www.nualaw.co.uk

TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS

1. Place and Hours of Business

Nualaw Limited is a Limited Company offering legal advice and advocacy services specifically in the area of employment law. The Registered Company Number is 6630242 and the registered office address is 4 The Court, Holywell Business Park, Southam, Warwickshire, England, CV47 0FS . Nualaw Limited trades under the name of Nualaw and the office is at Sunnyside, Mill Lane, Fenny Compton, Warwickshire, CV47 2YF. Nuala Toner is the Managing Director of the Company.

As Nualaw Limited is a Limited Company our liability for a breach of your instructions is limited to £3,000,000. We cannot limit our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

The normal office hours are 9.00 am - 5.00 pm Monday to Friday. We will try to deal with your enquiries on a same day basis; however, if this is not possible, you will be informed when you can expect a response to any enquiry. Appointments can be arranged outside the normal hours of business, including during evenings and weekends if necessary.

2. Our Responsibilities

Nuala Toner is a Solicitor and she will be responsible for the completion of your work. Warren Gilbert is also a Solicitor. Warren may assist with your file and will need to access your file, but any work conducted on your file will remain the responsibility of Nuala Toner.

3. Your Responsibilities

We expect you to provide us with clear, timely, honest and accurate instructions. You must agree to be reasonably contactable, pay any invoices within one month of receipt, and use your best endeavours to comply with any Order of the Tribunal such as disclosure of documents.

4. Complaints

If you are unhappy with the service we provide please contact Nuala Toner in the first instance.

If we are unable to deal with your complaint to your satisfaction you are entitled to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, who will consider your complaint. You can contact the Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333, or by email at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk or by post at PO Box 15870, Birmingham B30 9EB.

5. Equality and Diversity

We are committed to promoting equality and diversity in all of our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please let us know if you would like to receive a copy of our equality and diversity policy.

6. Our Fees

There are a number of ways that we will agree to act on your behalf these range from private paying, no win no fee, legal expenses or a fixed fee basis.

You will be fully informed via our client care letter what fee arrangement will be applicable to your matter.

If there are significant costs, i.e. preparation of bundles for court and considerable photocopying, these costs may be added to your bill at cost. There may also be costs for expenses if we attend Tribunal on your behalf to cover travel, reasonable accommodation bills and the provision of a note taker. Such costs are known as disbursements and would be shown separately on your invoice, but we will not incur these costs, or charge you for them, without first fully agreeing them with you.

Interest will be charged at 2% per month from the date of the delivery of an account in cases where payment is not made within 30 days of such delivery.

If you have a query on your invoice you should contact Nuala Toner immediately.

If you wish to dispute an invoice that we send to you please contact Nuala Toner in the first instance.  If we are unable to reach a satisfactory conclusion you are entitled to object to the bill and apply for the bill to be assessed under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.

We will review the costs incurred on your file regularly and update you every six months.

Private paying

Our costs are £250 per hour plus VAT for the time that Nuala Toner spends on your file and £220 per hour plus VAT for time incurred by Warren Gilbert. Most solicitors charge hours in 10 units of 6 minute units and although we follow this practise we add up parts of units to equate to 6 minutes rather than rounding up very brief pieces of work.

Throughout the case we will endeavour to bill you at monthly intervals, if applicable.

Traditionally parties at an Employment Tribunal have not had to pay each other’s legal costs, however, costs awards are becoming more common. An Employment Tribunal can order you to pay costs if they find that you have acted unreasonably, which includes being untruthful and pursuing a Claim for anything other than financial compensation (for example an apology). If, based on your instructions, we feel that you are at risk of facing an order to pay your opponents costs we will advise you about this, however, if you are untruthful about what has happened this may not be until you reach Tribunal so we may not have the opportunity to do so.

Tribunal Fees

If you instruct us to submit a claim to the Employment Tribunal or an appeal to the Employment Appeal Tribunal you may need to pay a fee to the relevant Tribunal. If and when your claim is listed for a hearing further fees may be payable. We will advise you on the level of fees and when these need to be paid based on the information provided by you.

By signing this agreement you agree pay these fees when requested and to keep us updated as to any change in your financial circumstances that may affect your responsibility to pay such fees.

7. Insurance

All work completed by Nualaw is covered by indemnity insurance providing cover of up to £3,000,000. Our insurers are Travelers.

8. Money Laundering Regulations 2007

In order to comply with the above Regulations we carry out checks to obtain evidence of your identity and address at the commencement of the matter. We should be grateful if you would provide us with the following documents to verify your identity and address:

  1. A photo ID (preferably a full valid passport or a full UK/EU driving licence).
  2. Proof of your residential address, such as an original bank statement, credit card statement or utility bill. Any such proof must not be older than three months.

We may also need to obtain information about the identity of people related to you if relevant and verify that information. We will need to monitor your transaction and keep identity information up to date.

9. Confidentiality

We will keep all matters arising from your affairs confidential. This obligation, however, is subject to a statutory exception. Recent legislation on money laundering and terrorist financing mean that we have a legal duty in certain circumstances to disclose information to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency.

If it becomes necessary to make such a disclosure whilst acting for you, we may not be able to inform you that a disclosure has been made or the reasons for it.

10. Data Protection

Nualaw uses the information that you have provided primarily for the provision of legal services to you and for related purposes including; updating and enhancing client records, analysis to help us manage the practice, statutory returns and legal and regulatory compliance.

Our use of that information is subject to your instructions, the Data Protection Act 1998 and our duty of confidentiality. Please note that our work for you may require us to give information to third parties such as expert witness and other professional advisers.

You have a right of access under the data protection legislation to the personal data that we hold about you.

11. Termination

You may terminate your instructions to us in writing at any time but we will be entitled to keep all of your papers and documents whilst there is money owing to us for our costs and disbursements.

In some circumstances, you may consider that Nualaw should cease acting for you, for example if you are unable to give clear or proper instructions, or if you have lost confidence in our ability to carry out the work for you.

We can only decide to stop acting for you with good reason, including but not limited to dishonest instructions from you, non payment of a bill or conflict of interest. If we decide to stop acting for you we will give you reasonable notice of our decision. If you or we decide that we should stop acting for you, you will pay our charges up until that point.

If either you or Nuala Toner decide to terminate the agreement, you may be liable to pay Nualaw’s reasonable costs and disbursements incurred up to the date of termination at the hourly rate set out earlier.

Should you request a copy of your file you will be responsible for the reasonable costs involved in the reproduction of any documentation.

After completing the work for you we will retain any papers belonging to you except those papers which you request be returned to you. We keep your papers on the understanding that we can destroy them 6 years after the date of your final bill.

External bodies, such as the Solicitors Regulatory Authority may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice. These external bodies are required to maintain confidentiality in relation to your files.

Any dispute or legal issue arising from out terms of business will be determined by the law of England and Wales.

12. Future Instructions

Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms and Conditions of Business shall apply to any future instructions given by you to Nualaw.

Your continuing instructions in this matter will amount to your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions of business. However, in order to ensure full understanding between the parties, please sign, date and return one of the enclosed copies of these terms and return it to us immediately. Please retain the other copy for your future reference.

I have read, understood and accept the Terms and Conditions of business set out above.