EH Law Group LLP
Standard Terms of Engagement
Should you choose EH Law Group LLP to act as your legal counsel, the following terms and conditions apply to our engagement as your legal counsel:
Scope of Representation
We will work with you toward your desired outcome. We will provide you with legal services which, in our professional judgment, are reasonably necessary and appropriate to the matter in respect of which we are engaged. However, all immigration application decisions are subject to many possible variables. Accordingly, we cannot guarantee that any desired result will be achieved, and our fee is not dependent on the success of immigration applications. Further, we confirm that we are not providing legal advice or services except as described in a retainer letter or other communication with you.
Fees, Invoicing and Payment
Fees will be dependent on the type of work needed. Any and all applicable fees will be confirmed ahead of time and are included in full detail in a provided invoice.
If a third party is financing the matter, the accompanying invoice will be directed toward this third party. However, please note the following:
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You and this third party must understand that the third party is not also our client
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You and the third party must understand that your matter is confidential and that no information will be released to the third party unless you expressly consent to this disclosure in writing
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You and the third party must understand that our obligations are to you if a dispute arises between you and the third party
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Should a refund for any unused portion of our retainer be owed, you understand that this amount will be directly refunded to the paying third party
You (or a third party) will be responsible for reimbursing us for expenses (also called disbursements) we incur on your behalf. The government processing fee will be dependent on the type of application needed. As we will be submitting the application on your behalf and making the necessary payments, the government processing fee(s) are included in our invoice.
Before we begin work on your behalf, we require a retainer in the amount reflected on the provided invoice. The retainer will be placed in our trust account and will serve as a source of payment for all or part of our account or accounts when rendered. Any unused portion will be returned to you upon the completion or termination of our services.
Staffing
Unless instructed otherwise, we will staff this matter by utilizing the necessary resources of our firm to ensure proper handling. Where appropriate, we may engage members of our team, including lawyers, articling students, or legal assistants, to address different aspects of the matter as efficiently as possible.
Client Verification
The Law Society of Ontario (our governing body) has enacted regulations requiring us to identify our clients and, in certain circumstances, to verify those identities. The information we are required to obtain will be requested in our provided Intake/ Client Verification Form.
Confidentiality
We will at all times preserve the confidentiality of any information you disclose to us, subject only to applicable law and professional and ethical obligations. As we owe this duty to all of our clients, we will not disclose to you information we hold in confidence for others, nor do we disclose to others the information we hold in confidence to you (even where such confidential information may be relevant to our representation of you).
Conflicts of Interest
We undertake not to take on any matter that would create a substantial risk that our representation of you on your matter would be materially and adversely affected (a “conflicting interest”). Please note that we do not normally consider ourselves to have a conflicting interest because we represent another client who is a business competitor, customer or supplier of yours; or is asserting through us legal positions or arguments that may be inconsistent with those you are asserting or may wish to assert; or is adverse in interest in another matter to an entity with which you have a relationship through ownership, contract or otherwise.
Termination
Communication
By You
You have the right to terminate our services to you upon written notice to us. If you do, you agree to pay our fees and expenses for our legal services up until the time we stop work.
By Us
Subject to our obligations to you to maintain proper standards of professional conduct, we reserve the right to terminate our services to you for good reasons, which include, but are not limited to:
(a) if you fail to cooperate with us in any reasonable request;
(b) if our continuing to act would be unethical or impractical;
(c) if our retainer has not been paid; or
(d) if you fail to pay our accounts when rendered.
If you terminate our services or we withdraw, you would only have to pay our fees and expenses up until the time we stopped acting for you.
Unless our engagement has been previously terminated, our representation of you will cease upon the completion of the application we have been retained to prepare/submit and receipt by you of our final account for services rendered. The fact that we subsequently send you information regarding your application or other legal developments without charge, or include you in general mailings will not change the fact that your engagement has been terminated. Should you decide to retain our services for any additional post-decision applications, a separate retainer agreement will need to be prepared, reviewed and agreed to.
If, upon termination or completion of this engagement, you wish to have any documentation returned to you, please advise us. Otherwise, any documentation that you have provided to us and the work product completed for you will be dealt with in accordance with our records retention policies and practices. Generally speaking, we are required by the Law Society of Ontario and our insurers to maintain a file for 15 years after your matter has closed. If you have any concerns about what we retain in our records or how we dispose of them and when, you must alert us to your concerns. Absent written agreement with you to the contrary, we are free to retain or destroy the records we possess with respect to this engagement as we determine to be appropriate.
The majority of our communication will be through email. We will receive your instructions and directions from time to time and will report the progress of the application to you via email unless specified otherwise in writing.
Security of Electronic Communications and Systems
During the course of our engagement, we may exchange electronic versions of documents and emails with you and may maintain and process information using commercially available software and electronic systems. Unfortunately, the available technology is vulnerable to attack by viruses and other destructive electronic programs and may be intercepted or interfered with by third parties. As a result, while we seek to take reasonable countermeasures, our systems may occasionally reject a communication you send to us, or we may send you something that is rejected by your system. We cannot guarantee that all electronic communications and documents will always be received, will always be virus free, and will never be intercepted or interfered with by third parties, and we make no representation or warranty with respect to any electronic communications or documents. You consent to our exchanging electronic communications, including those containing confidential documents and other confidential information, unencrypted. In addition, while we routinely assess and monitor the security of our electronic systems and adopt safeguards intended to protect and prevent unauthorized access to and use of our electronic systems, we make no representation or warranty with respect to the security of electronic communications or our systems.
Legal Technologies, Applications, and Tools
Leveraging the right technology is crucial to the efficient delivery of our legal services. We may use collaborative technologies, artificial intelligence, machine learning document analysis, matter management tools, electronic signatures, etc., in connection with your matter (sometimes managed internally and sometimes involving cloud-based systems). We may also use cloud-based platforms to manage client records, application preparation, legal research and various related immigration legal matters. We would be pleased to discuss with you any proposed use of any cloud-based legal technologies, applications and tools in connection with your matter and will address any security, confidentiality, geography or other concerns you may have before doing so. Where reasonably possible, we have chosen platforms that demonstrate greater care for and commitment to their users’ privacy through built-in encryption or other enhanced security features or are subject to strong privacy laws in their home jurisdictions. However, we assess and monitor the security of our cloud-based third-party service providers, we make no representation or warranty with respect to the security of their systems.
Limitation on Use of Our Legal Advice
Our advice in any matter is provided to you solely for the purpose for which we are instructed by you as set out in our retainer agreement, or during a consultation call. Save with our prior written consent, it may not be relied upon for any other purpose or by any person other than you.
Privacy
In the course of acting for you, you may provide to us (and we may collect) personal information that is subject to applicable privacy protection laws. On your behalf, we will collect, use or disclose that personal information for the sole purpose of providing our legal services to you.
Limited Liability Partnership
EH Law Group LLP is a limited liability partnership formed under the laws of the Province of Ontario and includes professional corporations. This does not affect our services or our relationship with you, and it does not impact the limit of the firm’s liability. All of the firm’s assets and insurance protection are at risk. We comply with mandatory professional liability requirements established by the Law Society of Ontario and maintain separate excess coverage well in excess of those requirements. Because we are an Ontario limited liability partnership, our partners are not personally liable for debts, obligations or liabilities that arise from the negligence or omission of another partner or by any person under another partner’s direct supervision or control.