OUR STANDARD COSTS DISCLOSURE
1. GST
All rates, charges, expenses and the like disclosed by us are GST exclusive unless otherwise stated. Where the service provided is subject to GST, GST of 10% will be added and charged to you.
2. How our costs are calculated
2.1 Professional Fees
We will charge you professional fees for the work we do at an hourly rate, or agreed amount, plus GST. The hourly rate or agreed amount will be open to negotiation at the time our services are retained.
Time spent travelling with respect to the work (for example to court) will be charged at a specified rate per hour, or included in an agreed amount, plus GST.
Hourly rates will be proportionately charged for work involving shorter periods less than an hour. Our charges are structured in 6 minutes units. For example, the time charged for an attendance of up to 6 minutes will be 1 unit and the time charged for an attendance between 6 and 12 minutes will be 2 units.
2.2 Charges
We will charge you for services we use or supply, including for photocopying, facsimile transmissions, document lodgment and searches and inquiries. If we are required to pay money in advance on your behalf for a supply or service, a surcharge will apply plus 10% GST).
2.3 Expenses & Disbursements
We may incur expenses and disbursements (being money which we pay or are liable to pay) to others on your behalf. These may include:
Search fees; enquiry fees; court filing fees; process servers; clinical records from hospitals; medical reports; experts’ reports; witnesses expenses; travel expenses, transcripts; barrister’s fees and others.
We will inform you of these expenses and disbursements as well as any other payments required to be made, in the event such cost exceed $100 as soon as is reasonably practicable. Where the costs do not exceed $100 they will be included in your interim and/or final bill and may be subject to the surcharge described at clause 2.2 of this disclosure.
3. Estimate of Costs
We will provide you with an estimate of our costs for conducting the work for you. Our estimate is not a quotation and subject to change. The estimate is made on the information available to us at the time it is given and will probably change when more information is available to us.
In the event we undertake work on the basis of an agreed amount, that amount will be fixed and will not change unless you request us to do further work that has not been included in the agreed amount.
4. Billing arrangements
We will send you a bill of costs containing information of our professional fees and charges, disbursements and expenses, including GST, either after completion of the work, or monthly, or at other times as agreed with you, when the work is in progress.
5. Interest on unpaid costs
If our costs are not paid within 30 days of giving you our bill of costs, we may charge you interest on the unpaid amount at or under the maximum rate prescribed in Regulation 110A, of the Legal Profession Regulation 2005. The rate is the target cash rate as determined from time-to-time by the Reserve Bank of Australia (www.rba.gov.au) PLUS 2% at the time the Bill of Costs is issued.
6. Dispute as to legal costs
In addition to the rights set out in the accompanying Form you also have the right to have the costs mediated if the dispute is less than $10,000 (referral for mediation must be made before an application for assessment is accepted by the Manager, Costs Assessment).
7. Persons responsible for your matter and legal costs
The principal solicitor of the firm or a solicitor delegated by the principal solicitor will be responsible for your matter and you will be advised of their contact information once we accept your offer to retain our services. Other persons may also assist with the conduct of your matter.
8. Substantial changes to disclosure
You will be informed, as soon as is reasonably practicable, of any substantial changes to anything contained in this disclosure document.
9. Engagement of another law practice (including a barrister)
It may be necessary for us to engage, on your behalf, the services of another law practice to provide specialist advice or services, including advocacy services, or to act as our agent. We will consult you as to the terms of that law practice’s engagement, but you may be asked to enter into a costs agreement directly with that law practice. The law practice engaged by us will disclose costs in a similar manner and we will disclose those costs to you.
10. Costs in court proceedings
10.1 If court proceedings are taken on your behalf, the court may order the other party to pay your costs of the proceedings. This sum will not necessarily cover the whole of your legal costs due to us. It is possible that the court may make an order that you pay the other party’s costs (if, for instance, you lose the case). These costs are payable by you to the other party in addition to the costs payable to us.
10.2 If you are unsuccessful in litigation you may be ordered to pay the other party’s costs. It is not possible at this time to provide an estimate of such costs.
10.3 If settlement of your claim is being negotiated, we will provide you before settlement with:
10.3.1 a reasonable estimate of our costs payable by you on settlement;
AND
10.3.2 a reasonable estimate of the costs you would obtain from the other party on settlement if the settlement is favourable to you;
11. Applicable law
The law of NSW applies to legal costs regarding this matter. Please see your rights in the Form below.
LEGAL COSTS - YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW
You have the right to:
- Negotiate a costs agreement with us
- Receive a bill of costs from us
- Request an itemized bill of costs after you receive a lump sum bill from us
- Request written reports about the progress of your matter and the costs incurred in your matter
- Apply for costs to be assessed within 12 months if you are unhappy with our costs
- Apply for the costs agreement to be set aside
- Accept or reject any offer we make for an interstate costs law to apply to your matter
- Notify us that you require an interstate costs law to apply to your matter.
For more information about your rights, please read the facts sheet titled Legal Costs – your right to know. You can obtain it from the Law Society of New South Wales or download it from their website (www.lawsociety.com.au).
GENERAL TERMS OF OUR COSTS AGREEMENT
The disclosure requirements which we are required to provide you under the Legal Profession Act 2004 are outlined above in the Standard Costs Disclosure. The costs agreement is the formal contract between our client and the firm regarding the arrangements for payment of our costs for undertaking work for our client.
Acceptance of Offer
If you accept the terms of our costs arrangements you will be regarded as having entered into a costs agreement. This means you will be bound by the terms and conditions set out in our costs agreement and disclosure, including being billed in accordance with it. Acceptance may be by any one of the following ways:
- signing and returning a copy of the costs agreement document;
- giving us instructions after receiving the costs agreement document;
- oral acceptance, including by telephone;
- by acknowledgement in writing, such as by email.
Failure to accept our offer within 7 days of despatch of the costs agreement document can result in the immediate withdrawal of our offer to act on your behalf.
Termination of Agreement
We will not continue to do the Work: if you fail to pay our bills; if you fail to provide us with adequate instructions within a reasonable time; if you give instructions that are deliberately false or intentionally misleading; if you fail to accept an offer of settlement which we think is reasonable; if you fail to accept advice we (or counsel) give you; if you engage another law practice to advice you on this matter without our consent; if we, on reasonable grounds, believe that we may have a conflict of interest, or if you indicate to us that we have lost your confidence; if it becomes apparent to us after acceptance of the retainer that the work is of a nature that is overly complex, outside our area of expertise or would result in unreasonable expectations or requirements from our firm; or for other just cause.
We will give you at least fourteen (14) days’ notice of our intention to terminate our agreement, and of the grounds on which the notice is based.
You may terminate this agreement at any time.
If the agreement is terminated either by you or us, you will be required to pay our professional fees and charges for work done, and for expenses and disbursements incurred, up to the date of termination. For lump sum fee matters, you must pay the part of our lump sum fee that we reasonably estimate has been incurred in respect of the legal services provided to you up to the date of termination, plus charges, expenses and disbursements, subject to your right to a costs assessment. You will be liable to pay our costs whether or not the other party to any court proceedings has to pay your costs of the proceedings.
On termination, we are entitled to retain possession of your papers and documents while there is money owing to us for our charges and expenses, unless and until security is provided for our costs.
Retention of your documents
We will, on completion of the Work, retain any papers to which you are entitled, but leave in our possession (except documents deposited in safe custody) for no more than seven (7) years and on the undertaking that we have your authority to destroy the file seven years after the date of the final bill rendered by us in this matter. A fee will apply in the event you request documents (including documents deposited in safe custody) be retrieved and/or forwarded to you after the completion of the matter. We shall be entitled to charge our usual hourly rate to retrieve any documents held in archives storage and shall not be required to attend to any retrieval unless such fees and any associated charges are paid or we are satisfied that arrangements have been made for payment.
Fees will be charged for any requested documents to be forwarded by registered post or similar, but may be higher depending on the weight of the documents and/or generally at the time of any request you make any request for retrieval of your documents.
Privacy Protection
Personal information about you, provided by you and other sources, is protected under the Privacy Amendment (Private Sector) Act 2000. Disclosure of such information may be compelled by law (eg. under the Social Security Act). You also authorise us to disclose such information where necessary to others in furtherance of your claim/matter (eg. within the law practice, to the Court, the other party or parties to litigation, to valuers, experts, barristers etc) or for the purpose of our costs arrangements with you, including for recovery of any unpaid costs, to notify outstanding costs as a credit default or to obtain a consumer credit report. You authorise us to use your personal information as necessary to recover any unpaid money due to us.
Payment / Money on Account
We may ask you to pay us, in advance, some money on account of payments which will be made to others and our costs. We will ask you to repay the money paid on your behalf in clause 2.3 of the costs disclosure document as and when we send you bills for these payments.
Authorisation to Transfer Money from Trust Account
You authorise us to receive directly into our trust account any judgment or settlement money, or money received from any source in furtherance of your work, and to pay ourselves our costs, disbursements and expenses in accordance with the provisions of clause 88(3) of the Legal Profession Regulation 2005. We shall be entitled to attend to the payment of our fees without further notice unless otherwise required by law.
Unpaid costs
In the event our fees remain outstanding after 30 days from the date of our invoice, and in addition to any other causes of action and remedies that may be available to us to recover our fees, you expressly agree that you will be liable to pay all of our costs of recovering any outstanding fees or amounts owing including but not limited to debt recovery charges, interest, caveat and/or mortgage registration fees and court proceedings and that these costs will be added to the outstanding amount owed. You expressly agree to charge our fees and costs of recovering our fees to any real or personal property you may own or have an interest in at the time of this agreement or acquired by you in the future so that we shall attain a proprietary interest in such property holdings until such time as the debt is paid to us in full and we may deal with your property in satisfaction of any debt. You consent to us lodging a caveat or caveats or mortgage at our discretion to note our interest under this clause. You authorise us to notify the non-payment of our costs as a default to a credit reporting agency of our choosing and at our discretion.