Contents:
Client Information
Terms of Engagement
New client investment disclosure and self-certification forms
We are committed to complying with the Rules of Conduct and Client Care for Lawyers of the New Zealand Law Society. To assist you, the following information describes some key elements of those rules and explains some recourse you have as a consumer of legal services.
Whatever legal services we are providing, we must:
If you have any questions, please visit www.lawsociety.org.nz or call 0800 261 801.
The names and position of the person or persons who will have the general carriage of or overall responsibility for the services we provide for you are set out in our letter of engagement. We will advise you if they change from time to time. If we have not advised you in writing of the person or persons who will have overall responsibility for the services we provide for you then that person will be the person that you have instructed to do the work.
We maintain a procedure for handling any complaints by clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly.
If you have a complaint about our services or charges, you may refer your complaint to the person in our firm who has overall responsibility for your work.
If you do not wish to refer your complaint to that person, or you are not satisfied with that person’s response to your complaint, you may refer your complaint to our General Manager who may be contacted as follows:
The New Zealand Law Society operates the Lawyers Complaints Service and you are able to make a complaint to that service. To do so, phone 0800 261 801 and you will be connected to the nearest Complaints Service Office, which can provide information and advice about making a complaint.
We hold professional indemnity insurance that meets or exceeds the minimum standards specified by the Law Society. We will provide you with particulars of the minimum standards upon request.
The Law Society maintains the Lawyers' Fidelity Fund for the purpose of providing clients of lawyers with protection against pecuniary loss arising from theft by lawyers. The maximum amount payable by the Fidelity Fund 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 the client.
Our services to you will not include investment, financial or tax advice. Any other limitations on the extent of our obligations to you or any limitation or exclusion of liability will be set out in our letter of engagement and our Client Engagement Agreement.
New international tax rules known as “FATCA” and “CRS” require that New Zealand disclose information to other countries about income earned by taxpayers who may have potential liability to pay tax outside New Zealand.
The net result of these arrangements is that New Zealand Banks and other financial institutions are obliged to collect information about their customers. This means that we have to provide information about clients who have money on interest-bearing deposit (“IBD”) and provide that to our bank (“ANZ’) who we place those monies through. Therefore from 1 July 2017, no new money may be placed on IBD unless clients have completed an ANZ self-certification form.
Our terms of engagement now provide that our clients agree that money will not be placed on deposit as a matter of course. If monies are placed on deposit that can only be done so once the appropriate self-certification forms have been properly completed, signed and return to us.
Forms may be downloaded below. Please note you require the Acrobat Reader to view PDF documents, if you don’t have Adobe Reader, click here to download this for free.