Cyber Readiness Assessment
The umbrella solution - ensuring your business is secure
from a legal, governance, risk, and IT standpoint
What is Cyber Risk?
Cyber and data protection are a part of every organisation's risk landscape, particularly as businesses of all sizes place more of their key assets and systems, and Australian's sensitive information, in Cloud platforms thinking, wrongly, that Cloud = secure. Organisations of all sizes not only have legal obligations to manage cyber risks but are susceptible to cybersecurity attacks and data breaches. The cyber threat landscape is highly dynamic requiring businesses to remain responsive to the threat and integrate cyber resiliency as a core component of their risk management program.
Governing for cyber risks and building cyber resilience across an organisation is a part of every Director's existing fiduciary duties owed to the company under both common law and the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). This Director's duty is not the only legal issue that arises with cyber risks. Australian organisations are subject to a wide range of regulatory obligations and standards applicable to cyber risk and data management. Depending on your company's industry, business activities, size, and even the nature of the data you hold and where you store it, these regulations can be very complex and can overlap with each other, let alone where international laws and regulations may apply to the organisation.
Failing to adequately build, monitor, and maintain cyber resilience across the organisation can have disastrous consequences exposing companies to regulatory or legal action and increased risk of costly cyber attacks. The impact of cyber attacks have a long tail that can extend for months to many years after the actual incident. According to the Poneman Institute's Cost of a Data Breach Report, the average cost of a data breach in Australia in 2023 was $4.03 million AUD.
The long-tail impacts can include:
- lost data and opportunities
- revenue losses from business disruption and system downtime
- regulatory notification costs
- lawsuits and class-actions
- loss of consumer trust and customer attrition
- drops in share price as high as 20% and more
- increased insurance premiums or inability to maintain insurance
- negative impacts to employee and director mental health
- employee attrition and challenges recruiting high quality staff
- damage to a brand’s reputation and substantial negative media attention
What about smaller organisations?
It's an unfortunate fact that far too many small to medium businesses (SMB) underestimate the risk and impact of cyber incidents and the recovery period from a breach. We often hear businesses say "we're too small, nobody will hack us". But this is simply not true. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), a cyber breach is reported every 10 minutes. Accenture’s Cost of Cybercrime Study, noted that 43% of cyber attacks are targeting small businesses.
SMBs are seen by cybercriminals as an easy target. Most hackers don't want to spend a lot of time and effort hacking a big company that has invested substantially in their cyber defences and have 24/7 dedicated security teams. It's not worth the effort when there are targets of opportunity such as smaller businesses with weaker defences.
What can you do?
All businesses need to critically examine their cybersecurity and data protection posture and implement core risk management strategies to not only protect their customers but also their business. Simply buying an off-the-shelf IT security product is not enough and is unlikely to discharge Director's duties. Building cyber resiliency and guarding against the impacts of data breaches requires a holistic strategy that crosses all areas of your business: from the Directors, Business Owner, and Board down to every department and even through to your suppliers and service providers. It's a business-wide risk that has to be actively managed, but you can only manage the risks you have identified.
The best first step to protecting your business is to get an independent assessment of your Cyber Readiness. A Cyber Readiness Assessment can provide an external perspective, benchmarking your organisation's risk management controls and how they measure up across your legal obligations, industry best practice, and international standards frameworks.
How does a Cyber Readiness Assessment Work?
Our cyber readiness services are designed to pragmatically benchmark and bolster your ability to prevent, and respond to, cyber security risks and legal obligations effectively and efficiently. Our comprehensive approach includes holistically assessing your current state of readiness and legal risk management, developing forward-looking cyber readiness recommendations, and validating your readiness for clients and insurers.
The CRA will assess 14 core cyber resiliency principles spanning the domains of Governance and Legal Risk, Technical Security, Risk Management, and Data Security. The core Principles assessed are composed of 39 key cyber security outcomes. Contributing Outcomes are assessed using technology agnostic Indicators of Good Practice (IGPs) to be achieved rather than a checklist of prescriptive controls.
While the CRA does cover some key outcomes and IGPs relating to privacy related data, this is only part of addressing your data risks. We strongly recommend bundling a Cyber Readiness Assessment with a Privacy Impact Assessment which will assess your risks and IGPs specific to applicable privacy laws and your privacy management program. Being cyber resilient and data secure is not the same thing as privacy compliance. Both are critical risks for every business to address.
An organisation's overall state of readiness is assessed based on a weighted scale each of the 14 principle's relative importance to preparing for and responding to cyber risks, addressing your legal obligations and risks, your industry and size, and the current threat landscape. We rank each principle, and your organisation holistically, on the following scale of readiness to achieve the principle's outcomes:
The ‘Achieved' (GREEN) readiness state of an IGP demonstrates the typical characteristics of an organisation fully achieving that outcome.
The ‘Partially Achieved’ (AMBER) readiness state of an IGP demonstrates the typical characteristics of an organisation partially achieving an outcome delivering specific worthwhile cyber security benefits but short of full achievement.
The ‘Not Achieved’ (RED) readiness state of an IGP demonstrates the typical characteristics of an organisation not achieving that outcome.
Rather than set prescriptive measures, the assessment takes a risk led approach to achieving the security outcomes. How the outcome is achieved is down to the business to decide but needs to take account of the risks and be able to justify the approach and decisions through evidence and good governance. It's important to note that not all Indicators are applicable to every company. It may be within your risk tolerance and appropriate to your organisation to target Partially Achieved for a particular contributing outcome. Because this is not a prescriptive checklist, there is a fair amount of analyst discretion in determining the level of achievement based on the available supporting evidence.
The engagement workflow will follow a defined process outlined below:
Our team begins each engagement by gaining a deep understanding of your organisational structure, people, processes, technologies, and cybersecurity objectives.
Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your current cyber posture is key to building a long-term cyber resiliency strategy. To achieve this objective, our team will conduct interviews with your key personnel and IT staff and collect copies of your current cyber and privacy policies and applicable insurance policies.
Our technology lawyers will assess the supporting evidence against the established Indicators of Good Practice and Contributing Outcomes for each of the 14 Principles. We examine your ability to respond to a breach event and efficiently navigate key security outcomes, identifying strengths and weaknesses and areas for improvement.
We will review your existing business policies, applicable legislation, regulatory environment, and information about your cyber security practices in addition to conducting some vulnerability scanning of your website as part of this phase.
The report will be distributed to you, and your insurance broker at your request, and then discussed in an in-depth workshop, up to 2hrs in length.
If additional information is needed, a second round 1hr workshop may be scheduled, within 10 business days of the first round workshop.
Your insurance broker is welcome to attend these workshops at your discretion.
Following completion of the workshops, we will provide a discounted proposal for any additional services or assistance you may require to implement the recommendations.
What are the benefits of a CRA?
Having a clearly defined incident response strategy helps to build customer trust that you take the protection of their personal information seriously. We will help your team formulate a well-defined, holistic plan to address various types of cyber and privacy incidents.
Preparing for cyber incidents helps to ensure you can respond quickly and efficiently reducing the costs of response, loss of customer trust, and risk of legal and regulatory actions. Our Cyber Readiness Assessment highlights strengths and areas for improvement, empowering your organisation to better enhance your cyber and privacy risk management.
You can only mitigate the risks you identify. A Cyber Readiness Assessment is the first step in identifying your enterprise cyber risks and developing an effective risk mitigation strategy.
Cyber resiliency assessments and plans help to demonstrate that your Directors & Officers are meeting their obligations under the Corporations Act reducing the risk of enforcement actions.
Identification of obligations for other regulations - Security of Criticial Infrastructure Act 2018, Professional Regualations, Overseas laws.
The cyber readiness recommendations generated as part of this assessment will help to guide your organisation on a journey to continuous improvement of cyber security and privacy risk management helping you to demonstrate rigorous, yet pragmatic cyber and privacy capabilities building consumer trust in your brand while addressing legal risks.
Our ongoing support services, available at additional cost, will help you evolve and mature your cyber and privacy capabilities as your business grows, ensuring better alignment with industry best practices, regulatory and legal obligations, and ever-changing risks. As our team will already be familiar with your organisation and the recommended cyber roadmap we will be able to quote and deliver these services at more efficient and cost-effective pricing eliminating the need for double-handling to re-discover or scope the work.
Data breaches often result in long-tail reputation harm to businesses. It can take years to recover to a pre-breach financial state and rebuild consumer trust. Even years to decades later, people remember what companies had data breaches in the public eye. Our cyber lawyers have managed hundreds of data breaches that were never public and are highly experienced in managing crisis communications. Through this experience we understand the root causes of reputation harm from cyber incidents and how to protect against this type of harm.
Additionally, we have seen a rise in regulators holding Executives accountable for pre-breach security posture and using the details of breach investigations and pre-breach audits as evidence. As lawyers we are in a good position to align the service outputs to protect Legal Professional Privilege (LPP). LPP helps to prevent third-parties from using your cyber assessment against you in future legal claims. We have designed our services in light of the recent Federal Court of Australia decision against Optus allowing cyber security reports to be used as evidence in a class action against them following their data breach.
Conducting a Cyber Readiness Assessment can help your broker negotiate lower insurance premiums. Third-party assessments of your state of readiness gives insurers peace of mind that you actively manage your cyber and privacy risks which can result in a lower risk rating that translates into smoother approvals, fewer claims, and higher limits at lower premiums.
As part of this assessment, we provide a summary report that can be shared with prospective and current insurers while maintaining Legal Professional Privilege over the detailed report.
Get a no obligation consultation
At Albrecht Burrows, we understand the complexity and urgency of cyber and privacy risks facing businesses today. Get a no obligation consultation with our experts to better understand how your business can increase your resilience to cyber and privacy threats and regulatory risks. Our team of experienced multidisciplinary professionals will work closely with you to create personalised risk management solutions tailored to your business' unique needs needs and budget. Don't wait until it's too late – schedule your no-obligation consultation today and take proactive steps towards protecting your business from cyber threats and privacy breaches.
Testimonials
What sets AB apart is their flexible and pragmatic approach - they share our values, our DNA, and they think outside the box. The team are highly skilled commercial lawyers who possess unparalleled expertise in regulatory areas, a deep understanding of business, and exceptional negotiation skills."
Regan Carey
Head of Legal and Compliance
Craigs Investment Partners
AB offers exceptional legal advice delivered by highly skilled and brilliant lawyers who are fantastic to deal with; personable, easy to talk to and compassionate. The commerciality of their advice is matched only by their commitment to simplifying the law and finding practical, creative solutions!
Tas Demos
Managing Partner
BDH Leaders
Meet Our Team
James A. Cole
Partner | Head of Cyber & Privacy
James is a lawyer, computer scientist, and criminologist practicing in cyber and technology, data protection and privacy, data breach response, and cyber insurance. With over 25 years of experience in information security and a multidisciplinary background, James combines technical and legal expertise to help clients navigate the complex and evolving cyber and privacy landscape.
James has handled hundreds of cyber and privacy breaches and is passionate about helping businesses build resilience to cyber and privacy risks.
Mark Anderson
Legal Consultant, Lawyer (NZ)
Mark is a highly awarded legal risk adviser and barrister. He is a leading expert in a variety of legal risk areas, including cyber, privacy and technology law.
Mark has provided incident response advice globally to clients in need, including those in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and across APAC, after developing global incident response panels drawing together legal, IT, Forensic and PR professions to manage cyber crises. He has managed some of the highest profile cyber breaches in Australasia.
Case Studies
1. Financial Institution Compliance: Our hybrid computer science – legal team members helped the client successfully map their current cyber maturity level and legal obligations, establish a maturity uplift roadmap in coordination with their IT provider, and worked with their insurance broker to complete accurate proposal form responses resulting in the successfully obtaining cyber insurance coverage for an affordable premium. 2. SaaS Company AI & Facial Recognition Compliance: We helped an Australian SaaS web app maker successfully navigate the complexities of international data protection laws as they apply to biometric information in retail virtual try-on technology minimising their overall privacy and data protection risks and helping the company implement a sound multinational expansion strategy aligned to the client's risk tolerance. 3. Transport Logistics Incident Response: Working with a prominent logistics company, we provided timely and compassionate advice and assistance in responding to a devastating ransomware attack from day 1 through to full recovery and post-recovery risk mitigation successfully returning the client to normal operations in less than one week with no regulatory actions or adverse media.
Data breach emergencies
If you have experienced a data breach, whether unintential employee errors, employee data theft, or you’ve been the victim of a cyber-attack, the first 48 hours is crucial. So don’t waste any time, just get in touch.
Reach out, day or night.
If you don’t reach us straight away, we will get in touch ASAP!
Email us on [email protected]
Breach emergency Line: 02 8318 5980
Assessment Solutions
A Privacy Capability Assessment provides a holistic snapshot of your organisation’s approach to handling personal information and assesses whether your capabilities align with your privacy objectives and legal obligations.
By contrast, a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) analyses an existing or proposed project, practice or technology and assesses it's level of compliance with the privacy laws - such as the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). A PIA takes a deep dive into a particular initiative, examines its data flows, and ensures the initiative is compliant with relevant APPs and any other applicable privacy rules.
Yes.
You should revisit your PCA on at least an annual basis and see if anything has changed. You need to update the PCA if you have made changes to:
- your personal information handling practices;
- storage;
- vendors / suppliers;
- systems; or
- the types of personal information you collect, process, store, or disclose.
You should also update the PCA anytime the privacy laws change or your business practices change and you gain exposure to new privacy rules or foreign privacy laws.
A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is a process used to protect privacy-by-design when an you start or acquire a new business, implement a new process, starting working with a new supplier or Cloud service or Processor, or launch a new product or technology. The PIA is focused on your activity's compliance to the privacy rules and laws.
A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) is an ongoing process, regularly applied to personal data processing, identifying, and mitigating data protection risks. The DPIA is focused on the risks to privacy associated with the activity.
Yes it is. A PIA can be conducted against existing projects, practices and systems.
However, it is best practice to carry out a PIA during the planning stages of an project or system and throughout the implementation phases. This way, privacy issues can be addressed early rather than being treated as an afterthought and the resutling PIA is updated as the project matures resulting in a privacy compliant initiative at go-live.
Yes you do. Privacy Impact Assessments are living documents. They need to be revisited every time a trigger event occurs.
Trigger events to refresh your PIA include:
- The privacy laws change;
- You make a material change to the previously assessed initiative or system such as technology upgrades, deploying a new system, change the data flows, changing the data storage, or changing suppliers / vendors;
- You make a change to the purpose of the personal information processing or you change what personal information you collect, or what processing you are doing on the personal information.
The easy way to think of it is: if something about your system or process changes, update the PIA.
Policy and Process
Every organisation that is covered by the Privacy Act, or any foreign privacy laws, must have a compliant Privacy Policy that is written in plain language, is freely accessible, and provides details about your collection, processing, storage, and disclosure of personal information.
It's important to note that a Privacy Policy is a living document that needs to be regularly reviewed and updated - especially when your privacy practices or business activities change or the law changes.
A comprehensive Privacy Policy lets you demonstrate that your organisation takes it's privacy obligations seriously. Consumers expect an organisation to take reasonable steps to protect the personal information they entrust to the company and to be transparent in how that information is handled. This is demonstrated through the Privacy Policy.
Recent high-profile privacy breaches have increased consumer focuses on privacy protections and demonstrated the devastating impact a privacy breach can have on affected individuals and the organisation. Affected individuals can suffer substantial harms ranging from financial loss and identity theft to psychological harms. A privacy breach can also expose mishandling of personal information resulting in regulatory investigations and penalties.
There are also substantial risks in not keeping a Privacy Policy up-to-date and accurate. False or misleading statements made in a Privacy Policy can constitute misleading and deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law resulting in substantial penalties and costly legal proceedings.
Complaints
Privacy laws grant express Rights and Freedoms to individuals. Some laws, such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - that has been adopted in some form by more than half the world - include rights ranging from access, correction, and objection, to the right to be forgotten.
A significant part of the Australian Government proposal to amend the Privacy Act includes expansion of the existing rights under the Australian Privacy Principles. As of the start of 2024, Australians already have the right to request access and correction. Failing to respond within set time limits can result in an interference with privacy and a regulatory complaint. The proposed legislative amendments would introduce new rights, such as the Right to be Forgotten. Additionally, the proposals include a new penalty regime and a tort - the right to bring a legal action, for interference with privacy.
Your organisation should take any privacy complaints seriously. All privacy complaints need to be thoroughly investigated and any legal issues identified and addressed in a timely manner. This can be complex, as you need to respond to the complainant while not interfering with the privacy of anyone else.
Failing to respond to a privacy complaint, or simply dismissing it, could result in escalation of complaints to the Privacy Commissioner, regulatory action, and adverse media. This can lead to reputational harm and lost customers and opportunity.
Breach Prevention and Response
Privacy breaches can enliven a wide range of regulatory notification obligations. A lack of preparedness can also drive up the response costs. During a privacy breach, it is important to be able to quickly assess what personal information is impacted and who it relates to in order to conduct risk of serious harm assessments and comply with regulatory notification obligations.
With proper preparedness and planning, you can ensure your response is timely, efficient, and aligned to your legal obligations. This helps to minimise potential harms to impacted individuals and reduce the potential reputational harm to your organisation. Additionally, the more prepared you are, the lower the response costs. eDiscovery, the process to determine what personal information is impacted and to whom it relates, is one of the most expensive components of incident response activities. Access to a quality, up-to-date, and accurate data map allows you to rapidly exclude irrelevant data sources from eDiscovery activities increasing efficiency and reducing cost.
If you don't know what personal information is on a particular system, you may have to waste a lot of time and money ingesting that data source into eDiscovery just to find it wasn't relevant.
Efficiency in breach response is even more critical as the notification time requirements in data breach notification regulations are getting narrowed to as low as 72 hours. Preparation helps you avoid a late notification penalty.
Awareness and Culture
Every member of your staff should receive at least some training on protecting personal information. However, any staff involved in the collection, handling, storage, or disclosure of personal information need to have regular training on recognising privacy protected information, what their obligations are at law and according to your Privacy Policy, and what they can do to appropriately safeguard personal information.
Staff members that have privacy related job roles, such as a Privacy Officer, your in-house legal team, your risk management staff, and your senior managers and executives may need to have a more in-depth understanding of your privacy policies, legal obligations, and privacy practices. This may also apply to staff that handle large volumes of personal information, such as your marketing team. These groups often require specialist training in handling privacy risks and complaints. You incident response team should also receive more in-depth privacy training.
Privacy training should occur regularly. Annual training is an absolute minimum. More frequent training is often needed and more effective.
Terms and Conditions
We are required by the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) (Uniform Law) to set out the following terms of our engagement for your acceptance or further negotiation.
In these Terms, references to Albrecht Burrows, "we", "us", "our" refer to Alliance Legal Pty Ltd (ABN ) trading as Albrecht Burrows of Level 12, 111 Elizabeth Street, Sydney NSW 2000.
This document, together with our General Terms of Business, sets out the terms of our offer to provide legal services to you and constitutes our costs agreement and disclosure pursuant to the Uniform Law. The Terms and the Accepted Options in this Proposal form the entire agreement between You and Us during our engagement and any references to the "Proposal" in this document refers to both the Terms and the Accepted Option.
By accepting this Proposal as set out herein and below in the Terms, you agree that this Proposal serves as a binding Costs Agreement and Disclosure under Schedule 1 of the Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) between Albrecht Burrows and You for the provision of legal services and may be enforced in the same way as any other contract.
The prices quoted in the attached proposal are indicative prices only unless specified as fixed price.
Some services are on a recurring basis and will be charged on an ongoing basis in accordance with the selected billing frequency until cancelled in writing with one month notice. By selecting a recurring service you agree to be charged for the selected service amount, plus GST, until cancelled.
You will be proportionately charged for work involving shorter periods less than an hour. Our charges are structured in 6 minute units. For example, the time charged for an attendance of up to 6 minutes will be 1 unit and the time charged for an attendance between 6 and 12 minutes will be 2 units.
The agreed scope of work may include a fixed price. Where a fixed price is agreed, the following standard hourly rates charged by our professional staff will only apply to out of scope work. Where we have quoted a discounted hourly rate in the scope of work, the lesser of the quoted hourly rate or the following rates will apply:
(a) $650 plus GST for a Director, or Principal;
(b) $580 plus GST for a Partner, or Special Counsel;
(c) $450 plus GST for a Senior Associate;
(d) $380 plus GST for an Associate;
(e) $350 plus GST for a Solicitor; and
(f) $150 plus GST for a Paralegal.
Our rates are reviewed on a regular basis and may change during the course of a matter. In relation to lengthy matters this may impact upon our cost estimates (which may be revised accordingly). You will be given 30 days' notice in writing of any changes to our charge out rates.
Where you have been referred by a third-party such as your insurance broker, IT provider, or accountant, we may pay them referral fee. This fee is paid by us and is not an additional cost to you.
2.1 We may incur disbursements (being money which we pay or are liable to pay to others on your behalf). Disbursements may include search fees, court filing fees, process server fees, expert fees, witness expenses, travel expenses, transcript expenses and barrister's fees.
2.2 Where you instruct us to brief a barrister or other expert and they provide a disclosure and costs agreement we will provide this to you.
Our usual policy is to issue a tax invoice on a monthly basis or upon completion of a specific task or tasks. All tax invoices are due and payable 14 days from the date of the tax invoice. You consent to us sending our tax invoices to you electronically at your usual email address or mobile phone number as specified by you.
You may accept the Costs Disclosure and Costs Agreement by:
(a) signing and returning this document to us; or
(b) continuing to instruct us.
Upon acceptance you agree to pay for our services on these terms.
Interest at the maximum rate prescribed in Rule 75 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules 2015 (Uniform General Rules) (being the Cash Rate Target set by the Reserve Bank of Australia plus 2%) will be charged on any amounts unpaid after the expiry of 30 days after a tax invoice is given to you. Our tax invoices will specify the interest rate to be charged.
The Legal Profession Uniform Law (NSW) (the Uniform Law) provides that we cannot take action for recovery of legal costs until 30 days after a tax invoice (which complies with the Uniform Law) has been given to you.
It is your right to:
(a) negotiate a costs agreement with us;
(b) negotiate the method of billing (e.g. task based or time based);
(c) request and receive an itemised bill within 30 days after a lump sum bill or partially itemised bill is payable;
(d) seek the assistance of the designated local regulatory authority (the NSW Commissioner) in the event of a dispute about legal costs;
(e) be notified as soon as is reasonably practicable of any significant change to any matter affecting costs;
(f) accept or reject any offer we make for an interstate costs law to apply to your matter; and
(g) notify us that you require an interstate costs law to apply to your matter.
If you request an itemised bill and the total amount of the legal costs specified in it exceeds the amount previously specified in the lump sum bill for the same matter, the additional costs may be recovered by us only if:
(a) when the lump sum bill is given, we inform you in writing that the total amount of the legal costs specified in any itemised bill may be higher than the amount specified in the lump sum bill, and
(b) the costs are determined to be payable after a costs assessment or after a binding determination under section 292 of the Uniform Law.
Nothing in these terms affects your rights under the Australian Consumer Law.
If you have a dispute in relation to any aspect of our legal costs you have the following avenues of redress:
(a) in the first instance we encourage you to discuss your concerns with us so that any issue can be identified and we can have the opportunity of resolving the matter promptly and without it adversely impacting on our business relationship; and
(b) you may apply to the Manager, Costs Assessment located at the Supreme Court of NSW for an assessment of our costs. An application for assessment must be made within 12 months after the final bill in this matter was provided or request for payment made or after the costs were paid.
It is our policy that, when acting for new clients, we do one or more of the following:
(a) ask the client to pay monies into our trust account;
(b) ask the client for their credit card details.
Unless otherwise agreed with you, we may determine not to incur fees or expenses in excess of the amount that we hold in trust on your behalf.
You authorise us to receive directly into our trust account any judgment or settlement amount, or money received from any source in furtherance of your work, and to pay our professional fees, internal expenses and disbursements in accordance with the provisions of Rule 42 of the Uniform General Rules. A trust statement will be forwarded to you upon completion of the matter.
On completion of your work, or following termination (by either party) of our services, we will retain your documents for 7 years. Your agreement to these terms constitutes your authority for us to destroy the file after those 7 years. The authority does not relate to any documents which are deposited in safe custody which will, subject to agreement, be retained on your behalf indefinitely. We are entitled to retain your documents while there is money owing to us for our costs.
You will be liable for the cost of storing and retrieving documents in storage and our professional fees in connection with this.
We may cease to act for you or refuse to perform further work, including:
(a) while any of our tax invoices remain unpaid;
(b) if you do not within 7 days comply with any request to pay an amount in respect of disbursements or future costs;
(c) if you fail to provide us with clear and timely instructions to enable us to advance your matter, for example, compromising our ability to comply with Court directions, orders or practice notes;
(d) if you refuse to accept our advice;
(e) if you indicate to us or we form the view that you have lost confidence in us;
(f) if there are any ethical grounds which we consider require us to cease acting for you, for example a conflict of interest;
(g) for any other reason outside our control which has the effect of compromising our ability to perform the work required within the required timeframe;
(h) if in our sole discretion we consider it is no longer appropriate to act for you; or
(i) for just cause.
We will give you reasonable written notice of termination of our services. You will be required to pay our costs incurred up to the date of termination.
You may terminate our services by written notice at any time. However, if you do so you will be required to pay our costs incurred up to the date of termination (including if the matter is litigious, any cancellation fees or other fees such as hearing allocation fees for which we remain responsible).
Without affecting any lien to which we are otherwise entitled at law over funds, papers and other property of yours:
(a) we shall be entitled to retain by way of lien any funds, property or papers of yours, which are from time to time in our possession or control, until all costs, disbursements, interest and other moneys due to the firm have been paid; and
(b) our lien will continue notwithstanding that we cease to act for you.
We may in any manner we regard appropriate disclose the fact that we act or have acted for you, and the type of work but in doing so we will not disclose other confidential information.
Also, we may place an advertisement in an appropriate financial journal or industry journal at our cost after completion of the work, but only after obtaining your prior approval that you must not unreasonably withhold.
However, if you request it now, we will make sure we do not disclose details of the work or your name to anyone except as necessary in the course of doing the work.
We share office space with BDH Leaders Pty Limited, a financial consultancy. Where We are providing legal services to you concurrently to you receiving services from BDHL Leaders Pty Limited, services provided by BDH Leaders Pty Limited are not provided by Us and should not be relied upon as such. Our services are not, and should not be relied upon, as being provided by BDH Leaders Pty Limited. Our services are distinct and separate despite the use of shared office space. We take all reasonable steps to ensure the confidentiality of your information and legal matter.
You agree that we may use your logo on our website in the “Trusted by” section (or equivalent), and that we may refer to our engagement with you when speaking with external parties including potential clients. In addition, you agree that any testimonial(s) you give us can be used on our website and reproduced for other marketing and business development purposes including social media platforms and award applications.
These authorisations can be withdrawn by you in writing at any time.
We will collect personal information from you in the course of providing our legal services. We may also obtain personal information from third party searches, other investigations and, sometimes, from adverse parties.
We are required to collect the full name and address of our clients by Rule 93 of the Uniform General Rules. Accurate name and address information must also be collected in order to comply with the trust account record keeping requirements of Rule 47 of the Uniform General Rules and to comply with our duty to the courts.
Your personal information will only be used for the purposes for which it is collected or in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth). For example, we may use your personal information to provide advice and recommendations that take into account your personal circumstances.
If you do not provide us with the full name and address information required by law we cannot act for you. If you do not provide us with the other personal information that we request our advice may be wrong for you or misleading.
Depending on the nature of your matter the types of bodies to whom we may disclose your personal information include the courts, the other party or parties to litigation, experts and barristers, the Office of State Revenue, PEXA Limited, the Land and Property Information Division of the Department of Lands, the Registrar General and third parties involved in the completion or processing of a transaction.
We do not disclose your information overseas unless your instructions involve dealing with parties located overseas. If your matter involves parties overseas we may disclose select personal information to overseas recipients associated with that matter in order to carry out your instructions.
We manage and protect your personal information in accordance with our privacy policy (which can be found on our firm website or a copy of which we shall provide at your request). Our privacy policy contains information about how you can access and correct the personal information we hold about you and how you can raise any concerns about our personal information handling practices. For more information, please contact us in writing.
We are able to send and receive documents electronically. However, as such transmission is not secure and it may be copied, recorded, read or interfered with by third parties while in transit. If you ask us to transmit any document electronically, you release us from any claim you may have as a result of any unauthorised copying, recording, reading or interference with that document, for any delay or non-delivery of any document and for any damage caused to your system or any files.
Where applicable, GST is payable on our professional fees and expenses and will be clearly shown on our tax invoices.
By accepting these terms you agree to pay us an amount equivalent to the GST imposed on these charges.
The law of New South Wales governs these terms and legal costs in relation to any matter upon which we are instructed to act.
Smart Commercial Lawyers
Delivering emotionally intelligent legal solutions
ablaw.com.au | [email protected]
Reception 02 8014 2511
Level 12, 111 Elizabeth Street
Sydney NSW 2000
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Melbourne VIC 3000
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