Legal Notices

1. This website includes general information about legal issues and developments in the law. Such materials are for information only and may not reflect the most current legal developments. The information provided is not intended, and must not be taken, as legal advice on any particular set of facts or circumstances. You should not rely on the general information provided and you should take legal advice on your specific legal issues or problems.
2. Neither your receipt of information from this website, nor your use of this website to contact Breen Smith (“the Firm”), or one of its lawyers, creates a solicitor-client relationship between you and the Firm. You will become a client of the Firm only if and when you enter into an agreement setting forth the scope of the Firm’s engagement, the fee arrangements and other relevant matters. As a matter of policy, the Firm does not accept a new client without first investigating possible conflicts of interests. (The Firm may, for example, already represent another party involved in your matter.)
3. You should not use this website to provide confidential information about a legal matter of yours to the Firm. Your use of this website does not make you a client of the firm or even a prospective client of the Firm. If you have confidential information that you would like to give to any lawyer at the Firm, please communicate with one if the Firm’s lawyers in person or by telephone – not by filling in any form on this website or by sending an unsolicited email to the Firm or any of its lawyers.
4. Names and details of client testimonials may have been changed to protect our client’s privacy.

Terms & Conditions

Website Terms and Conditions of Use

1. About the website
   • Welcome to breensmith.com.au (the “Website”). The Website provides information about our legal services (the “legal services”) together with payment services for our existing clients (the “online services” and collectively the “Services”).
   • The Website is operated by Shannon Kristy Smith t/as Breen Smith (ABN 12 656 283 927) (the “Operator”). Access to and use of the Website, or any of its associated Products or Services is provided by the Operator.  Please read these terms and conditions (the “Terms”) carefully.  Browsing and/or reading the Website signifies that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by the Terms. If you do not agree with the Terms, you must cease usage of the Website, or any services, immediately.
   • The Operator reserves the right to review and change any of the Terms by updating this page at its sole discretion. When the Operator updates the Terms, it will use reasonable endeavours to provide clients with notice of updates to the Terms. Any changes to the Terms take immediate effect from the date of their publication. Before you continue, we recommend you keep a copy of the Terms for your records.
2. Acceptance of the Terms
   • You accept the Terms by remaining on the Website. You may also accept the Terms by clicking to accept or agree to the Terms where this option is made available to you by the Operator in the user interface.
3. User Registration
   • In order to use some of our online services, you may be required to provide personal information about yourself (such as identification or contact details, including, but not limited to:
     • Email address;
     • Preferred username;
     • Mailing Address;
     • Telephone number;
     • Password
     • Full legal name;
     • Date of birth.
   • You warrant that any information you give to the Operator will always be accurate, correct and up to date.
4. Your obligations
   • You agree to comply with the following:
     • You will use the Services on for the purposes that are permitted by:
       • the Terms; and
       • any applicable law, regulation or generally accepted practice or guidelines in the relevant jurisdictions.
     • You have the sole responsibility for protecting the confidentiality of your password and/or email address. Use of your password by any other person may result in the immediate cancellation of Services.
     • Any use of your registration information by any other person, or third parties, is strictly prohibited. You agree to immediately notify the Operator of any unauthorised use of your password or email address or any breach of security of which you become aware;
     • Access to and use of the Website is limited, non-transferable and allows for the sole use of the Website by you for the purposes of the Operator providing the Services;
     • You will not use the Services or Website for any illegal and/or unauthorised use including but not limited to taking screenshots, publicising or linking to the website.
     • You agree that commercial advertisements, affiliate links and other forms of solicitation may be removed from the website without notice and may result in termination of the Services.
     • You acknowledge and agree that any automated use of the Website or its Services is prohibited; and
     • Appropriate legal action will be taken by the Operator for any illegal or unauthorised use of the Website.

5. Payments
   • Where the option is given to you, you may make payment for the Services by:
     • Cheque;
     • Bank deposit;
     • Credit Card;
     • Bpay.
   • Payment must be made in accordance with the Terms. We do not have EFTPOS facilities and payment cannot be made in person.
   • Payments made via the Website are processed by the Commonwealth Bank (ABN 48 123 123 124) and/or Stripe. In using the Website, the Services or when making any payment in relation to your use of the Services, you warrant that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by the Commonwealth Bank terms and conditions which are available on their website;
   • You acknowledge and agree that where a payment is returned or denied, for whatever reason, by your financial institution or is unpaid by you for any other reason, then you are liable for any costs, including banking fees and charges associated with the failed payment.
   • You agree and acknowledge that the Operator can vary its fees and charges at any time and is not bound by cost estimates other than as set out in the Terms.
6. Bookings
   • By using the online booking request system you agree to be bound by the Terms..
   • Only tentative bookings can be made via the Website. These bookings are not final until the booking is confirmed by our staff. The Operator does not accept any liability for loss or damage suffered as a result of you acting on a tentative booking.
7. Refund Policy
   • Neither your receipt of information from this website, nor your use of this website to contact Breen Smith (“the Firm”), or one of its lawyers, creates a solicitor-client relationship between you and the Firm. You will become a client of the Firm only if and when you enter into an agreement setting forth the scope of the Firm’s engagement, the fee arrangements and other relevant matters. As a matter of policy, the Firm does not accept a new client without first investigating possible conflicts of interests. (The Firm may, for example, already represent another party involved in your matter.)
   • Legal services are provided pursuant to a client costs agreement or letter of scope outlining our retainer, which details applicable conditions. No legal services are provided via this website.
   • We are not required to provide a refund if you change your mind about the services you asked for.
   • If we are temporarily unable to provide the service you engaged us to provide, you can request a refund if the service:
     • has a problem that would have stopped someone from purchasing the service if they had known about it;
     • is substantially unfit for its common purpose and can’t easily be fixed within a reasonable time;
     • does not meet the specific purposes you asked for and cannot easily be fixed or rectified within a reasonable time; or
     • creates an unsafe situation.
   • If we are permanently unable to provide the service you engaged us to provide, we will provide a refund for unconsumed services.
   • Payments made via this website to the Breen Smith Law Practice Trust Account are handled in accordance with the Legal Professional Act (Qld) 2007.
   • Please note that where payments are made to the Breen Smith Law Practice Trust Account on behalf of another person, that person’s direction will be required to refund any monies paid.
8. Copyright and Intellectual Property
   • The Website, the Services and all of the related products and content of the Operator are subject to copyright. The material on the Website is protected by copyright under the laws of Australia and through international treaties. Unless otherwise indicated, all rights (including copyright) in the Services and compilation of the Website (including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, button icons, video images, audio clips, Website, code, scripts, design elements and interactive features) or the Services are owned or controlled for these purposes and are reserved by the Operator or its contributors.
   • All trademarks, service marks and trade names are owned, registered and/or licenced to the Operator, who grants you a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable licence to:
     • Use the Website pursuant to the Terms;
     • Copy and store the Website and the material contained in the Website in your device’s cache memory; and
     • Print pages from the Website for your own personal and non-commercial use.

• • The Operator does not grant you any other rights whatsoever in relation to the Website or the Services.  All other rights are expressly reserved by the Operator.
    • The Operator retains all rights, title and interest in and to the Website and all related Services.
    • You may not, without prior written permission of the Operator and the permission of any other relevant rights owners: broadcast, republish, upload to a third party, transmit, post, distribute, show or play in public, adapt or change in any way the Services or third party Services for any purpose unless otherwise provided by these Terms. This prohibition does not extend to materials on the Website, which are freely available for re-use or are in the public domain.

9. Privacy
   • The Operator takes your privacy seriously and any information provided through your use of the Website and/or Service are subject to our Privacy Policy, which is available on the Website.

9. General Disclaimer
   • Nothing in the Terms limits or excludes any guarantees, warranties, representations or conditions implied or imposed by law, including the Australian Consumer Law (or any liability under them) which by law may or may not be limited or excluded.
   • Subject to this clause, and to the extent permitted by law:
     • All terms, guarantees, warranties, representations or conditions which are not expressly stated in the Terms are excluded; and
     • The Operator will not be liable for any special, indirect or consequential loss or damage (unless such loss or damage is reasonably foreseeable resulting from our failure to meet an applicable Consumer Guarantee), loss of profit or opportunity, or damage to goodwill arising out of or in connection with the Services or these Terms (including as a result of not being able to use the Service or the late supply of the Services), whether at common law, under contract, tort (including negligence), in equity, pursuant to statute or otherwise.
   • Use of the Website and the Services is at your own risk. Everything on the Website and the Services provided to you is “as is” and “as available” without warranty or condition of any kind.  None of the affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, contributors and licensors of the Operator make any express or implied representation or warranty about the Services (including the products or services of the Operator) referred to on the Website and includes, but is not limited to loss or damage you might suffer as a result of any of the following:
     • Failure of performance, error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, failure to correct defects, delay in operation or transmission, computer virus or other harmful component, loss of data, communication line failure, unlawful third party conduct, or theft, destruction, alteration or unauthorised access to records.
     • The accuracy, suitability or currency of any information on the Website, the Services, or any of related products (including third party material and advertisements on the Website);
     • Costs incurred as a result of you using the Website, the Services or any of the products of the Operator; and
     • The Services or operation in respect to links which are provided for your convenience.

11. Limitation of Liability
    • The Operator’s total liability arising out of or in connection with the Services or these Terms, however arising, including under contract, tort (including negligence), in equity, under statute or otherwise, will not exceed the resupply of the Services to you.
    • You expressly understand and agree that the Operator, its affiliates, employees, agents, contributors and licensors shall not be liable to you for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damaged which may be incurred by you, however caused and under any theory of liability. This shall include, but is not limited to, any loss of profit (whether incurred directly or indirectly), any loss of goodwill or business reputation and any other intangible loss.

11. Termination of Contract
    • The Terms will continue to apply until terminated by either you or by the Operator as set out below.
    • The Operator may at any time terminate the Terms with you if:
      • You have breached any provision of the Terms or intend to breach any provision;
      • The Operator is required to do so by law;
      • The provision of the Services to you by the Operator is, in the opinion of the Operator, no longer commercially viable.
    • Subject to local applicable laws, the Operator reserves the right to discontinue or cancel your membership at any time and may suspend or deny, in its sole discretion, your access to all or any portion of the Website or the Services without notice if you breach any provision of the Terms or any applicable law or if your conduct impacts the Operator’s name or reputation or violates the rights of another party.

11.  Indemnity
    • You agree to indemnify the Operator, its affiliates, employees, agents, contributors, third party content providers and licensors from and against:
      • All actions, suits, claims, demands, liabilities, costs, expenses, loss and damage (including legal fees on a full indemnity basis) incurred, suffered or arising out of or in connection with your use of the Services;
      • Any direct or indirect consequences of you accessing, using or transacting on the Website or attempts to do so; and/or
      • Any breach of the Terms.

14. Dispute Resolution
    • Compulsory:
      • If a dispute arises out of or relates to the Terms, either party may not commence any Tribunal or Court proceedings in relation to the dispute, unless the following clauses have been complied with:
    • Notice:
      • A party to the Terms claiming a dispute (“Dispute”) has arisen under the Terms, must given written notice to the other party detailing the nature of the dispute, the desired outcome and the action required to settle the Dispute.
    • Resolution:
      • On receipt of a notice (“Notice”) by the other party, the parties to the Terms (“Parties”) must:
        • Within 60 days of the Notice endeavour in good faith to resolve the Dispute expeditiously by negotiation or such other means upon which they may mutually agree;
        • If for any reason whatsoever, 14 days after the date of the Notice, the Dispute has not be resolved, the Parties must either agree upon selection of a mediator or request that an appropriate mediator be appointed by the President of the Australian Mediation Association for his or her nominee;
        • The parties are equally liable for the fees and reasonable expenses of a mediator and the cost of the venue of the mediation and without limiting the foregoing undertake to pay any amounts requested by the mediator as a pre-condition to the mediation commencing. The parties must each pay their own costs associated with the mediation.
        • The mediation will be held in Brisbane, Queensland.
      • Confidential:
        • All communications concerning negotiations made by the Parties arising out of and in connection with this dispute resolution clause are confidential and to the extent possible, must be treated as “without prejudice” negotiations for the purposes of applicable laws of evidence.
      • Termination of Mediation:
        • If two months have elapsed after the start of a mediation of the Dispute and the Dispute has not been resolved, either Party may ask the mediator to terminate the mediation and the mediator must do so.

1. 15. Venue and Jurisdiction
       • The Services offered by the Operator are provided from the trading address in Enoggera, Qld 4051, Australia.
       • The Services offered by the Operator are intended to be viewed by residents of Australia. In the event of any dispute arising out of or in relation to the Website, you agree that the exclusive venue for resolving any dispute shall be the courts of Queensland, Australia.
   16. Governing Law
       • The Terms are governed by the laws of Queensland, Australia. Any dispute, controversy, proceeding or claim of whatever nature arising out of or in any way relating to the Terms and the rights created hereby shall be governed, interpreted, and construed by, under and pursuant to the laws of Queensland, Australia, without reference to conflict of law principles, notwithstanding mandatory rules.  The validity of this governing law clause is not contested. The Terms shall be binding to the benefit of the parties hereto and their successors and assigns.
   17. Independent Legal Advice
       • Both parties confirm and declare that the provisions of the Terms are fair and reasonable and both parties, having had the opportunity to obtain independent legal advice, declare the Terms are not against public policy on the grounds of inequality or bargaining power or general grounds of restraint of trade.
   18. Severance
       • If any part of these Terms is found to be void or unenforceable by a Court of competent jurisdiction, that part shall be severed and the rest of the Terms shall remain in force.

Privacy Policy

1. We respect your privacy
   • Shannon Kristy Smith t/as Breen Smith (ABN 12 656 283 927) (“the Operator”) respects your right to privacy and is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our customers and website visitors. Where possible, we voluntarily adhere to the Australian Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)(“the Act”), but are not an organisation which is bound by the Act. This policy sets out how we collect and treat your personal information.
   • “Personal information” is information we hold which is identifiable as being about you.
2. Collection of personal information
   • The Operator will, from time to time, receive and store personal information you enter into our website, provided to us directly or given to us in other forms.
   • You may provide basic information such as your name, phone number, address and email address to enable us to send information, provide updates and process your product or service order. We may collect additional information at other time, including but not limited to, when you provide feedback, when you provide information about your personal or business affairs, change your content or email preference, respond to surveys and/or promotions, provide financial or credit card information, or communicate with our customer support.
   • Additionally, we may also collect any other information you provide while interacting with us.
3. How we collect your personal information
   • The Operator collects personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you interact with us electronically or in person, when you access our website and when we provide our services to you. We may receive personal information from third parties.  If we do, we will protect it as set out in this Privacy Policy.
4. Use of your personal information
   • The Operator may use personal information collected from you to provide you with information, updates and our services. We may also make you aware of new and additional products, services and opportunities available to you. We may use your personal information to improve our products and services and better understand your needs.
   • The Operator may contact you by a variety of means including, but not limited to, telephone, email, SMS or mail.
5. Disclosure of your personal information
   • We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, officers, insurers, professional advisors, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy. Personal information is only supplied to a third party when it is required for the delivery of our services.
   • We may from time to time need to disclose personal information to comply with a legal requirement, such as a law, regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, in the course of a legal proceeding or in response to a law enforcement agency request.
   • We may also use your personal information to protect the copyright, trademarks, legal rights, property or safety of the Operator, its customers or third parties.
   • Information that we collect may from time to time be stored, processed in or transferred between parties located in countries outside Australia. These may include, but are not limited to, New Zealand and Singapore.
   • If there is a change or control in our business or a sale or transfer of business assets, we reserve the right to transfer to the extent permissible at law our user databases, together with any personal information and non-personal information contained in those databases. This information may be disclosed to a potential purchaser under an agreement to maintain confidentiality. We would seek to only disclose information in good father and where required by any of the above circumstances.
   • By providing us with personal information, you consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy and the types of disclosures covered by the Policy. Where we disclose your personal information to third parties, we will request that the third party follow this Policy regarding handling your personal information.
6. Security of your personal information
   • The Operator is committed to ensuring that the information you provide to us is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure information and protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.
   • The transmission and exchange of information is carried out at your own risk. We cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to us, or receive from us because that information may be been leaked through a vulnerability on your system.  Although we take measures to safeguard against unauthorised disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personal information that we collect will not be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
7. Access to your personal information
   • You may request details of personal information that we hold about you in accordance with the provision of the Act. A small administrative fee may be payable for the provision of information. If you would like a copy of any information we hold on you or believe that any information we hold on you is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading, please email as at info@breensmith.com.au.
   • We reserve the right to refuse the right to provide you with information that we hold about you, in certain circumstances set out in the Privacy Act.
8. Complaints about privacy
   • If you have any complaints about our privacy practices, please feel free to send in details of your complaints to PO Box 292, Alderley Qld    We take complaints very seriously and will respond shortly after receiving written notice of your complaint.
9. Changes to Privacy Policy
   • Please be aware that we may change this Privacy Policy in the future. We may modify this Policy at any time, in our sole discretion and all modifications will be effective immediately upon our positing of the modifications on our website or notice board.  Please check back from time to time to review our Privacy Policy.
10. Website
    • When you visit our website (https://breensmith.com.au) we may collect certain information such as browser type, operating system, website visited immediately before coming to our site, etc.  This information is used in an aggregated manner to analyse how people use our site, such that we can improve our service.
    • We may from time to time use cookies on our website.  Cookies are very small files which a website uses to identify you when you come back to the site and to store details about your use of the site.  Cookies are not malicious programs that access or damage your computer. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but you can choose to reject cookies by changing your browser settings, however, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of our website.  Our website may from time to time use cookies to analyse website traffic and help us provide a better website visitor experience.  In addition, cookies may be used to serve relevant ads to website visitors through third party services such as Google Adwords.  These ads may appear on this website or other websites you visit.
    • Our site may from time to time have links on other websites not owned or controlled by us. These links are meant for your convenience only.  Links to third party websites do not constitute sponsorship or endorsement or approval of these websites.  Please be aware that the Operator is not responsible for the privacy practices of other such websites.  We encourage our users to be aware, when they leave our website, to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personal identifiable information.

29 February 2020