Letter · Costs, billing & litigation funding
Letter when the retainer ends
A letter when the firm stops acting, setting out any costs still sought. Cooling-off recovery is limited to the services the section allows, with no uplift, and the letter claims no lien.
- Kind
- Letter. A letter or email you adapt and send.
- Where it applies
- Victoria, Queensland, New South Wales
- AI use
- Yellow You and the tool draft together, with you directing. You check every statement you rely on.
- Law stated as at
- 23 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 23 October 2026 against the 3 authorities it cites, for Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when the practice stops acting for an injured person, whether the client ended a conditional agreement in the cooling-off period, the client ended it later, or the practice ended it. Do not use it to claim a lien. No lien statute was opened for this letter.
Used for these tasks
- Check a conditional costs agreement for the required content and any uplift cap
- Advise whether a disclosure failure blocks recovery of the costs
Each task page says how far AI may help with the task and what the lawyer must review.
How AI may be used
The tool may record why the retainer ended and list only the costs the lawyer has marked as recoverable, and it must not claim a lien or state the consequence of a disclosure failure.
AI may
- State the end date and which of the three endings the lawyer has selected
- List costs that fit section 181(5) or section 323(5) where the client ended the agreement in the cooling-off period
- Offer to send the file to a new lawyer on the client's written authority
AI must not
- Must not claim a solicitor's lien, or hold documents against unpaid costs, unless the lawyer has written in the power relied on
- Must not recover an uplift after a cooling-off termination
- Must not state that a disclosure failure does, or does not, block recovery of costs. Those sections were not opened
- Must not invent a new limitation date in this letter
The lawyer checks
- The ending matches the file: cooling-off notice, later client instructions, or a decision by the practice
- Any amount claimed after a cooling-off termination meets section 181(5) or section 323(5), and there is no uplift
- Any amount claimed after a later ending is taken from the signed agreement, which is identified by date
- If disclosure may have been missed, the lawyer reads the current consequence sections before a figure is included. This letter does not contain those sections
- Time limits already advised in writing are repeated accurately. No fresh date is created here
- Confidential material goes to a new lawyer only with the client's authority under conduct rule 9.2.1, and it stays in the firm's system until then
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
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The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
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All precedents for Costs, billing & litigation funding · Tasks and AI use in this area