Terms of Use
Personal Use Only
You must not use this website to provide services for anyone other than yourself, unless you are a lawyer or licenced conveyancer. It is an offence, punishable by substantial fines payable on conviction, for anyone who is not a lawyer or licenced conveyancer to provide legal services to another person. It is, however, lawful for you to use this website to do legal work for yourself.
Offer to Provide Legal Services and Disclosure
These terms of use set out the terms of our offer to provide legal services to you and constitute our costs agreement and disclosure pursuant to the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW).
What is LawOnline?
LawOnline Services Pty Ltd (ACN 168 783 131). LawOnline Services Pty Ltd is an Australian legal practitioner under the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) No 16a, and is an incorporated legal practice.
LawOnline Services Pty Ltd is referred to and called "LawOnline" in this website and in the documents generated by this website.
Becoming a Client
By indicating your acceptance of these terms and conditions, you are entering into an agreement to become a client of, and to purchase legal services from, LawOnline.
How does LawOnline charge?
LawOnline's fees are fixed fees, unless expressly agreed otherwise with you. They are set out in the pages of this website in relation to each service.
When do you have to pay?
LawOnline's accounts are all due to be paid immediately and simultaneously with the delivery of the service or document.
If LawOnline is holding money for you, LawOnline may deduct the account from that money and give you a full statement.
Refund Policy
You agree to and accept our refund policy which you can see at our Refunds page.
Applicable Statutes
The law which applies to our relationship is the law of the State of New South Wales. That law includes the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) No 16a, (the “Uniform Law”), the Legal Profession Uniform Regulations 2015 and the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015, (the “Uniform General Rules”), the Legal Profession Uniform Law Australian Solicitors’ Conduct Rules 2015 (the “Conduct Rules”) and the Legal Profession Uniform Legal Practice (Solicitors) Rules 2015. Other NSW statutes and common law principles may also apply.
Confidentiality
Information that you disclose to us will be afforded confidentiality to the fullest extent required by law and, in particular, to the fullest extent required by the Conduct Rules.
Your Instructions
LawOnline will act in your best interests to carry out your instructions. LawOnline reserves the right to cease to act where you cannot or will not provide instructions. LawOnline will take reasonable steps to keep you informed of the steps taken to carry out your instructions. By instructing LawOnline you accept liability to pay the account for fees that LawOnline will render for work done, together with all disbursements incurred in respect of your instructions.
Limitation of Liability
You agree to and accept the limitation of liability which is set out in our disclaimer, which you can see at our Disclaimer page.
Retention of your Documents
LawOnline will, on completion of any work carried out for you, retain an electronic copy of all information that you provide and all interactions that you have with the LawOnline website and any papers to which you are entitled, for no more 7 years. After 7 years, all files, information and papers may be destroyed.
We will, of course, not destroy any signed document or any certificate without first checking with you whether it is in order to do so. Those documents will be kept indefinitely.
Sending Material Electronically
Electronic communications using the LawOnline website will be encrypted and transmitted using the security protocols adopted by LawOnline from time to time. Email transmissions may not be secure if conducted outside of the LawOnline website, and as any such transmission is not secure it may be copied, recorded, read or interfered with by third parties while in transit. If you ask us to transmit any document electronically, outside of the security protocols applied by the website, you release us from any claim you may have as a result of any unauthorised copying, recording, reading or interference with that document, for any delay or non-delivery of any document and for any damage caused to your system or any files.
Official Inquiries
We may be required in the future to participate in an inquiry, commission or proceedings arising out of our engagement in any matter on your behalf. This may, for example, involve us in producing information or documents, seeking to claim and defend your privilege, to resist inspection or disclosure of certain information or documents or in giving evidence at an inquiry. We will seek your instructions if these circumstances arise, but you agree to reimburse us for our out-of-pocket expenses, and for the time we spend at our normal hourly rates which are then current.
Estimate of Fees
Where LawOnline carries out work for you for which there is no fee set out in this website, LawOnline will give you an estimate. The estimate will be LawOnline's "best guess" as to what the fee is likely to be. If however the work does not proceed as LawOnline had expected due to unexpected complications, or if the work proves more complicated than originally anticipated, LawOnline will charge for all additional work done. If it appears that the estimate will be exceeded, LawOnline will advise you of the reasons and obtain further instructions from you.
When will you be billed?
You will be billed immediately prior to the delivery of a document, or other service to you, unless we have agreed otherwise with you, and you will be required to make payment prior to the final delivery of the document or service. For other matters, LawOnline will bill you immediately following the delivery of a service, and payment will be due immediately.
What about cash payments that you have to make?
Payments may have to be made to other people for work to be done, for example filing fees, search fees, agency fees and similar payments (called disbursements). LawOnline cannot pay these amounts for you unless LawOnline receives payment from you first.
LawOnline reserves the right to ask either for the specific amounts or for an approximate amount to cover these expenses to be paid, to ensure that LawOnline is not out-of-pocket. If LawOnline instructs any other person, it reserves the right to require payment of that person's estimated fees into LawOnline's trust account before it makes the payment.
Interest Charges
Interest at the maximum rate prescribed in Rule 75 of the Uniform General Rules (being the Cash Rate Target set by the Reserve Bank of Australia plus 2%) will be charged on any amounts unpaid after the expiry of 30 days after a tax invoice is given to you.
Recovery of Costs
The Uniform Law provides that we cannot take action for recovery of legal costs until 30 days after a tax invoice (which complies with the Uniform Law) has been given to you.
Your Rights
- It is your right to:
- negotiate a costs agreement with us;
- negotiate the method of billing (e.g. task based or time based);
- request and receive an itemised bill within 30 days after a lump sum bill or partially itemised bill is payable;
- seek the assistance of the designated local regulatory authority (the NSW Commissioner) in the event of a dispute about legal costs;
- be notified as soon as is reasonably practicable of any significant change to any matter affecting costs;
- accept or reject any offer we make for an interstate costs law to apply to your matter; and
- notify us that you require an interstate costs law to apply to your matter.
- when the lump sum bill is given, we inform you in writing that the total amount of the legal costs specified in any itemised bill may be higher than the amount specified in the lump sum bill, and
- the costs are determined to be payable after a costs assessment or after a binding determination under section 292 of the Uniform Law.
Nothing in these terms of use affects your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
Your Rights in relation to a Dispute concerning Costs
If you have a dispute in relation to any aspect of our legal costs you have the following avenues of redress:
- in the first instance we encourage you to discuss your concerns with us so that any issue can be identified and we can have the opportunity of resolving the matter promptly and without it adversely impacting on our business relationship;
- you may apply to the Manager, Costs Assessment located at the Supreme Court NSW for an assessment of our costs. This application must be made within 12 months after the bill was provided or request for payment made or after the costs were paid.
Authorisation to Transfer Money from Trust Account
You authorise us to receive directly into our trust account any judgment or settlement amount, or money received from any source in furtherance of your work, and to pay our professional fees, internal expenses and disbursements in accordance with the provisions of Rule 42 of the Uniform General Rules. A trust statement will be forwarded to you upon completion of the matter.
Termination by Us
- We may cease to act for you or refuse to perform further work, including:
- while any of our tax invoices remain unpaid;
- if you do not within 7 days comply with any request to pay an amount in respect of disbursements or future costs;
- if you fail to provide us with clear and timely instructions to enable us to advance your matter, for example, compromising our ability to comply with Court directions, orders or practice notes;
- if you refuse to accept our advice;
- if you indicate to us or we form the view that you have lost confidence in us;
- if there are any ethical grounds which we consider require us to cease acting for you, for example a conflict of interest;
- for any other reason outside our control which has the effect of compromising our ability to perform the work required within the required timeframe; or
- if in our sole discretion we consider it is no longer appropriate to act for you; or
- for just cause.
We will give you reasonable written notice of termination of our services. You will be required to pay our costs incurred up to the date of termination.
Termination by You
You may terminate our services by written notice at any time. However, if you do so you will be required to pay our costs incurred up to the date of termination (including if the matter is litigious, any cancellation fees or other fees such as hearing allocation fees for which we remain responsible).
Lien
- Without affecting any lien to which we are otherwise entitled at law over funds, papers and other property of yours:
- we shall be entitled to retain by way of lien any funds, property or papers of yours, which are from time to time in our possession or control, until all costs, disbursements, interest and other moneys due to the firm have been paid; and
- our lien will continue notwithstanding that we cease to act for you.
Privacy
We will collect personal information from you in the course of providing our legal services. We may also obtain personal information from third party searches, other investigations and, sometimes, from adverse parties.
We are required to collect the full name and address of our clients by Rule 93 of the Uniform General Rules. Accurate name and address information must also be collected in order to comply with the trust account record keeping requirements of Rule 47 of the Uniform General Rules and to comply with our duty to the courts.
Your personal information will only be used for the purposes for which it is collected or in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cwth). For example, we may use your personal information to provide advice and recommendations that take into account your personal circumstances.
If you do not provide us with the full name and address information required by law, we cannot act for you. If you do not provide us with the other personal information that we request our advice may be wrong for you or misleading.
Depending on the nature of your matter the types of bodies to whom we may disclose your personal information include the courts, the other party or parties to litigation, experts and barristers, the Office of State Revenue, PEXA Limited, the Land and Property Information Division of the Department of Lands, the Registrar General and third parties involved in the completion or processing of a transaction.
We do not disclose your information overseas unless your instructions involve dealing with parties located overseas. If your matter involves parties overseas we may disclose select personal information to overseas recipients associated with that matter in order to carry out your instructions.
We manage and protect your personal information in accordance with our privacy policy which can be found on our website at Privacy Policy page. Our privacy policy contains information about how you can access and correct the personal information we hold about you and how you can raise any concerns about our personal information handling practices. For more information, please contact us in writing.
GST
Where applicable, GST is payable on our professional fees and expenses and will be clearly shown on our tax invoices. By accepting these terms, you agree to pay us an amount equivalent to the GST imposed on these charges.
Governing Law
The law of New South Wales governs these terms of use and legal costs in relation to any matter upon which we are instructed to act. We and you both submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of NSW.