This page contains information which Kiwilaw is required by law to provide to clients before doing any work for them. Please read it carefully, and let us know if there is anything about which you are unsure.
1 Kiwilaw Probate and Estates Ltd (‘Kiwilaw’)
Kiwilaw is the trading name of Kiwilaw Probate and Estates Ltd (formerly Kiwilaw Mediation and Advocacy Ltd). Cheryl Simes is its owner, director, and sole lawyer.
The plural ‘we’ is used below, to reflect standard wording in communications from law firms, and because it was initially drafted when Kiwilaw also had support staff. (Now some support work is outsourced to other local businesses in Oxford.)
2 Client Care and Service:
The Law Society client care and service information is set out below.
Whatever legal services your lawyer is providing, she 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.
• 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.
If you have any questions, please visit www.lawsociety.org.nz or call 0800 261 801.
3 Limitations on extent of our Obligations or Liability
In some circumstances, lawyers are allowed to limit or exclude their financial liability to clients for negligence or other breaches of legal duty or contract.
No such limitations or exclusions apply in our practice. (We do not think they would be fair or reasonable. If we make a mistake, we will rectify it. We will also strenuously defend any claims that have no basis.)
Limit on extent of obligations
You are instructing us for limited and specified document-creation services, not full legal representation.
We are not providing legal advice or other services except (a) (‘probate service’) advice about the process required for an application for probate or letters of administration, and preparation of documents required for such an application, on the basis that the information you provide to us is complete and correct; (b) other advice or legal services as specifically and expressly requested by you in addition to the document-creation services provided online.
We are responsible (and legally liable) ONLY for what you have specifically instructed us to do.
4 Fees
Unless otherwise agreed with you in writing, the basis on which fees will be charged is as follows:
• Fixed fees for specific tasks, as set out on Kiwilaw website or by notice to clients, with invoices payable within 14 days and before prepared documents are released to clients.
• Any one-off additional work specifically requested by you will EITHER be by a fixed fee notified in advance, OR a guideline hourly rate of $345 hour (incl GST, if any). In such special work:
i ‘Work’ includes emails, telephone calls, texts, letters, perusing documents, factual and legal research, as well as preparing documents and meeting with you. In other words, a lot of the work happens behind the scenes. It is
recorded in our time-recording system and we can provide full details on request.
ii ‘Work’ is recorded as accurately as reasonably practical in hours/minutes. A phone call may include preparation for the call and/or writing a file note afterwards, and recording the time, and updating details of work to be done, and may therefore be recorded as longer than the call duration.
iii Photocopying/printing is usually billed at 20c/page (+GST). This includes printing significant emails for the physical file.
iv Outgoing phone calls are billed only as time, with no surcharge for the cost of the call unless special circumstances apply (e.g. calls to overseas mobiles).
For all work:
- If you have been provided with a written estimate for specific work, you will be notified in advance if an unanticipated complication means that the estimate is going to be exceeded;
- We will invoice you at intervals during the work, and will require payment before release of prepared documents (if any), and within 14 days of each invoice (unless other arrangements are agreed beforehand in writing);
- If you have deposited funds into another solicitor’s trust account to be used for our fees, the solicitor may use those funds to pay any fees, expenses or disbursements for which we provide an invoice;
- If payment is overdue, we have the right to decline to do further work for you. If Cheryl is currently on the court record as your lawyer, she can ask the court to allow her to withdraw as your lawyer. You consent to any notices about this being sent to you by email, ordinary mail, or courier, rather than personal service;
- If you still do not pay what is due, we may hold your file until payment is received. You will also be liable for all costs of collecting or enforcing the amount due (including our time at standard rates – or another lawyer’s time if we instruct someone else – and court/Disputes Tribunal fees, and process servers, collection agents (eg Baycorp) and other related expenses).
5 Collection and use of information about you (privacy policy)
We collect personal information from you, including information about your name, contact information, location, IP address (if using electronic document signing), interactions with us (including online), billing or purchase information, and proof of identity, as well as specific factual information needed for the legal work we do for you.
By instructing us to go ahead, you consent to our checking your identity by using third-party verification services including those which access government records of passports, driver licences, and other identity records, both in New Zealand and (if applicable) outside New Zealand. You may withdraw this consent at any time. However, if you do withdraw your consent, we may have to cease our work for you, depending on the type of work. You are still liable to pay us for any work we have done up to that point.
We collect your personal information in order to answer your initial (no-obligation) enquiry and, if you decide to go ahead, to provide specific legal services to you. Depending on the type of work we do for you, we may also be required to comply with anti-money laundering legislation, which may require us to obtain additional personal information that we would not otherwise need.
We do not use your personal information for marketing purposes either directly or indirectly, except for monitoring the geographical location of client enquiries.
You have the right to ask for a copy of any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think it is wrong. If you’d like to ask for a copy of your information, or to have it corrected, please contact us at Kiwilaw, P O Box 85, Oxford 7443, or email us. (If you do not receive an acknowledgment within 3 working days, please follow up in case the email has gone astray.) However, please note that if you are not our client, any information provided to us about you by someone else for the purposes of the work we do for them is likely to be legally privileged and unable to be disclosed without our client’s consent. We are also unable to confirm whether any person is or is not our client.
6 Retention of records
Your file will be retained for a period of seven (7) years from the date of closure, unless it is transferred direct to another lawyer at your request. It will then be destroyed unless you have asked us to send it to you at that time.
We will usually keep electronic copies of documents even if your file is closed or transferred to another lawyer. (However, this is not a guarantee.) Sometimes this allows us to answer later queries from you without needing to retrieve the physical file. (If you do not want us to keep any electronic copies of your documents, please tell us in writing.)
7 Professional Indemnity Insurance
We do not hold professional indemnity insurance.
(For some time it was in the process of being reorganised, after Cheryl resigned her membership of the NZ Bar Association through which it was previously organised. Then professional issues arose that would have led to an increased premium. Those issues were resolved in Cheryl’s favour by the High Court, Court of Appeal, and Disciplinary Tribunal, and Cheryl was vindicated. By then it was a low priority to arrange this insurance. Kiwilaw’s practice areas do not involve property or commercial transactions or litigation with a significant risk of loss caused by Kiwilaw’s errors, even when such rare errors occur.)
8 Complaints
We maintain an informal procedure for handling any complaints by clients, designed to ensure that a complaint is dealt with promptly and fairly. (You tell us the problem, we consider whether what you say is correct or whether there is some misunderstanding, then we discuss this with you. If something needs fixing, we fix it. This would normally happen within 2 weeks of your complaint.)
So, if you have a complaint about our services or charges, please refer your complaint to Cheryl Simes. Please don’t wait!- It helps everyone if you do this when the issue first arises. If we have made a mistake or missed something, we will do our best to put it right. Ethical rules mean we may also have to ask you to get independent advice from another lawyer before we can continue to act for you in the matter. (To date, as far as we know, we have not made a mistake on a client matter that could not be fixed before it caused a real problem.)
If that does not adequately address the issue, you can take the matter to the Law Society. The 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. See also www.lawsociety.org which includes a downloadable complaints form.
You can also take issues to the Disputes Tribunal.
If you are nervous about raising the issue with us, please ask someone else to contact us on your behalf. We want to sort out any issues sooner rather than later.
9 Persons Responsible for the Work:
Cheryl Simes (owner of the practice) has the overall responsibility for the services we provide for you and also does all the professional legal work. Since 1 May 2012 she has been practising through Kiwilaw as a barrister and solicitor. (Previously she was practising through Kiwilaw as a barrister sole.)
Photocopying may at times be outsourced to a copy centre. This reduces costs for bulk copying but it is also slightly less secure. Please tell us if you want all copying to be done inhouse (even if this costs you more).
Some support services (e.g. document editing and document assembly) are outsourced to sole-operator local businesses in Oxford. Those businesses are required to maintain strict confidentiality.
Updated 3 September 2021