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Standard Terms of Engagement for England and Wales

Download McO Standard Terms of Engagement (PDF)

These terms apply to all engagements of our firm under the law of England and Wales from 16 May 2025. They are to be read in conjunction with your Engagement Letter that applies to the specifics of your case and together form a contract governing our relationship (“Agreement”). Please read both these Standard Terms and your Engagement Letter carefully before you sign the Engagement Letter. We are very happy to answer any questions you may have.

If we change these terms in the future, the terms prevailing at the time you execute your Engagement Letter will govern your relationship with us.

Your approval needed for settlement

  1. We will not make any settlement or compromise of any nature of any of your claims without first fully discussing the settlement or compromise with you and obtaining your approval. Nevertheless, you recognise that during negotiations, it may be appropriate for us to suggest or accept proposals that have not been cleared with you in detail. You retain the absolute right to accept or reject any settlement.

Liability

  1. We maintain professional indemnity insurance, as required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority Indemnity Insurance Rules. Our insurer for this purpose is International General Insurance Company (UK) Ltd, 15-18 Lime Street, London, EC3M 7AN, England. The territorial coverage is worldwide.
  2. It is a condition of our professional indemnity insurance that we notify our insurer and/or broker of any circumstances which may give rise to a claim against us. In doing so, we may disclose documents and information to our insurer, broker and insurance advisers on a confidential basis. Our insurers and brokers are contractually obliged to keep all information we pass to them strictly confidential.
  3. Our liability to you for a breach of your instructions, including breach of contract, breach of duty, fault, negligence or otherwise shall not exceed the limit of our liability insurance. This cap refers to the aggregate liability of McAllister Olivarius with respect to all work undertaken in this engagement and is believed to be fair and reasonable in the circumstances.
  4. Our services are provided to you solely and exclusively by McAllister Olivarius, a general partnership. You agree that each of our partners, employees and consultants: (a) does not assume any personal responsibility to you or any other person; (b) does not owe you or any other person any personal duty of care; and (c) shall not be liable to you or any other person for any loss, liability, cost or expense arising, directly or indirectly, as a consequence of their own acts or omissions. This shall not exclude or limit the liability of any of our partners, employees or consultants to you to the extent that applicable law does not permit such exclusion or limitation.
  5. You agree that we will not be liable for any consequential, special, indirect, punitive or exemplary damages, costs or losses, or any damages, costs or losses attributable to lost profits, revenue, production, use, contract, opportunities or data, or data corruption. Unless explicitly agreed otherwise in writing, we do not owe or accept any duty to any person other than you, nor do we accept any liability or responsibility for any consequences arising from reliance on our advice by any person other than you.

Client account deposits and interest

  1. Money held by us as a retainer or for the payment of case-related fees (e.g., court issue fees or expert fees) is considered client money and will be held as a deposit in a client account governed by the Solicitors Accounts Rules. These rules are designed to keep your money safe and ensure that it is always available for the purposes for which it was provided.
  2. We are required to pay you interest on any money we keep on your behalf in our client account in an amount that is fair and reasonable. To accomplish this, we will calculate interest on your deposit using the rate paid to us by Barclays Bank on deposits in our office account and pay interest to you if the interest is equal to £20 or more during the period of your deposit.
  3. In the event that you must deposit a substantial sum in our client account and expect that it will remain on deposit for an extended period of time, we will explore whether we can arrange for the bank to pay interest on it and then pay over that interest to you. Should you have any questions about this policy, please direct them to Jef McAllister, our Managing Partner.

Termination of representation

  1. Unless previously terminated, this engagement will end when we agree the matter has been satisfactorily resolved.
  2. You may terminate this engagement at any time for any reason by written notice.
  3. Subject to any necessary approval by the appropriate court or tribunal and to our general ethical obligations, we may terminate this engagement for good cause. Good cause includes the following:
    1. you breach the terms of this Agreement;
    2. you fail to cooperate with us, to follow our advice on a material matter, or fail to provide prompt instructions, in such a way that we reasonably consider that our ability to serve your interests is compromised;
    3. you deliberately withhold or conceal material information from us or make material misrepresentations to us, defined as where the misrepresentation or concealment relates to facts which might reasonably affect the substance of our advice, the amount of any award you might receive, or our ability to serve your interests generally; or
    4. circumstances in which our continued representation would be unlawful or unethical due to your act, or where our withdrawal is otherwise permitted by the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s Standards and Regulations or other applicable rules.
  4. If you are paying an hourly rate fee, you will owe us fees on an hourly basis as described in your Engagement Letter, and all expenses we have incurred on your behalf, from the Start Date to the date of termination. If you are paying a flat rate or contingency fee, you will owe us all expenses we have incurred on your behalf, from the Start Date to the date of termination.
  5. If you are paying a contingency fee, we may also terminate our engagement if we assess that the likely Award will be too small to provide us with sufficient payment to make it economic for us to continue, in which case we will not refund any expenses you have already paid, but you will owe us nothing more.
  6. If we elect to withdraw our representation, you agree that we may at any time thereafter cease work on your matter. We will give you reasonable notice under the circumstances and will take all reasonable steps to protect your interests. You agree to cooperate in freeing us from having to perform further services, including the execution of any documents necessary to complete our withdrawal.
  7. After our engagement concludes we have no further obligation to advise you. If there are any later legal developments that may impact your future rights and liabilities, including changes in the applicable laws or regulations, you will need to engage us separately to advise on such developments.
  8. The agreement automatically ends if you die before your claim for damages is concluded. We will be entitled to recover our fees and expenses up to the date of your death from your estate.
  9. If your personal representatives wish to continue your claim for damages, we may offer them a new Engagement Letter, as long as they agree to include in the new Engagement Letter your fees and expenses from the beginning of the agreement with you.
  10. If we stop carrying on business, then you must pay us or any successor to our business (or to that part of our business which takes over the conduct of your claim) your fees and expenses if you go on to win your claim for damages.

Your files

  1. If you owe any fees or expenses after our representation ends, we will retain a lien on your files to the extent permitted by law until they are paid. If not, we will return the files to you or deliver them to new solicitors as you direct. To the extent we have not otherwise delivered or disposed of the files as you direct, we will normally retain them in keeping with our records retention policy then in effect (the current policy is to keep them for seven years), after which we are authorized by this agreement to destroy them.

Regulation

  1. McAllister Olivarius is a multi-national general partnership, regulated in the UK by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, registration number 498087. This means that while McAllister Olivarius operates as a solicitor’s firm in England, some of its lawyers are also or only licensed to practise in overseas jurisdictions. A copy of the relevant Solicitors Code of Conduct, setting out the rules of professional conduct applicable to solicitors in England and Wales, is available on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s website, http://www.sra.org.uk, or by calling 0370 606 2555.
  2. We are not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority or the Prudential Regulation Authority. If, while we are acting for you, you need advice on investments, we will have to refer you to someone who is authorised to provide the necessary advice. However, we may provide certain limited investment advice services where these are closely linked to the legal work we are doing for you. This is because we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, which is a designated professional body for the purposes of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
  3. McAllister Olivarius is legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, solicitors may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. We may be prohibited from informing you that such a disclosure has been made or the reasons for it, and we may have to cease work for you for a period of time and not be able to inform you of the reason. You acknowledge that any such actions by us pursuant to our legal obligations do not constitute a breach of any duty owed by us. You agree to allow us to open our files as required from time to time to representatives of our regulatory body or for the purposes of carrying out an independent quality audit. In each of these occasions we will require the third party regulator/assessor to sign a confidentiality agreement with us prior to review. Should you have any concerns about this, please let us know.
  4. We are required by law to get satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and sometimes people related to them. This is because solicitors who deal with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wanting to launder money. If you have not provided it already, we will need a copy of a valid government-issued photo ID document together with a utility bill issued within the last three months to you at your home address. If you cannot provide this, please contact us to discuss other ways to verify your identity.

Duties to the court

  1. All solicitors have a professional duty to uphold the rule of law and the proper administration of justice. We must comply with these duties, even where this conflicts with our obligations to you.

Privacy and data transfer

  1. If you are an individual, you will need to provide us with personal data about yourself (and possibly others) so that we may provide our services. Such data may include your name, address, date of birth, identification documentation, contact numbers and email, bank account details, assets, family details including the names and ages of any children (where appropriate). We may also obtain from you and public resources the names, age, address and other details of anyone involved with your matter.
  2. Any such personal data may be used by us for the provision of our legal services, billing and other administrative purposes. It may also be used by us from time to time to provide you (and where appropriate anyone for whom you act) with information about the firm and our services (including contacting you or them by e-mail or telephone).
  3. If you are the representative of any legal entity other than an individual, we will use any personal data you provide to us for the purposes of acting, on the same basis as set out above. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have appropriate procedures in place (including adequate privacy notices) when you ask us to collect and process personal data for the purposes of your matter.
  4. The legal basis for processing your personal data is primarily that we need it to prepare for or perform our services as set out above. Some of our processing will also take place because we need it to pursue our legitimate interests, which are not, in the circumstances, overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms.
  5. If, as part of our services, we collect personal data about other people on your behalf, we will hold and process that data in accordance with the prevailing data protection legislation. If we conclude that personal data should not be held or processed by us, we will return or delete it as appropriate (and technologically practicable). In some circumstances you have the right to request that we rectify or erase personal data, to restrict processing that concerns you, or to object to our processing the data, as well to request data portability. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about how we process your personal data.
  6. We may store your files on a variety of platforms, including third-party cloud-based servers, which also host our email system. We take reasonable precaution to make sure these systems are encrypted and secure, and that their service agreements are consistent with our legal and professional obligations, including in relation to confidentiality, privacy and data protection. However, there still is a risk that your confidential or privileged information may be disclosed. We also expect to use mobile phones in the course of this representation, which by their nature may place confidential or privileged information at risk. By signing below, you consent to our use of these forms of storage and communication.
  7. If you instruct us to use an alternative provider for storing, sharing or exchanging documents/information, we are not responsible for the security of the data or the provider’s security standards.
  8. Due to applicable legal obligations and to efficiently maintain information provided to us, we may transfer some or all of any personal or other data and information (“Data”) that you provide to our offices in other countries that may have data protection laws that are dissimilar from the ones in the jurisdiction where we first receive such Data. You consent to our obtaining and transferring such Data.
  9. We may use your personal data to send you updates (by e-mail, text, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services. You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time, by responding to the communication accordingly or contacting us on info@mcolaw.com.
  10. We take your privacy seriously. Our Privacy policy contains important information on how and why we collect, process and store your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data. Further information about how we process and protect your personal data through our website, www.mcolaw.com, is detailed within our Privacy Policy which can be found on our website at https://mcolaw.com/privacy-policy/.

Waiver of conflict

  1. Because of the nature of legal practice, it is possible that one of our lawyers may be asked now or in the future to represent parties whose interests are adverse to yours or to an affiliate of yours in the matter for which you are engaging us. While we are actively representing you, we will never represent such a client unless we institute necessary “information wall” safeguards and obtain your informed consent, which you agree to consider in good faith. After your representation is over, you agree that we may represent clients adverse to you or an affiliate, if that representation is not substantially related to our previous representation of you. Sensitive, proprietary, or other confidential information of a non-public nature concerning you that we acquire as a result of representing you will not be transmitted to personnel who may work on such matters.

Disclosures

  1. You agree that we may disclose the fact of your engagement with us and related general information about it, including on our website where we describe our recent cases in anonymized form. You may withdraw your agreement at any time in the future.

No tax advice

  1. You have not retained us to provide any tax advice concerning this engagement. Any documents we prepare, or award you receive through settlement or court judgment, may have tax ramifications. To be sure you understand any potential tax consequences, especially of any award, you should consult with a tax advisor. We will be pleased to consult with any tax advisor you designate to discuss how best to structure any award, but cannot guarantee we will be able to accomplish any particular outcome even if it is recommended. You acknowledge that we are not tax specialists and that we accept no liability for any tax consequences of your award or otherwise. Furthermore, our representation is limited to the specific matters described in your Engagement Letter. We are a specialised firm and are not obliged to give you legal advice in any area except those described in your Engagement Letter.

Independent advice

  1. If you have any questions about this document or the Engagement Letter, please ask. If you still have questions after our conversation, we encourage you to obtain independent legal advice.

Controlling law; disputes

  1. Any dispute or legal issue arising from the Agreement will be determined by the law of England and Wales. You and we agree that any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of, or relating to this Agreement or its breach shall be submitted to CEDR (Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution) or its successors for mediation in London, or by videoconference if both parties agree, under the CEDR Model Mediation Procedure. Either party may begin mediation by providing a written request for mediation (“Request for Mediation”) to the other party, setting forth the subject matter of the dispute and the relief requested. If the dispute has not been settled within 45 days following the receipt of a Request for Mediation or within such other time period as the parties may agree in writing, the parties shall have no further obligation under this paragraph and agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales for resolution of any dispute that remains.

Complaints

  1. We are committed to high quality legal advice and client care. If you are unhappy about any aspect of the service we have provided, please contact our Managing Partner, Dr Jef McAllister, on 020 3048 5955, jmcallister@mcolaw.com, or by mail to our Reading office. We have a written complaints policy which is available to you on request.
  2. We have eight weeks to consider your complaint. If we have not resolved it within this time, or if you are not satisfied with our handling of your complaint, you may be able to ask the Legal Ombudsman to review our work. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about service issues with lawyers. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you. 
  3. The postal address for the Legal Ombudsman is PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH and the phone number is 0300 555 0333. The e-mail address is enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. 
  4. The SRA can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic. The SRA’s website, https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor, contains information about raising concerns regarding solicitors and law firms.

Changes to our bank details

  1. Fraudsters sometimes try to target law firm clients by asking them to transfer funds to accounts under the fraudsters’ control, using deceptive emails or texts pretending to be from the firm. Please be alert to the possibility that fraudsters will target you in this way. We will never tell you about changes to important business information, such as bank account details, by e-mail only. We will always confirm any such change in person or by a phone or video call where you can assure yourself that the change is genuine.
  2. Please inform us immediately if you receive any e-mail or other communication appearing to come from us stating that we have changed our bank details or payment arrangements. We will not be responsible if you send funds to an account someone has told you is ours if you do not check the details with us.

Thank you for entrusting us with your legal requirements. We look forward to working together.