Fee's Process

Fees

Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement

Disclosure Notice

We will write to you providing our Disclosure Notice in the form of a letter of offer, which sets out information Hogarth Law is required to provide clients to comply with the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), (the “Act”). It describes the basis upon which we propose clients engage with the firm and fees.

It constitutes a written offer from us to enter into a Costs Agreement to undertake legal work on your behalf. You should read the Disclosure Notice carefully to ensure you understand the basis of fees before accepting the terms of the Costs Agreement.

Costs Agreement

You should read the Costs Agreement carefully and request any amendments you may wish to make.

GST

All amounts referred to in the Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement are exclusive of GST.

Acceptance

Our offer to enter into a Costs Agreement may be accepted by you in a variety of ways which are set out in the letter of offer.

Please note that before acceptance, you have the right to negotiate the retainer terms detailed in the Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement.  Should you wish to discuss or clarify any terms of the Disclosure Notice and Costs Agreement, please call Tony Hogarth to discuss.

If you do not accept the firm’s Offer to enter into a Costs Agreement, please advise as soon as possible, so there is no liability between us.

Should you accept the Offer to enter into a Costs Agreement in one of the ways which constitutes acceptance, you will be regarded as having entered into the Costs Agreement.

We would appreciate if you could return a signed copy of the Client Acknowledgement attached to the Letter of Engagement and Costs Agreement as soon as possible.

Should, at any time, you feel the firm has not met your expectations, please raise your concerns immediately with Tony Hogarth.

Notice About Electronic Funds Transfers

Hackers have been targeting Australian Law Firms and their clients. Please call us on +61 7 3188 9532 before transferring funds to our Trust Account to confirm account details. In particular, please contact us if you receive any email notifying you that our Bank Account details have been changed.

Limited Liability Scheme

Our Liability is limited by a Scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.

Fees Management

It is often difficult to estimate professional fees with precision in advance in matters. If we can, we will provide a fixed fee, however, there is limited scope for us to do this.

Here are some suggestions on how to manage Professional Fees to keep them to a minimum:

  • Be organised and prepared.
  • Think about, and prepare a list of matters you wish to raise with us in conference, by phone or by email, in advance.
  • Where possible, please refer to particular documents or specific clauses of concern. That can will help save time sifting through documents.
  • Use meeting agendas. If you have a series of issues you wish to discuss, it can be helpful for us if you send a summary of the issues in advance.
  • Organise your paperwork when providing documents – where possible, please provide documents in the same order as a document request which can help save considerable time in collation of documents.
  • Try to get back to us as quickly as you can, if a request for documents or other evidence is made.
  • In these days of computer technology, communication is more and more often undertaken by email. Toing and froing with emails, while it may be convenient is often inefficient, especially when a matter can best be dealt with quickly by a phone call. A simple query from you can often result in a further preliminary questions from us. This can result in excessive email communications, which can significantly impact upon costs.
  • Death by email can be painful and expensive, so please remember to pick up the phone and let’s have a conversation.
  • Don’t hesitate to ask for fee updates.