Our law firm goal is to exceed your expectations. We will deliver to you high quality legal services on a timely basis tailored to meet your specific requirements. Our objective is your long-term success.
This document describes the terms on which we accept instructions and how we charge for our services.
Client Information
Upon being retained, we will need to keep record of:
- Client’s full name;
- Business address and phone number (if applicable)
- Home address and phone number; and
- Occupation(s).
If client is not an individual, we will need to keep a record of:
- the organization’s full name;
- the organization’s business address and phone number (if applicable);
- the organization’s incorporation or business identification number, and the place of issue (if applicable);
- the general nature of the type of business or businesses or activity or activities engaged in by the organization unless the organization is a financial institution, government body or a company that is not a private company; and
- the name, position and contact information of all individuals authorized to provide instructions on behalf of the organization.
Person Responsible for Your Work
We will inform you of the lawyer responsible for your matter, including their contact particulars. Most matters are handled personally by Koby Smutylo, a lawyer with over 10 years corporate and commercial law experience. Certain matters may be handled by a law clerk or specialist in a particular area of law such as tax, labour or litigation.
Fees
Unless we agree upon a flat fee for a specific project, we will charge at our hourly rate of $350/per hour plus HST. For new client legal projects, we typically require the deposit of a retainer, which we hold in our trust account until we issue our invoice to you.
We charge an administrative fee of $150 per invoice to cover incidental expenses, including data, long-distance, printing, fax, mail, photocopying, etc…
In addition, we will itemize and charge separately for out-of-pocket expenses such as couriers, serving documents, travel expenses, filing and search fees paid to government and search agencies and, if necessary, fees and disbursements of experts or agents retained by us for services, registrations, opinions, and other similar services. All such expenses will be separately itemized on our invoice. If significant expenses are to be incurred, we may either request funds from you in advance or make arrangements for invoices to be sent to your attention for direct payment. We will make every effort to advise you in advance prior to incurring any significant out-of-pocket expenses.
Confidentiality
Information concerning your business and affairs acquired in the course of the professional relationship will be held in strict confidence and will not be divulged unless expressly authorized by you or as required by law. If on your authority we are working in conjunction with other professional advisers we will assume that we may disclose any relevant aspect of your affairs to them.
Cloud Services
We use Gmail, Skype and Dropbox services for communication and document, as applicable. From time to time, we may employ other cloud services. We believe these services to be sufficiently secure given the nature of the information we routinely store and communicate. Aside from encrypting documents stored in Dropbox, we do not employ any additional safeguards.
We do not guarantee that any data transmitted or stored will not be intercepted or otherwise accessed.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, we confirm that you are authorizing us to communicate with you via e-mail, Skype and other electronic means and to store your documents using Dropbox and other cloud storage services.
If, due to the nature of your information, you wish additional security measures be implemented in communicating with you and/or storing your data, please advise us in writing prior to sending us any sensitive information.
Property
On completion of a matter and payment of our fees, we will return to you, upon your request, any documents provided to us for the purposes of the matter and any other papers to which you are entitled. We cannot undertake to retain files for any specific period of time but will endeavour to keep electronic copies of all files for a minimum of ten years. We will not retain any originals of documents beyond the completion of a matter and payment of our fees.
Withdrawal of Services
Once instructed, we will normally continue to act for you in the matter until its conclusion. Should circumstances arise where it is necessary for either of us to terminate the arrangement, you will be responsible for fees and disbursements up to the date of termination and any fees and disbursements associated with our ceasing to act or the transfer of the work to the successor lawyer.
