Scope of Our Services
We will provide you with legal advice and services based on your financial and business objectives in mind which in our professional understanding are reasonably necessary and appropriate to the matters involved for which you hire our services.
We are not accredited financial accountingprofessionals or business advisors and we understand that you will rely on your own judgment and resources and relevant professionals. We do not provideadvice on non-legal matters or services on any matter other than the matters in respect of which you specifically retain us, and once our work on a matter has been completed, we will not advise you as to subsequent legal developments relating to the matter.
Confidentiality
We are bound by the Rules of Professional Conduct by Law Society of Ontario (formerly known as The Law Society of Upper Canada) and comply with our obligations to our clients under section 3.3 of the Rules of Confidentiality. We do not disclose confidential information to any third party subject only to applicable law and our professional and ethical obligations.
We have established our own judgment on the merit of individual file where we are required to filter screens. You agree that the timely establishment and maintenance of a confidentiality screen will be sufficient protection of the confidentiality of your confidential information.
Conflict of Interest /Representation of Other Clients
We must identify and verify our clients. We remain mindful of our obligations to our clients under the Rules of Professional Conduct, as applicable. We always do conflict searches before the beginning of the retainer and time to time during the process of legal services. We undertake to use commercially reasonable efforts to avoid accepting retainers from other clients that would create a substantial risk that our representation of you on an active matter would be materially and adversely affected (a “conflicting interest”).
You do agree, for greater certainty, that we may present you along with other party in conflict subject to consent provided by you and/or the other party further subject to allowed by Rules of Professional Conduct and By-law by Law Society of Ontario. We agree that we will not represent the other client(s) in any direct legal dispute they might have with you that may arise in any such matter. We are relying on you to let us know of any other parties who become involved in a matter, including any parties whose interests may be adverse to yours.
When you are no longer our client, under applicable professional rules we may represent another client in any matter that is directly adverse to your immediate interests provided that (a) the matter is not the same as or directly related to the matter in which we previously represented you and (b) we protect your confidential information.
You may be advised to obtain advice from Independent Legal Counsel where ever required and depends on matter to matter.
Fees and Disbursements
Our fees are ordinarily based on the time spent and sometimes flat fees for various matters, valued at our prevailing hourly rates, of the legal professionals doing your work. These rates vary and reflect the expertise and experience of each professional. We periodically review and adjust our rates, and we advise you of any changes affecting your work. In some circumstances, specally in real estae and busienss law matters we charge fixed fees and advise in advance of the same and when we do so, they will be set forth in our invoices or trust ledger a the time of execution of transaction documents.
Accounts are due and payable when received and interest on overdue accounts will be charged at the annual rate of interest set forth in the account.
We may ask for an advance against fees and disbursements which we will hold in trust and for which we will fully account. The amount of any advance requested depends on a number of factors which we will discuss with you.
Our accounts will also include any expenses we incur on your behalf. Our typical disbursements and charges are for such matters as external database on-line charges, photocopies, courier charges, court filing fees, discovery and transcript fees, filing and search fees, and other expenses incurred on your behalf.
Trust Funds
All money received from you before the services have been rendered will go to our office Trust Bank Account, in other case the money will be deposited to office general account. You may request our office for a separate interest bearing trust account for your funds subject to cost of maintaining the same account to be borne by you. We are not responsible for any risk involved in placing trust funds with a particular financial institution.
Money received on your behalf which is to be paid out as part of your transaction must be in the form of a certified Cheque, bank draft or wire transfer. If it is paid by uncertified Cheque, we must have sufficient time to ensure that the Cheque has cleared before payment out can be made. Clients may choose to pay fee by cash to the maximum of less than $7,500.00 per file.
Electronic Communications
During the course of our engagement, we may exchange electronic versions of documents and e-mails with you using commercially available software that is vulnerable to attack by viruses and other destructive electronic programs. As a result of our countermeasures undertaken in this regard, our system may occasionally reject a communication you send to us, or we may send you something that is rejected by your system. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee that all communications and documents will always be received, or that such communications and documents will always be virus free, and we make no warranty with respect to any electronic communications between us. In addition, we make no warranty with respect to the security of any electronic communication between us and you consent to our exchange of electronic communications, including confidential documents, unencrypted.
Representative Work
We will on occasion seek to publicize representative work which we believe reflects well on you and us. If the work is not a matter of public record, we will seek your consent before publicizing it or publicize it only on a limited, descriptive, no names basis. Naturally, if you advise us that you do not wish it publicized, whether or not it is a matter of public record, we will not publicize it.
Termination
You may terminate an engagement of us for any reason prior to the completion of the engagement by giving us written notice to that effect. On such termination, all unpaid legal fees and disbursements will become due and payableimmediately. Subject to our professional and ethical obligations, we may terminate our legal representation of you prior to the completion of an engagement for any reason including as a result of conflicts of interest that arise or unpaid legal fees and disbursements.
Unless an engagement has been previously terminated, our representation of you in respect of the engagement will cease upon receipt by you of our final account for services rendered. If, upon termination or completion of the engagement, you wish to have any documentation that you have provided to us and the work product completed for you returned to you, please advise us. Otherwise, such documentation will be dealt with in accordance with our records retention policies and practices that may not be synchronized with yours. If you have any concerns about what we retain in our records or dispose of, you must alert us to your concern. Absent written agreement with you to the contrary, we are free to retain or destroy our records with respect to this engagement as we determine to be appropriate.
The fact that we may subsequently send you information on legal developments without charge or that we may include you in general mailings will not change the fact that an engagement has been terminated.
Governing Law
Your engagements of us will be governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario.