LAWRENCE GRAHAM LLP
TERMS OF BUSINESS
INTRODUCTION
The following terms of business apply to all the work we do for you unless we have agreed in writing to modify them in any way. Any agreement which we reach with you to act on your behalf will be contained in an engagement letter to which these terms of business will be attached.
1. LAWRENCE GRAHAM LLP
Lawrence Graham LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registration number OC307935. A list of the members of Lawrence Graham LLP is open to inspection at its registered office at 4 More London Riverside, London SE1 2AU. The VAT number of Lawrence Graham LLP is GB858698838.
LG is the trading name of Lawrence Graham LLP.
All references in these Terms of Business to "we", "us", "our", "LG" and "firm" should be read as referring to Lawrence Graham LLP which shall include any merged firm and any company or entity that is owned by Lawrence Graham LLP. The term "partner" is used to refer to a member of Lawrence Graham LLP. The use of the word "partner" does not mean that any individual is carrying on a business with others in partnership under the provisions of the Partnership Act 1890.
2. OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO YOU
We shall provide you with a high quality service which, at least, meets your reasonable expectations of us. We shall use lawyers of suitable experience to deliver our service, which will be provided in a timely and cost effective manner. As far as we can, we shall avoid changing the lawyers who work for you, but where this cannot be avoided, we will inform you promptly of any changes that are made.
3. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO US
You will provide us with clear and prompt instructions and notify us of any developments which could have an impact on the work we do for you. You will supply us with all relevant documents and any information that may be relevant during our retainer.
4. FEES AND DISBURSEMENTS
Unless otherwise agreed with you, our fees are calculated on the basis of hourly rates, which vary according to the seniority and experience of our lawyers. Details of the rates applicable to the lawyers working for you will be set out in an engagement letter accompanying these terms of business. Our rates are subject to periodic review and details of any revision of them will be notified to you before the date it becomes effective.
Our fees are exclusive of both VAT and disbursements.
Where applicable, VAT will be charged at the rate prevailing when our work for you is undertaken.
Disbursements are expenses incurred by us on your behalf and include court fees, counsel's fees, expert's fees and miscellaneous office expenses, such as photocopying, fax, telephone, travelling and couriers. Disbursements may also be subject to VAT which will be payable in addition where applicable.
Any disbursement exceeding £50.00 will be separately identified on any bill we send to you.
5. LIMITS ON FEES, DISBURSEMENTS AND BILLING INTERVALS
If you wish to set a limit on fees and disbursements to be incurred or on the period of time elapsing before we send you a bill, please inform the partner responsible for your work. Unless we have otherwise agreed with you in writing, we reserve the right to send you interim bills, either at monthly or other periodic intervals which we consider appropriate for the work we are doing for you.
6. PAYMENT OF OUR BILLS
Our bills are payable on receipt. If they have not been paid within 30 days we may charge interest on any unpaid amount from the end of the 30 day period until payment. The interest rate applicable will be the rate payable on judgment debts from time to time
7. CLIENT MONEY
From time to time, we may ask you for payments on account of fees and/or disbursements. In the course of acting for you we may also receive other moneys on your behalf.
Unless we have agreed otherwise with you, any moneys we hold on your behalf will be held in our general client account. When we pay to you, or to someone else on your behalf, any moneys we have held for you we shall pay interest unless the accrued interest is less than £20.00. Interest is payable in accordance with the following table:-
Up to £250,000 at 0.05%
Between £250,000 and £1,000,000 at 0.10%
Over £1,000,000 at 0.15%
The above rates are reviewed regularly and are subject to change.
Where we have agreed to place moneys on your behalf in a designated deposit account we shall account to you for all the interest earned on the relevant deposit.
Whether or not we hold any moneys on your account, we shall not be responsible for any loss which occurs if the bank with which our client account is held defaults.
We reserve the right to deduct from any moneys which we hold on your behalf an amount equal to any unpaid fees or disbursements covered by any bills which we have sent to you since we started acting for you.
8. LIABILITY OF LG
Unless otherwise agreed in writing with you, our liability to you will not exceed £10 million. This limit will apply to any and all causes of action against us in respect of or arising from any engagement we carry out for you. Where we are instructed by more than one client in connection with a particular matter, the single limit will be shared by all such clients. We will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect or exemplary damages, costs or losses or any damages costs or losses attributable to lost profits or opportunities.
Your relationship is solely with LG. No individual partner, employee, agent or consultant of LG has any personal legal liability to you whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise. The fact that any individual signs in his or her own name any document or email in the course of carrying out our work for you does not give rise to any personal legal liability separate to that of LG.
You agree that (other than in the event of fraud or reckless disregard of our professional obligations to you) any claim which you bring in respect of a matter on which you have instructed us will be made against Lawrence Graham LLP and not against any of the following:-
8.1 any partner, employee, agent or consultant of Lawrence Graham LLP; or
8.2 any company owned or controlled by Lawrence Graham LLP or any officer, employee, agent or consultant of any such company; and
8.3 any successor of any of the persons listed in the preceding sub paragraphs.
The exclusion of our liability in this paragraph is only applicable to the extent permitted by law and specifically does not include any claims you may bring for fraud or reckless disregard of our obligations to you.
9. LIABILITY OF LG IN CONJUNCTION WITH OTHERS
Where we are liable to you and another person (eg another professional adviser) is also liable to you in connection with the same matter, we shall only be responsible for a fair share of your loss. In particular, if you have agreed to limit the liability of the other person or you are unable to recover from that other person, our share will not be increased because of the limitation of liability you have agreed with the other person or your inability to recover from him/it.
Further, any partner, employee or consultant of ours may enforce his, her or their rights against you under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
10. RELIANCE ON ADVICE
Our advice is given exclusively to you. We do not accept responsibility to anyone else for the advice which we give you unless we have agreed with you in writing that we will accept such liability.
11. CONFIDENTIALITY AND CONFLICTS
We are required by our professional rules to comply with requirements imposed upon us regarding the conflict between duties we owe to different clients in relation to the same or related matters and concerning the preservation of our clients' confidences.
Unless we are required to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, we shall keep your affairs confidential.
You agree that we may disclose to our auditors, other advisers and professional indemnity insurers information which we have received from you in the course of working for you.
Further, you agree that we may refer generally to the fact that we are acting for you providing that we do not disclose any information about our work for you without your prior consent.
12. DATA PROTECTION
During our relationship with you, we may receive personal information about you which we will store and process. Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. At any time you may ask us to provide you with the information which we hold.
You agree that we may use the information which we receive about you to provide you with details of our services, legal developments and events which we think may interest you. To do this may mean that the information that we hold about you is provided to our agents and service providers. This may involve the transfer of such information to other countries, including those outside the European economic area where necessary for the above purposes.
13. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION
During the course of our relationship we may wish to communicate with each other via email, extranet facilities and other internet-based means. We both understand that communicating in this way is not risk free. Both of us agree to use reasonable means to ensure the security of such communications with each other.
For the avoidance of doubt, unless we are reckless or dishonest in the use of electronic communication, we will not be liable for any unauthorised interception, use, loss or damage arising from the electronic communication of information between us or our reliance on information received via email or the internet.
14. STORAGE OF FILES
We will store the files which we have created during the course of our relationship with you for at least six years after our final bill is sent to you in respect of every matter on which we work for you. We have the right to retain our files until you have paid all sums due to us in connection with our retainer to act for you.
We agree to retain not only hard copy files but also any documents which have been created and stored electronically.
You agree that six years after our final bill has been sent to you in respect of any matter, we may destroy any records which we are holding on your behalf.
15. INVESTMENT BUSINESS AND INSURANCE MEDIATION
We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. We may be able to provide you with limited advice in connection with investments where that advice is closely connected to the legal advice which we are providing to you.
Generally, the scope of our engagement does not include advising you on the merits of entering into any transaction or investment, as our role is ordinarily limited to providing legal advice.
We are included on the register maintained by the Financial Services Authority so that we can carry on insurance mediation activity, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. The register can be accessed via the Financial Services Authority's website at www.fsa.gov.uk/register.
This part of our business, including the arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors' Regulation Authority.
16. MONEY LAUNDERING REGULATIONS AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME ACT 2002
We have various obligations under the Regulations and the Act. Among them are a requirement that we obtain identification evidence about you at the commencement of our relationship and at such other times during the course of it as we consider appropriate. This may involve us using electronic bureau services to obtain such information.
We may be required to make a report to the Serious Organised Crime Agency in connection with the legal work we do for you and we may have to do so in circumstances where we cannot tell you that we have made a report.
17. EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
It is our policy not to discriminate in the way we provide our services on the grounds of race, colour, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, gender, age, disability or marital status. A copy of our equality and diversity policy is available on request.
18. PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY INSURANCE
We maintain professional indemnity insurance in accordance with the requirements of our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Details of our insurers and the territorial coverage of the policy are available on request.
19. TERMINATION
You may terminate your instructions to us at any time. If you do this before the conclusion of your matter(s) on which we are then working you will remain liable to pay our fees for all work done up to the date of termination. Further, until our fees are paid we have the right to retain any files or materials which we have received or created while we worked for you.
We may terminate our agreement to provide services to you on reasonable notice at any time:-
19.1 If you fail to give us prompt, appropriate or necessary instructions;
19.2 where continuing to act for you would be unethical, unlawful or impractical;
19.3 where you have not paid our fees or provided us with moneys on account within the period they have become due.
20. GOVERNING LAW
20.1 Our agreement with you (including both contractual and non-contractual matters) is subject to English law.
20.2 Subject to 20.3, the Courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction to determine any dispute or claim arising out of or connected to our agreement with you.
20.3 You agree that we have sole discretion to commence proceedings against you in another jurisdiction concerning any dispute or claim arising out of or connected to our agreement with you.