Client Service Terms

 
We appreciate your decision to select Counter Tax Litigators LLP as your legal counsel.

By choosing to work with us, you accept and agree to our client service terms, detailed below for your reference.

 We look forward to collaborating with you.

1. Service Team and Responsibility: We will designate a partner to oversee your legal needs and supervise all work we conduct on your behalf. This responsible partner will also decide the best team composition for each matter you assign to us. Our team, consisting of lawyers and other legal professionals, will be selected based on their expertise, the nature of the issues, and the time-sensitivity of each situation. Occasionally, we may involve accountants, business valuators, contract lawyers, paralegals, and other experts. For assignments billed hourly, their charges may be included alongside those of our legal professionals, reflecting their experience and our supervision, or listed as disbursements, depending on the context.
2. Scope. We aim to collaborate and identify projects that best serve your interests. While outlining every project proves impractical, we’ll strive to define them broadly, ensuring we stay focused on key aspects without delving into excessive detail. Periodically, we’ll give you a high-level project list, guiding and prompting discussions. Our primary focus will be tax dispute services for the specified issues and years. Please note that we won’t offer other services, such as tax advisory, unless we agree in writing. Instructions will be taken from any individual in your organization with apparent authority unless you specify otherwise.
3. Fees. Our fees merge traditional hourly billing with a performance-based component. Our hourly rates mirror the experience, capability, and seniority of our team, along with current economic trends. We review our hourly fee rates and ranges annually, typically at the end of the calendar year. If we make any adjustments, we will inform you of these changes. Our approach aims to ensure that our billing is fair and reflects the high-quality legal services we provide.
4. Disbursement Policy. Our billing will also include disbursements, ancillary services, and any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred to advance your interests. These charges only aim to recoup our incurred costs to advance your interests. In cases of significant disbursements, we might request an advance payment from you or send you the invoices directly for your payment. This approach helps in maintaining transparency and efficiency in our billing process.
5. Joint Representation. If you engage us to represent more than one party, you acknowledge that our duties extend equally to all parties involved. No information received from one party can be treated as confidential so far as any of the others are concerned. And if a conflict develops between the parties that cannot be resolved, we may not be able to continue to act for some or all of the parties.
6. Limited Liability Partnership. We operate as a registered Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) in Ontario. In this structure, a partner isn’t personally responsible for the LLP’s debts, obligations, or liabilities, including those arising from another partner’s or their supervisees’ negligence. Each partner holds personal liability only for their actions and for those under their direct supervision.
7. Commitment to Privacy. During our service, we may handle personal information protected by privacy laws. Whether disclosed or collected by us, this information will only be used in accordance with our privacy policy. For more details, you can access our Privacy Policy at countertax.ca.
8. Dispute Resolution Policy. Although client disputes rarely occur in our practice, we understand that different perspectives and occasional conflicts can arise. With this in mind, we resolve disputes in a structured and fair way. You consent and agree to resolve any and all disputes through mediation or arbitration if disagreements occur – be it about fees, the quality of work or service, scope, disparagement, or other issues. Both parties commit to maintaining the highest degree of professionalism and privacy, and they agree not to make disparaging remarks or negative online reviews that might harm the other party's reputation, both during and after the duration of this agreement. The parties acknowledge and agree they will conduct these processes through ADR Chambers, following the Expedited Arbitration Rules. The arbitrator’s decision will be final and binding on all parties, with no option for appeal, and the successful party may enforce the arbitrator’s decision in any court that has the authority over the matter.
9. Activating Dispute Resolution. Generally, we will aim to resolve any defection or dispute within ten business days or less. If we do not resolve the conflict or if it escalates, we will activate the dispute resolution process.
10. Termination and Withdrawal of Legal Services. You can end your engagement with us anytime by providing written notice. We may also choose to end our engagement with you in specific scenarios and withdraw. This action may occur if your guidance or behaviour attempts to pressure our team to violate the Law Society of Ontario’s standards and regulations. Additionally, should we detect a loss of trust or confidence—for instance, if there are instances of deception towards our team, a refusal to heed and act on significant advice from us, actions on your part that appear to us uncooperative, a significant breakdown in communication, or challenges in receiving explicit instructions from you—these circumstances may lead us to terminate our engagement and withdraw. Moreover, failure to settle invoices and retainer deposits within an acceptable timeframe will lead us to terminate our engagement and withdraw our services. Our engagement ends when we email you our final invoice for services rendered, unless we have previously notified you that we have completed our responsibilities under our engagement or chosen to terminate our agreement for a different reason.
11. Invoices Due on Receipt. Our invoices require payment upon receipt. By agreeing to these client service terms, you agree to make payment immediately upon receiving the invoice or within a few days thereafter.
12. Late Payment Fees and Collections. If an invoice remains unpaid for 40 days, we will impose a late fee of $250 on the 41st day. This late fee will double every 30 days until we receive full payment.  If your financial institution does not honour your payment to us for any reason, we will impose a $200 NSF fee to cover: (1) the non-sufficient funds ("NSF") fee our financial institution will charge us; and (2) our administrative costs associated with addressing the NSF and obtaining the correct payment. In cases of continued non-payment, we will, regrettably, withdraw our services and entrust the collection process to an external collection agency. In these instances, you agree to pay any costs we incur by engaging the external collection agency to recover our fees and disbursements.
13. Affiliated Entity: We channel our efforts exclusively to deliver outstanding legal advice and services to clients. We collaborate with a separate operations entity, CISS, to handle business and operations services (e.g., accounting and operations support). We share office space with CISS, and CISS will access your data from time to time to perform their work (e.g., preparing and issuing invoices). Although some lawyers in our firm hold shares in CISS, we don’t have any financial or referral arrangements with CISS that would affect the independence of our lawyers. We have entered into strict confidentiality agreements with CISS to reduce the risk of any loss of solicitor-client privilege. We ensure full compliance with all Law Society Rules related to affiliated entities. 
14. Document Retention and Disposal Policy. If a matter reaches its end or if our engagement concludes, please inform us if you require the return of any documents. If we don’t receive such a request within 10 business days of our final invoice, we’ll handle all provided documentation and our work product in line with our current records retention policy, adhering to all relevant professional standards. We may periodically destroy or dispose of these documents to minimize storage costs, as our policy dictates. At your request, we’re happy to provide an overview of the key aspects of our records retention policy.
15. Fraud Prevention. Funds transfer fraud is on the rise. We will never email you with a request to change or update any banking or transfer information. If you receive a request like that by email, please phone us immediately using a previously known number. In addition, if we receive any banking or transfer information from you, we will confirm this independently. If you have questions or concerns, please get in touch with us.
16. Electronic Communications. We will communicate with you electronically, including email, which may involve confidential information, unless you request otherwise. Electronic communication carries risks like interception, viruses, and potential delays due to anti-spam filters. We’re not liable for issues caused by third parties or technical delays in these communications. 
17. Terms Update and Ongoing Dialogue. As our relationship and your matters evolve, we’ll update these terms to reflect our current understanding and the services provided. You can always find the most recent version on our website. Please feel free to contact the partner overseeing our relationship whenever you have questions or need clarification about our work or our relationship.

Updated: August 22, 2024