Hi,

We, Levy Zavet PC (the “Firm”), will be pleased to provide you with our services in connection with drafting your wills and/or power of attorneys as instructed by you when completing and returning any of our information forms or by you providing the details in an email.  This letter (also known as the “Retainer”) contains our standard terms of engagement for your review and approval.  It also confirms our billing procedures, practice regarding potential conflicts and requests certain information we need from you our client in order to ensure expedient and accurate drafting.

Services and Billing

Our fee is normally $595.00 to $795.00 and includes the following:

Legal fees for acting in drafting your:

• Will (if a Secondary Will is required the fee will increase by $295.00, we will advise once we review your information form)
• Power of Attorney for Personal Care
• Power of Attorney for Property
• If you require a reciprocal mirrored package includes the selections above for both Spouses the fee will increase by $500.00.

The package does not include HST, disbursements, where applicable. You will be charged separately for these. The legal fee will be quoted to you by email sent from the lawyer or clerk on your file. The fee quote emailed to you will be deemed accepted upon us beginning any work on your wills or POAs and pursuant to this retainer, including reviewing any of your documents or emails.

The fee noted above is in respect of drafting the said documents using our standard forms of precedence, no estate or tax planning advice or opinions are provided or advised on. In the event of complexities, which result in additional work or extra disbursements we shall advise you of the increase in costs.

Should you decide to withdraw your retainer after we begin drafting any of the documents, you will be charged for all disbursements incurred and a reasonable fee for services rendered.

We may not at this time ask for an initial retainer to start work but will ask for full payment upon execution of the above documents.

Our statement of account and trust ledger will be provided to you after completion, which is when you sign and execute the above documents drafted, outlining all your receipts and expenditures.

Unless otherwise agreed in advance, any services in addition the above, will be charged at our usual hourly rates.  If required, we will be assisted in the performance of certain work by our other lawyers whose rates can be higher.

We will provide you with complete, accurate and fair monthly accounts for any work that is in addition but is within the scope of this Retainer.  We encourage you to promptly raise any questions or comments you have regarding any account.  In return, we ask for payment of our accounts upon receipt.

Tax Consequences

We will not be providing you with advice on tax issues related to the above mentioned drafting of documents.  Please note that your proposed bequests and wills may have tax consequences.  We encourage you to contact an accounting professional to obtain tax advice.

Privacy

The Firm is subject to the Personal Information and Protection Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).  By signing this retainer, you understand that we will be collecting personal information, including your address, telephone number and e-mail.  We will use that information to communicate with third parties on your behalf and will use it to advise you of our services.  However, we can assure you that we will not share this information with anyone without your instructions and will not sell your personal information.

Email Communication:

We are always happy to communicate with you by e-mail.  We find that this saves time and we feel that the use of e-mail fits in with the way most companies and individuals conduct business nowadays. Although we employ electronic and physical protection measures which meet our industry and regulator’s standards, there is a risk of interception of information when communication is exchanged by emails. If you do not wish to use email communication with us, we will employ traditional communication measures (telephone, fax, mail) but additional charges may apply.  Regardless it is incumbent on you to protect any correspondence and communication received by us and we assume no liability in this regard.

Conflicts

We have performed a conflicts check of our other clients to see if representing you in this matter would create a conflict of interest.  To the best of our knowledge, there are no conflicts.

If a conflict arises, we will advise you as soon as we become aware of it and will attempt to resolve it in a manner acceptable to all parties.  If we cannot resolve the conflict, we may be required, under our Rules of Professional Conduct, to withdraw from representing you, the other party, or both, depending on the nature of the conflict.

If the Firm or any of its lawyers have been requested to act for each of  you or otherwise named parties above, or more than one testator, in connection with the above-noted drafting of documents (the “Matter”):

1. The Firm has recommended that each of the said parties obtain Independent Legal Advice about jointly retaining the Firm or any of its lawyers in connection with the Matter;
2. In acting for the said parties, no information received by the Firm or any of its lawyers from either party in connection with this Matter can be treated as confidential insofar as the other parties are concerned;
3. If a conflict of interest should arise which cannot be reasonably resolved, arbitrated or settled, the Firm or any of its lawyers cannot continue to act for certain parties as decided by the Firm or any of its lawyers, and in such case the Firm or any of its lawyers may have to withdraw completely from this retainer, however you hereby confirm and agree that, and if allowed or granted in law, the Firm or any of its lawyers may choose to act for and represent any one or more of the parties herein to the extent granted and that you waive any such rights to otherwise object to same; and
4. The Firm or any of its lawyers may take instruction or communicate with any of the said parties in regards to this retainer, without having to notify the other said parties.  For example, this is very common between spouses, where often only one of the spouses are providing us with instructions.

File Retention

After this Agreement and engagement (the “Retainer”) terminates or expires, we will close all files relating to the Retainer or Matter, in accordance with its File Retention and Destruction policy. The file will be stored off-site during this period and destroyed as soon as its Destruction policy allows. In the event that you instruct us to extract the file from off-site storage and reopen it, you will be required to pay an administrative fee over and above any legal fees in connection with the Retainer. This clause will survive the termination of this Agreement indefinitely.

The Retainer will terminate on the sooner of the signing date of the documents contemplated herein, or if cancelled or if you fail to execute, unless otherwise terminated by the parties hereto with notice by email or in writing.

Indemnification

You shall indemnify us, our Firm, our lawyers and employees harmless from any and all losses, costs, liabilities and expenses (including legal costs) in connection with:

1. A breach by you of this Agreement (including any third party legal proceedings arising out of that breach);
2. A claim against us, our Firm, our lawyers and employees from a third party arising out of us representation you pursuant to this Retainer.  Provided, that the indemnity in this subparagraph will not apply if the third party claim is a direct result of a breach of this Agreement by us, our lawyers and employees or professional negligence on the part of us.

This paragraph will survive the termination or expiry of this Agreement.

Our Liability To You

We acknowledge that we have solicitor/client liabilities to you (such as possibly a duty of loyalty and duty of care), arising out of our services in this Retainer as contemplated in Section 22 of the Solicitor’s Act (Ontario).

You acknowledge and agree that we, our Firm, our lawyers, our contractors and employees, are prepared to accept liability where decided in law, together in aggregate of up to $1,000,000.00, that being the maximum potential insurance claim under our lawyer’s basic errors and omissions insurance, with no exception and regardless of any excess insurance we may have, and that you will never claim for more in aggregate including all legal fees and disbursements, for any reason or cause no matter how severe or how large.

Change in Representation

If you choose to change lawyers at any time, in consideration of our review of documents and agreements, and any other time spent on your file, the fees are deemed earned by the Firm and you will be responsible for the fees and disbursements.

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If no objection is raised with the above terms within one (1) business day after you receive this retainer by reviewing it here on our website and sending us your details to draft a will or POA, or if emailed to you, or we proceed with your will or POA drafting requirements for any reason as instructed or provided by you or your agents, directors, officers, shareholders, executors, advisors, family members, you are deemed to have agreed to be bound by the above terms.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you very much for choosing our firm to assist you in this matter.

Note: This message is not intended to be or replace any family law advice, wills or estates or otherwise opinions or advice from your legal counsel or anyone, however, if you are going through a divorce or separation, you should question and consider changing your power of attorney(s), will(s), beneficiary designations of any pensions, RRSPs, other registered accounts and investments, and to sever any joint tenancies on real estate properties, should any of the foregoing include a separating/divorcing spouse as a recipient (e.g. joint tenant or account holder).