Client Engagement Letter

Your Settlement Agreement

Thank you for instructing Settlement-Advice.com a trading name of RGF Lawyers Limited in relation to your settlement agreement.

RGF Lawyers Limited is a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority with SRA Number 8004856. Its registered office is at 71-75 Shelton Street, London, WC2H 9JQ

This letter, any schedules to it and our standard terms of business form our agreement with you to provide legal services. Particular points, including about your legal rights and protections, are highlighted in this letter, but you should read the schedules and terms of business as well.

1. Scope of work

1.1 What we will do

Based on the information received from you, we anticipate carrying out the following work:

• Review the settlement agreement and advise you as to its terms and effect.
• Negotiate minor contractual amendments to the settlement agreement, if you instruct us to.
• Complete the Advisor's Certificate and send it to your employer.

1.2 What we will not do

Other than as expressly set out above, we will not undertake any other work for you, including but not limited to:

• Negotiating the financial terms of the settlement agreement. We are very happy to do this under a separate fee arrangement charged at £300 / hr + VAT. If this is of interest, please let us know.
• Advise you as to the specifics of any claims you may have regarding your employment and / or its termination, the merits of those claims, the value of those claims and the limitation (deadlines) in which to bring those claims, including any requirement to made a complaint to ACAS or the time frame for such complaint.
• Advising you on the financial or tax aspects of this matter or on your wider tax or financial interests.
• Advising you on the law of jurisdictions outside of England and Wales.
• Giving you accounting or commercial advice.
• Reminding you of any dates or deadlines, or advising you on any legal developments, occurring after the end of our engagement including the date by which you may be required to sign any reaffirmation letter required by your employer.

1.3 Additional work means additional charges

If you instruct us to carry out additional work, you may incur additional charges. Where possible, we will provide you with an estimate before carrying it out.

2. How long will it take?

We anticipate that this matter will take approximately 24-48 hours to complete once we receive the settlement agreement, whereupon we shall review it and advise you about its terms. On occasion we will need additional time to negotiate the terms of the settlement agreement with your employer.

3. Your lawyer

The identity of the solicitor working on your matter will be confirmed shortly after instruction.

4. Our fees and our Fee Cap Promise

4.1 When your employer pays our fees

In almost every case, you will pay nothing towards our fees. Your settlement agreement will include a contribution from your employer towards your legal costs, and we cap our fee at that contribution. Whatever your employer pays is what we charge. If the contribution is £500 + VAT, our fee is £500 + VAT. You will never be asked to pay the difference out of your own pocket.

Our standard fee for advising you on the terms and effect of the settlement agreement and negotiating any non-financial amendments is £650 + VAT. Where your employer's contribution is below this, you instruct us to ask your employer to increase it. Employers usually agree. If they do not, our fee cap promise still applies and the shortfall is our problem, not yours.

4.2 When you may have to pay our fees

If, in rare circumstances your employer will not contribute to your legal costs or if, following our advice, you choose not to sign the settlement agreement, our fees will need to be paid by you.

Where you are asked to sign a reaffirmation agreement, our fees for advising you and completing the adviser's certificate are an additional £250 + VAT. We will ask that your employer contributes to that but if they do not cover your legal costs for the reaffirmation agreement, then this fee is payable by you in advance of us undertaking the work.

5. Who we act for and your right to terminate

5.1 Who we are acting for

You are our client; our agreement is with you and our advice is intended solely for you. We do not accept or assume responsibility to anyone other than you.

5.2 Your rights to terminate your instructions

You may terminate your instructions at any time by telling us in writing. You must pay all charges incurred up to the point of termination, as well as any charges incurred after termination. We can retain your documents until you pay.

6. Communicating with us

6.1 How to contact us

You can contact us via email. Your assigned solicitor's contact details will be provided upon instruction.

6.2 Communication methods

Unless there are documents that we need to send in hard copy, we will communicate with you by email, telephone, or video call. You agree that there are inherent risks with email communication and that we are not responsible for loss or damage caused by email use, provided we have taken reasonable security measures.

7. Use of technology and artificial intelligence

We use technology, including artificial intelligence tools, to support the delivery of our services. This may include tools that assist with document review, analysis of your settlement agreement, checking of financial calculations, drafting, case management and the automation of parts of our client sign-up process. We use these tools to work more efficiently and accurately, which helps us keep our fees down and turn your matter around quickly. We do not use artificial intelligence or automated systems to make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects without human involvement.

All work produced with the assistance of these tools is reviewed and approved by a qualified solicitor before it is relied upon or sent to you or any third party. Responsibility for the advice you receive rests with us at all times, and our professional obligations to you, including our duties of confidentiality and competence, apply in full regardless of the tools we use.

Where we use third party technology providers, we do so under contractual terms that protect the confidentiality and security of your information. We do not use your information to train publicly available AI models. Some of our providers process information outside the United Kingdom. Where they do, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, as described in our Privacy Notice. Further detail on how we process your personal data, including the lawful bases on which we rely, is set out in our Privacy Notice, a copy of which is available on request.

8. Call recording

We record telephone and video calls with you. Our call recording technology produces an audio record and a written transcript of each call. We do this to maintain an accurate record of our discussions and the instructions you give us, to support the quality and accuracy of our advice, for training and supervision purposes, and to assist in the event of any query or complaint about your matter. We will remind you that calls are recorded at the outset of the call or in our communications with you.

Recordings and transcripts form part of your matter file and are held confidentially, in accordance with our Privacy Notice and our file retention policy. You may request a copy of a recording or transcript of a call to which you were a party at any time.

If you do not wish a particular call to be recorded, please tell us at the start of the call and we will discuss alternative ways of communicating with you, such as email. Please note that we may be unable to provide advice by telephone where a call cannot be recorded, as the recording forms part of our record of the advice given.

9. Confidentiality

9.1 When we may use and disclose your information

We will keep confidential information confidential, but we reserve the right to use and disclose it to provide you with our services, comply with law and regulation, or otherwise with your consent.

9.2 Protecting the confidentiality of our communications

We are not advising you on whether legal privilege applies to your communications with us. If you communicate through third parties or share our advice, any privilege may be lost and communications may become admissible in court.

10. Concerns and complaints

10.1 How to complain

If you have concerns or wish to make a complaint, please contact us in the first instance. Formal complaints will be dealt with under our complaints policy. We will write to you within eight weeks setting out our final response.

10.2 Court assessment of charges

If your complaint is about our costs, you can ask the court to assess our bill of costs under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, subject to certain time limits and conditions.

11. How we limit our liability to you

11.1 Liabilities not excluded

Nothing in our agreement limits any liability which cannot legally be limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

11.2-11.4 Exclusions and limitations

Subject to section 11.1: if you are a business, we exclude liability for indirect or consequential loss; we are not liable for losses arising from regulatory compliance, third-party errors, circumstances beyond our control, email risks, or bank failures; and our liability may be reduced where other advisers share responsibility.

11.5 Caps on our liability

Our aggregate liability in this matter is limited to £3 million.

11.6 No claims against our staff

Services are provided by our staff on behalf of our law firm. You agree not to bring any claim against any individual member of staff in their personal capacity. Any claims should be brought against the firm.

12. Next steps

12.1 For you to do

We are required by law to confirm the identity of all our clients via formal, reliable documents and sources. We do this by conducting an ID check using Valid8 and Experian. You authorise us to conduct these checks. You also agree to send us the settlement agreement, your employment contract and to complete any questionnaire or other information we provide to you before advising you.

12.2 What we will do

Unless you provide it to us, we will make contact with your employer to obtain a copy of the settlement agreement. Following that we will contact you to discuss the content and provide you with advice, or will seek to increase the terms of settlement in accordance with your instructions.

Schedule 1: Client Due Diligence

1. Requirements of the anti-money laundering and crime prevention regulations

To comply with anti-money laundering and crime prevention regulations, we need to verify your identity using a software company called Valid8. These checks are done at the point of instructing us and will confirm your identity, address and any adverse markers we need to be aware of. You acknowledge that this may leave a footprint on your credit file but will not affect your credit rating. On rare occasions we may also ask you to provide proof of ID such as a passport and proof of address such as utility bills or council tax bills. You agree that we cannot proceed without these.