Terms and Conditions

Standard Terms and Conditions

Your engagement of Keely Boom (ABN 11 217 717 706) (“we”, “us”, “our”) and acceptance of these Standard Terms and Conditions is subject to a separate Costs Agreement, which will set out the scope of legal services to be provided; the basis on which fees and disbursements will be charged; any estimates of total or likely costs; and the method and timing of payment.

We will not commence substantive legal work on your matter until a written Costs Agreement has been provided to you; and you have accepted the Costs Agreement in writing, or by instructing us to proceed with work after receipt of the Costs Agreement.

The Costs Agreement operates together with these Standard Terms and Conditions. Where there is any inconsistency, the Costs Agreement will prevail to the extent permitted by law.

1)  Scope of legal services

We provide legal services only within the scope agreed with you in writing as provided in our Costs Agreement. 

Unless expressly agreed:

 i.  We do not provide tax, financial, migration or other non-legal advice;

 ii.  Advice is limited to the law as it applies in New South Wales and Australia at the time it is given.

 iii.  We are not responsible for changes in law after advice is provided.

2)  Cost disclosures and agreements

We shall provide legal services to you consistent with our costs disclosures and agreements pursuant to our obligations under the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW).

Prior to engaging our services, you must review our terms carefully and contact our office immediately if you do not understand, or wish to discuss any aspect of the terms of our engagement, whether in these Standard Terms and Conditions, or in our Costs Agreement.

3)  Your rights

a)  Generally

You may seek independent legal advice before agreeing to the costs agreement proposed. You may negotiate the billing method used, for example, by reference to timing or task. You may negotiate the terms of this costs agreement.

We are required to notify you, as soon as is reasonably practicable, of any significant change to any matter affecting costs.

You are entitled to accept or reject any offer we make for an interstate costs law to apply to your matter or notify us that you require an interstate costs law to apply to your matter.

The law of New South Wales applies to legal costs in relation to this matter. However, if you enter into an agreement or give notification that a corresponding law will apply, we will disclose costs as they are applicable in that State or Territory.

Nothing in these Terms and Conditions affects your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

b)  Your right to a bill of costs

You are entitled to receive a bill of costs for the legal services provided by us to you.

If a lump sum bill is provided by us, you have the right to ask for an itemised bill. A request for an itemised bill must be made within 30 days after the date on which the legal costs become payable. We are required to provide an itemised bill within 21 days after the request is made. If you request an itemised bill and the amount specified exceeds the amount previously specified in the lump sum bill, the additional costs will be recovered by us if:

 i.  when the lump sum bill is given, we inform you in writing that the total amount of the legal costs specified in the itemised bill may be higher than the amount specified in the lump sum bill; and

 ii.  the costs are determined to be payable after a costs assessment or after a binding determination under section 292 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW).

For matters in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, if you wish to dispute the account, a request for an itemised bill must be made within 28 days after receiving the lump sum bill.

The Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) provides that a legal practitioner cannot take action for recovery of legal costs until 30 days after a compliant bill of costs has been given to the person charged with their payment.

4)  Your right to fair and reasonable costs

The Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) gives you the right to have all or any part of our legal costs assessed by a costs assessor appointed by the Supreme Court of New South Wales for fairness and to determine if they have been proportionately and reasonably incurred and are proportionate and reasonable in amount.

5)  Your right to written progress reports

You are entitled, on reasonable request, to written reports on the progress of the matter and the legal costs incurred in your matter, and to be notified of any significant changes affecting costs. 

6)  Billing and payment

Each month, or on the completion of specific tasks, we will send you either a lump sum bill or an itemised bill setting out our fees, disbursements, and internal expenses, and ask that you authorise us to transfer funds from our trust account to pay them in full. If there are insufficient funds, we will ask you to pay the balance. We may also ask you pay additional sums on account of further costs and disbursements. Disbursements may be billed to you as they arise.

You consent to us sending our accounts to you electronically at the email address you have provided to us and/or through the client portal.

The bill will include a brief description of work undertaken on your behalf. If you require a detailed explanation, please let us know.

Payment of our accounts or of funds into our trust account may be made using any of the payment options accepted by us either directly or pursuant to the terms of any separate agreement you have entered into with a third-party provider, which may include:

 i.  credit card by Visa, MasterCard, American Express, UnionPay and JCB;

 ii.  BPAY;

 iii.  electronic funds transfer (EFT);

 iv.  instalment plans by direct debit; or

 v.  pay by the month;

 vi.  subject to your compliance with the terms of any such separate agreement.

If these payment arrangements do not work for you, please contact us to discuss an alternative.

Where applicable, GST is payable on our professional fees and expenses and will be shown on our tax invoices. By signing this agreement, you agree to pay us an amount equivalent to the GST imposed on these charges.

7)  Interest charges

Interest will be charged on unpaid legal costs outstanding for more than 30 days after the day on which we first give you a bill of costs.

Interest on unpaid amounts will be charged, on a monthly basis, at the maximum rate in accordance with rule 75 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015, which is the Cash Rate Target fixed by the Reserve Bank of Australia as at the date the bill was issued, plus 2%.

No interest is chargeable if this bill is given to you more than 6 months after the completion of your matter unless you request an itemised bill in respect of a lump sum bill outside the 6 month period or a bill has not been issued at your request.

8)  Trust money

You authorise us to:

 i.  receive into our trust account any settlement amount or money received from any source in furtherance of your work;

 ii.  pay our professional fees, disbursements, and internal expenses in accordance with the Legal Profession Uniform Law and rule 42 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015 relating to the withdrawal of trust money for legal costs and disbursements.

A trust statement will be forwarded to you on completion of the matter, as soon as practicable after 30 June in each year, or on request.

9)  Disputes concerning costs and failure to pay

If you dispute our professional charges or disbursements, you agree to advise us of your concerns as soon as possible. We will attempt to resolve any dispute in a timely manner.

If there is a dispute in relation to costs, you have the right to:

 i.  seek the assistance of the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner (the Commissioner). Complaints must be made within 60 days after the costs become payable or if an itemised bill was requested, 30 days after that request was complied with. The Commissioner may waive the time requirement if the complaint is made within 4 months after the required period and it is just and fair to deal with the complaint, having regard to the delay and reasons for the delay;

 ii.  have the costs assessed by applying to the Manager of Costs Assessment located at the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The application must be made within 12 months after:

 iii.  the bill was given or the request for payment was made; or

 iv.  the costs were paid if neither a bill was given or a request was made;

If you make a complaint to the Commissioner you cannot have the costs assessed unless the costs dispute is unable to be resolved by the Commissioner and they have notified the parties of their entitlement to apply for a costs assessment or the Commissioner arranges for a costs assessment.

If you dispute our professional charges or disbursements or fail to pay any of our costs within 30 days of our giving you a bill of costs, or if you fail to pay monies into our trust account to cover anticipated disbursements or fail to otherwise secure the payment of anticipated disbursements, you agree that we may at our discretion decide not to continue to perform any further work on your matter until:

 i.  our costs are paid and the amount for anticipated disbursements is paid into our trust account;

 ii.  satisfactory alternative arrangements have been entered into for the payment of our costs and for the payment of anticipated disbursements;

 iii.  any dispute concerning our costs is resolved.

You agree that we will not be liable for any loss, damage, disadvantage, or harm that you may suffer as a result of us deciding not to continue to perform any further work on your matter in accordance with this clause.

10) Costs limited by legislation

If any legislation applies so as to limit the costs we can charge you for any of the work we have been instructed to do, then the total professional charges and disbursements will be limited to the amount of costs recoverable from you pursuant to that legislation.

11) Lien

Legal ownership in all documents, records, papers, titles, funds, property, and any other material created or obtained by us in the performance of your instructions or in dealing with your matter belongs to us. 

Ownership of these materials does not pass to anybody until the matter is completed and all outstanding fees, costs, and disbursements have been paid.

The lien will continue notwithstanding that we may have ceased to act for you.

12) Security for costs

Before we commence work on your matter, we may require you to provide us with security for our legal costs and the payment of any interest on unpaid legal costs. If you fail to provide this security, we may cease to act or refuse to perform any further work.

13) Termination of this agreement

We may cease to act or refuse to perform any further work if, in our sole discretion, we consider it is no longer appropriate to act for you, including:

 i.  if you fail to pay our bills;

 ii.  if you fail to provide us with adequate instructions;

 iii.  if you refuse to accept our advice; 

 iv.  if you indicate to us that we have lost your confidence; or

 v.  for any other reason outside our control which has the effect of compromising our ability to perform the work required within the required timeframe.

We will give you at least 14 days notice of our intention to terminate our agreement and of the grounds on which the notice is based. You will be required to pay our fees for work done, and disbursements and internal expenses incurred, up to the date of termination. 

You may terminate this agreement in writing at any time. If you do so you will pay our fees, disbursements, and internal expenses incurred up to the time of termination.

14) Electronic communication

We communicate electronically with clients and other parties using email, electronic portals and electronic data storage. You consent to us communicating electronically with or for you, and you acknowledge and agree as follows:

 i.  there are risks in using email and you accept those risks including interception by third parties, non-receipt, or delayed receipt of messages;

 ii.  computer viruses and similar damaging items can be transmitted through emails and data introduced into your system. We use virus-scanning software to reduce these risks and ask that you do the same. However, it is not possible to eliminate these risks entirely.

If we communicate electronically with or for you, you release us from all claims, losses, expenses, and liabilities caused by any of these risks and arising directly or indirectly out of that communication.

15) Document ownership, retention, and destruction

Not all documents in relation to your matter will belong to you, including file notes, accounts, and internal emails, which will belong to us.

On completion of your matter or following the termination of our services by either party, we will retain your documents, both hard copy and electronic, for 7 years. You authorise us to destroy them after this time. The authority does not relate to any documents which are deposited in safe custody which will, subject to agreement, be retained on your behalf indefinitely.

If we destroy any hard copy document within 7 years from the completion of your matter or following the termination of our services, then we will create an electronic copy before destroying it.

If you request copies of electronic documents, they will be provided to you in electronic form, usually in the same format in which we hold them. No software or equipment will be provided by us to enable you to view or access your electronic documents.

You authorise us to charge you for providing documents on your request. You will also be liable for the cost of storing and retrieving documents.

Where permitted by law, we may hold some or all of your documents solely in electronic form. You agree that we may retain copies of your documents for our own regulatory, insurance, and other reasonable internal purposes.

16) Privacy

In providing services to you, we will collect personal information from you. We may also obtain personal information from third party searches, and investigations. Your personal information will only be used for the purposes for which it is collected or in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth).

During the course of your matter, we may disclose your personal information to third parties involved in the completion or processing of a transaction, including courts, government departments, and experts.

We will hold your personal information in strict confidence and will not disseminate this information to any person or entity without your consent unless required by law.

We may store some or all of your files on many platforms, including third-party cloud-based servers. 

Although we take every precaution to ensure these servers are encrypted and secure, there is still a risk that your confidential or privileged information may be disclosed. By signing this agreement, you consent to our use of such storage services.

17) Use of technology and electronic communications

We use electronic systems, including email, cloud-based document management, and practice management software, to deliver our services. We take reasonable steps to protect electronic data and comply with professional obligations.

We may use technology-assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to support tasks such as research, drafting, summarisation, document review and administrative processes.

AI tools do not replace professional legal judgment. All legal work is reviewed by a qualified lawyer. We do not submit confidential client information to public AI platforms without appropriate safeguards.

We may engage third-party providers (such as IT, cloud storage, transcription or e-discovery services) where reasonably necessary. We take reasonable steps to ensure such providers are subject to confidentiality and data protection obligations.

If you do not consent to the use of any such tools, you must notify us in writing.

18) No guarantee of outcome

Legal matters are inherently uncertain. We do not guarantee any outcome, result of time frame.

19) Acceptance

Before acceptance of this offer along with the Costs Agreement you are entitled to negotiate these terms. If you do not return the signed Costs Agreement or negotiate the terms but instruct us to commence work, that will be taken to be an acceptance of this offer and costs will be charged in accordance with this agreement.

If accepted by you, these Standard Terms and Conditions will become a costs agreement which may be enforced in the same way as any other contract, subject to the provisions of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW).