ByLawyers News and Updates

Costs agreements – All states

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Enhancement of By Lawyers costs agreements

All By Lawyers costs agreements have been reviewed, consolidated, and reformatted to ensure they are in strict compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements in each state and territory, and to improve presentation and readability.

A good cost agreement precedent provides transparency, reduces disputes with clients over fees, and ensures that firms get paid. It is important these documents are correct, however, the increasing complexity of cost disclosure requirements makes this difficult. By Lawyers precedents provide firms with accurate and effective costs agreements for all matter types in all jurisdictions.

Summary of key changes

  • A key enhancement is the inclusion of a Terms and Conditions section, which consolidates general information that applies across all matters.
  • All related information has been grouped together to assist with readability and comprehension.
  • A Next steps section has been added, outlining the steps required to be taken by the client to move the engagement forward.
  • The automation in relation to fees, disbursements, and internal expenses has been improved for LEAP users.
  • The scopes of work, now available under each cost agreement on the matter plans, have been enhanced. For LEAP users, scopes of work can be added to a costs agreement via the Insert Clause feature. See Inserting a Clause on the LEAP Community page. Alternatively, all users can simply cut and paste the scope into the precedent.

New categories of costs agreements

The By Lawyers costs agreements have been simplified into 4 categories in most states and territories:

  1. Costs agreement: suitable for most matters.
  2. Costs agreement – Estate administration: specific to applications for probate and letters of administration and administering the estate.
  3. Conditional costs agreement: suitable for litigation such as personal injury claims where the firm agrees to act on a no win no fee basis.
  4. Conditional costs agreement – Uplift fee: suitable for litigation in jurisdictions where the relevant legislation permits an uplift to be applied to the total costs for a successful outcome.

The new costs agreements and scopes of work have been added, as appropriate, to folder A. Getting the matter underway on all matter plans.

101 Costs Answers – ALL STATES

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101 Costs Answers is the latest addition to the By Lawyers ‘101’ series of helpful reference materials.

Located in the Reference materials folder on every By Lawyers matter plan, this publication contains valuable commentary and precedents on all aspects of legal costs.

The precedents include all of the By Lawyers costs agreements/client services agreements and costs disclosures, drawn together from all By Lawyers publications into a convenient single publication.

The By Lawyers costs agreements are compliant with the strict requirements of the various state laws. They cater for all areas of law, with detailed recitals of the scope of work usually undertaken in each type of matter. This not only defines the retainer but makes it easy for practitioners to produce documents quickly upon engagement.

The 101 Costs Answers commentary includes:

Disclosure requirements

The commentary helps practitioners to navigate some of the more complicated disclosure requirements including regulated costs and the specific obligations for different types of litigation matters. The effect of non-disclosure is also covered.

Disbursements

Commentary on defining and recovering disbursements includes relevant case law and examples. The By Lawyers costs agreements are drafted to clearly identify usual disbursements.

Counsel’s fees

The commentary deals with the contractual relationship between solicitors and barristers as well as disclosure requirements. With the solicitor responsible for payment of counsel’s fees regardless of the solicitor’s agreement with the client, the By Lawyers costs agreements include counsel’s fees as specific disbursements which the client is obliged to pay.

Debt recovery

Where debt recovery is necessary, 101 Costs Answers contains letters of demand and example pleadings to assist with the recovery of costs. There is also detailed commentary on costs assessment procedures and the relevant forms for each state are available on the matter plan.

Like all By Lawyers publications, 101 Costs Answers contains interactive links to relevant legislation and cases, which are always kept updated.

Costs disclosure – Increase of legal rates during a matter

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Increase of legal rates during a matter

All By Lawyers Costs Agreements and Client Service Agreements have been updated to include a clause notifying a client that legal rates may increase during the course of a matter requiring a revision of the costs estimate provided. This clause provides for 30 days written notice of any proposed changes to legal rates. While such a clause is not required by Legal Profession legislation concerning costs disclosure requirements, providing such notice on initial costs disclosure is considered best practice.

All of our Guides contain Costs Agreements (Client Service Agreements for QLD Guides) within the folder ‘A. Getting the mater underway’. All of our agreements are compliant with the relevant Legal Profession legislation and are reviewed and updated regularly to ensure compliance.

Matter type changes

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There has been a technical change to the structure of our Defamation & Protecting Reputation and Neighbourhood Disputes publications. They have been changed from federal matter types to state-based matter types.

Subscribers may notice that the title of the Defamation publication now includes a state name. This is nominative only. The content of the Defamation publication is unchanged and remains the same across all states.

For state-based guides and precedents to be visible from existing matters, LEAP Desktop users will need to change their matter type from Other areas of law > Miscellaneous > Disputes to Other areas of law > Disputes.

Register of Companion Animals – NSW

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The next stage of the amendments to the Companion Animals Act 1998 has now commenced, including implementation details for the Register of Companion Animals.

Part 9 of the Act now sets out the details that are required to be kept for registered companion animals. It also provides for the access to the Register which will be allowed for the public, veterinarians, local authorities and other relevant agencies. The register will be available via the NSW Pet Registry website.

Public access is already available via the NSW Pet Registry and access for government departments, local authorities and vets is through the old NSW Companion Animals Register, which will be phased out by the end of 2018. Thereafter, access for government departments, local authorities and vets will also be via the new Register of Companion Animals, through the NSW Pet Registry site.

The By Lawyers commentary on companion animals, located in our Neighbourhood Disputes NSW publication, has been updated accordingly.

NSW, SA, VIC – Cats and dogs

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In three states there have been changes to legislation dealing with companion animals.

In New South Wales, following amendments to the Companion Animals Act 1998:

  • From 1 July 2108 those convicted of animal cruelty offences are prohibited from keeping an animal and cost recovery can be ordered. The By Lawyers Neighbourhood Disputes NSW publication has been updated accordingly.
  • The Register of Companion Animals, to go live later this year, will collect and make publicly accessible more detailed information on pets and pet owners.
  • From 1 July next year (2019) annual permits will be required for restricted or dangerous dogs and also for cats that are not desexed by the age of 4 months.

In South Australia the Dog and Cat Management (Miscellaneous) Amendment Act 2016 has made microchipping of dogs and cats and the attachment of registration discs to their collars mandatory. By Lawyers Neighbourhood Disputes SA publication has been updated accordingly.

In Victoria changes introduced by the Domestic Animals Amendment (Restricted Breed Dogs) Act 2017 have been considered and the By Lawyers Neighbourhood Disputes VIC publication updated to include the new offence of not advising a person acquiring a dangerous dog that it is dangerous.

 

SA – Changes to Cats and Dogs legislation

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Some amendments to the Dog and Cat Management Act 1995 came into effect 1 July 2017 including new registration categories: Standard Dog  – for a de-sexed and micro-chipped dog; and Non-standard Dog – being all other dogs including dogs for breeding and working dogs on farms.

Coming in on 1st August new minimum welfare conditions that must be met.

Further requirements associated with de-sexing and micro chipping will come into force  1st July 2018.

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