Good communications are the foundation of a successful relationship between a client and his or her lawyer, and so at Loukidelis Professional Corporation (LPC), we take client communication seriously. Good communications define the work that we will do for you, how we do it and your understanding of the results of our work. In addition, it is very important to us that our clients feel they can speak to us freely about their questions and concerns and that they receive prompt and clear responses to their inquiries.
This memorandum is about how to make sure we communicate with each other successfully.
Contact Information
We can’t communicate with you if we don’t know how to reach you. It is a condition of our legal services agreement with you that you complete and return to us a client contact form.
We will communicate with you as specified on the form. Unless you instruct us to do otherwise, we will communicate with you through email even though email is not a secure or always reliable form of communication.
You agree to inform us immediately of any change to the information you provide on the client contact form.
Please also let us know if you will be away or otherwise temporarily indisposed in case something comes up and we must communicate with you right away. It will be helpful if you can let us know how best to try to reach you in these circumstances.
Using Email
Email is a valuable tool for lawyers and clients. We encourage you to communicate with us using email provided you are comfortable with the security risks associated with the medium. Having your questions and our responses in writing reduces greatly the risk that we will miscommunicate to your disadvantage. Moreover, our written responses will usually be easier to understand than our verbal responses, and you will be able to to refer to our responses later for a refresher on the information or advice we provided.
Keep in mind that our fees are usually based on the amount of time we spend on your file. Accordingly, it will likely save you money if you can consolidate your questions in one email rather than send numerous questions in different email messages.
Encryption
If you are concerned about the lack of security with email, you can encrypt your messages to John Loukidelis. You can find John’s public key on our contact page.
Legal Jargon
Legal and tax jargon can be useful when tax professionals communicate with each other. When communicating with clients, however, we try to avoid using jargon whenever possible. But sometimes we’ll forget ourselves. If we say or write something that you don’t understand, please ask for an explanation. Tax concepts can be quite complex. Part of our work on your behalf is to explain these concepts to you so that you understand them.
Confidentiality and Privilege
The information you give to us and the advice we give to you is confidential. The law protects communications between lawyers and clients to make sure that clients are able to talk frankly and freely with their lawyers and get the best advice based on all the facts. We will not disclose your confidential information unless we are required to do so by law or lawyers’ professional rules of conduct.
To protect your interests, we advise you to keep our correspondence, including emails, in a secure location. We recommend you not forward emails or other communications from us to third parties that relate to matters about which you have received our legal advice. If you forward these emails or other communications, you may compromise the legal rights that otherwise protect our communications with you.
Disclosing Unhelpful Information
Privilege exists so that clients can tell their lawyers anything and everything relevant to their legal problems. Take advantage of privilege: tell us everything that is relevant to your case, even facts that you think could be unhelpful or harmful to you. If you withhold information, it could make it difficult or impossible for us to provide the correct legal advice, and the information could surface in other ways that will be quite harmful to you. It is better that we know the information so that we can work with you to anticipate the problems it might cause.
Status Updates
We will keep you informed about developments on your file. There may be times, however, when we are waiting for actions or information from others and you will not hear from us. Please remember that part of the costs of our legal services is the time we spend replying to your phone calls and email messages. You will save money by limiting these contacts to important and urgent matters.
That said, if you have any doubts or concerns about the progress of your matter, do contact us, and if we don’t respond within a day or so, contact us to arrange a time for a call to ensure that your concerns are addressed in a timely manner. Alternatively, don’t hesitate to ask us for a written report on the status of your matter. It should give you a clear understanding of the work we have done, what works remains to be completed and the expected results of our work on your behalf.
Communicating with Staff
Ms Tania Ruprai may be able to answer many of your questions, although she cannot answer legal questions or provide legal advice. If you need to reach John Loukidelis urgently, let Tania know, and he will respond as promptly as possible.
From time to time, Tania will follow-up with you about information or documents we need for our work on your behalf. It will save you money if you respond to Tania’s inquiries in a timely manner because Tania’s time is not chargeable, but John’s time spent following-up for information is.
Accessibility
We are committed to providing services to our clients in a manner that ensures they can take full advantage of those services regardless of any disability in accordance with the requirements of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (Ontario) (the “Act”). We encourage you to discuss with us the means by which we can better accommodate any disability you might have.
We would welcome your feedback on our efforts to comply with the Act. You can provide that feedback by sending an email or by speaking to us.
