor undertake to give, any advice on these matters and we advise you to seek expert advice in relation to these areas.
Managing Your File
Generally, you will have one director or solicitor who is responsible for each matter. He or she will or may involve others to assist as appropriate.
If you have any concerns about any person who is acting on a matter, please contact the managing director, Travis Thoms.
How Do We Charge?
Our fees will be charged on the basis that they will be fair and reasonable, having regard to the circumstances of the matter and the nature of our work for you. In setting our fee, we take account of matters such as:
The skill, specialised knowledge and responsibility required.
The complexity of the matter and the difficulty or novelty of the matter.
The time we spend on a matter, charged at our then current hourly rates.
The importance of the matter to you and the results achieved.
The degree of risk assumed by us in undertaking the services, including the value or amount of any property or the money involved.
The number and importance of the documents prepared or considered.
The reasonable costs of running a practice and the resources.
The experience, reputation and ability of the lawyer who carried out the work.
The urgency and circumstances in which the matter is carried out.
The level of involvement that you require.
The fee customarily charged in the market and locality for similar legal services.
Often the greatest contributor to lower fees is the level of communication between you and us, both before the work begins and during it. Please discuss with us the outcomes that you seek, the context in which you are working, and the level of legal involvement that you require.
Estimate Of Fees
Legal costs are often difficult to estimate. Fees depend upon many factors including your attitude and conduct and that of any other party, the progress of negotiations, the number of witnesses, promptness of responses and relevant court procedures. We can give estimates of the likely fees based on our experience with similar matters. Estimates are given as a guide only and not as a fixed quotation. All estimates given will be subject to on-going review. If it appears that the estimate will be exceeded, we will advise you of the reasons and obtain further instructions from you.
Other Charges
We charge for disbursements (i.e. payments made to other people for work to be done, for example, filing fees, search fees, agency fees and similar payments). We cannot pay these amounts for you unless we receive payment from you first. We reserve the right to ask either for these specific amounts or for an approximate amount to cover these expenses to be paid to ensure that we are not out-of-pocket.
We also charge for general office services, for example, photocopying, facsimiles, telephone communications and mail deliveries.
For a variety of reasons, some instructions are not completed. If this occurs, we will charge you for work undertaken and all costs incurred up to the time of termination. In some situations, we may be required to incur additional time or expenses following completion of a matter. We will charge for our time and expenses in the usual way.
When Will You Be Billed?
Generally, property and similar transactional matters are billed at the time of settlement or on completion of the work. We reserve the right to require you to make payment or payments to us for disbursements prior to final billing of any matter.
For other matters, we will bill you on a monthly or interim basis unless otherwise agreed. This will help you by spreading payments over time. It will also enable you to keep track on how much the work is costing.
Our accounts are payable within 14 days of the date of invoice or receipt of the invoice (whichever is the latter) or as otherwise arranged with us. If you have any queries about any account, please let us know immediately.
For matters where we may hold funds on your behalf, we will make payment of your account by deduction from these funds. Under these Terms and Conditions, you consent to such deduction.
If an account is not paid promptly, we reserve the right to do any of the following:
Not to do any work, and to retain custody of your papers or files, until all accounts are paid in full.
To charge interest at up to 10% per annum on any amount outstanding one month after the date of the account.
Start proceedings to recover the amount owed.
You will be liable for all costs associated with the collection and recovery of your overdue and unpaid account. This will include all our in-house costs, calculated on a solicitor/client basis. Information you have provided to us may be used to assist in collecting an overdue account.
Where we have an arrangement with you that we will address the invoice to another person, you will pay that invoice if that other person does not pay the invoice.
Any fee, expense or disbursement for which we have provided an invoice, and which remains unpaid, may be deducted from any funds held in our trust account on your behalf (unless you have given us different instructions). Where monies are held in our trust account on deposit for you, we may charge an administration fee of up to 5% of the gross interest earned.
Termination Of Legal Services
There may be some instances when we may not be able to act for you. These circumstances may include:
Conflict of interest.
Withholding relevant information.
Acting contrary to our legal advice.
Misrepresenting critical facts.
Failing to pay our fees when due.
If we become unable to act for you or you end our engagement, all outstanding fees and charges will be billed to you. You have the right to uplift your file and deeds when you have paid your account.
Either you or we may terminate our engagement at any time by giving reasonable notice. The enforceability of this agreement is not affected by the termination or changes to the constitution or directors of Beattie Rickman Legal.
Acceptance Of These Terms And Conditions
These terms of engagement apply to any current instructions, and to any future instructions, whether or not we send you another copy of them. There is no need for you to sign these terms of engagement in order to accept them; you will accept these terms of engagement by continuing to instruct us to work for you.
These terms of engagement are not affected by any change to our company.
We can change these terms of engagement, in which case we will send amended terms of engagement to you.
Privacy Policy
Beattie Rickman Legal Services Limited (we, us, our) complies with the New Zealand Privacy Act 1993 (the Act) when dealing with personal information. Personal information is information about an identifiable individual (a natural person).
This policy sets out how we will collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information.
This policy does not limit or exclude any of your rights under the Act. If you wish to seek further information on the Act, see www.privacy.org.nz.
Changes to this policy
We may change this policy by uploading a revised policy onto our website. The change will apply from the date that we upload the revised policy.
This policy was last updated on 10 November 2020.
How do we collect your personal information
We collect personal information about you from:
• You, when you provide that personal information to us, including via the website and any related service, through any registration or subscription process, through any contact with us (e.g. telephone call or email), or when you buy or use our services and products; and
• Third parties where you have authorised this or the information is publicly available.
If possible, we will collect personal information from you directly.
How we use your personal information?
We will use your personal information:
• to verify your identity;
• to undertake credit checks of you (if necessary);
• to provide services to you;
• to bill you and to collect money that you owe us, including authorising and processing credit card transactions;
• to respond to communications from you, including a complaint should it arise;
• to protect and/or enforce our legal rights and interests, including defending any claim; and
• for any other purpose authorised by you or the Act.
Disclosing your personal information
We may disclose your personal information to:
• A credit reference agency for the purpose of credit checking you;
• A personal identification company for the purpose of confirming identity and address;
• Other third parties (for anonymised statistical information);
• A person who can require us to supply your personal information (e.g. a regulatory authority);
• Any other person authorised by the Act or another law (e.g. a law enforcement agency); and
• Any other person authorised by you.
Protecting your personal information
We will take reasonable steps to keep your personal information safe from loss, unauthorised activity, or other misuse.
Accessing and correcting your personal information
Subject to certain grounds for refusal set out in the Act, you have the right to access your readily retrievable personal information that we hold and to request a correction to your personal information. Before you exercise this right, we will need evidence to confirm that you are the individual to whom the personal information relates.
In respect of a request for correction, if we think the correction is reasonable and we are reasonably able to change the personal information, we will make the correction. If we do not make the correction, we will take reasonable steps to note on the personal information that you requested the correction.
If you want to exercise either of the above rights, email us at brlegal@brlegal.co.nz. Your email should provide evidence of who you are and set out the details of your request (e.g. the personal information, or the correction, that you are requesting).
We may charge you our reasonable costs of providing to you copies of your personal information or correcting that information.
Internet Use
While we take reasonable steps to maintain secure internet connections, if you provide us with personal information over the internet, the provision of that information is at your own risk.
If you follow a link on our website to another site, the owner of that site will have its own privacy policy relating to your personal information. We suggest you review that site’s privacy policy before you provide personal information.