Staff Handbookwith expert lawyers

Our fixed-fee Staff Handbook packages start at $1,200 + GST. This includes drafting a Staff Handbook to suit your business’s specific needs, as well as phone consultations with a Sprintlaw lawyer who can advise you on the legal issues that apply to you.

Sprintlaw operates in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. In Australia, Sprintlaw is a regulated law firm and is an incorporated legal practice with number 32845, regulated by the Law Society of New South Wales.

In New Zealand and the UK, Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy and is not a traditionally regulated law firm. We chose to set up as a legal consultancy in New Zealand because it made our expansion into the New Zealand market faster and easier. It also means we have a lower compliance burden and can significantly reduce our overhead costs when performing legal work. We can then pass these cost savings on to our clients, allowing us to provide high quality legal services at a fraction of the cost of traditional firms.

So what’s the difference between Sprintlaw NZ’s consultancy model and a traditional NZ law firm? In many respects, we are similar. Like a law firm, we offer legal services to small business clients covering most of their regular legal needs, including drafting and reviewing contracts and providing legal and regulatory advice.

However, there are some important differences and limitations to be aware of, set out below. In our view, the benefits of engaging a legal consultancy outweigh these limitations, which is why we have chosen to operate this way in NZ. If you have any questions, our team would be happy to discuss them with you.

Our lawyers: The legal services we provide in New Zealand are not provided by New Zealand-qualified lawyers. Our lawyers are Australian-qualified or UK-qualified lawyers who are familiar with New Zealand laws and requirements, and are therefore able to provide high quality legal services to New Zealand businesses. Given the strong similarities between Australian, English, and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practise, being small business and startup law, we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to providing high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Reserved areas: We are not permitted to provide services in reserved areas of law under section 6 and section 35 of the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 (see here). These include appearing in court or conducting litigation proceedings, managing conveyancing matters, or giving advice under the Property (Relationships) Act 1976. As such, Sprintlaw does not operate in these areas. We find these areas are rarely relevant to our small business clients seeking commercial legal advisory services.

Privilege: When working with traditional law firms, advice provided is considered “privileged”. This means correspondence between a client and solicitor can, if made confidentially and for the purposes of legal advice, be withheld from a court or third party in connection with litigation proceedings. As Sprintlaw operates as a legal consultancy, certain advice we provide may not be “privileged” and may instead be treated in the same way as advice from your accountant or anyone else who is not a regulated adviser such as a solicitor or barrister. This does not affect our confidentiality obligations to you, and our engagement letter confirms that any advice or discussions we have will be kept confidential. Given that Sprintlaw does not operate in court-related or litigious matters, we find that privilege is rarely an issue for the kind of legal work we do.

Insurance: Sprintlaw is not required to have professional indemnity insurance that meets the New Zealand Law Society’s minimum requirements. Regardless, Sprintlaw has chosen to maintain professional indemnity cover so our clients still benefit from insurance protection.

Submit an enquiry through this page or click the ‘get started’ button on our website. After you submit your enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review it within 1 business day and get in touch to better understand what you need.

Your legal consultant will then send you an email with more information about the services you need, along with a fixed-fee quote setting out the costs, scope of the service, and timing. If you’re happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online.

Once you’ve formally accepted, we’ll connect you with a specialist lawyer who will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

We support clients across New Zealand through our online-first model. Because we work remotely by phone, email, and video call, you can use Sprintlaw from anywhere in New Zealand. Where relevant, we can also support businesses operating across Australia, the UK, and other Sprintlaw markets.

Our legal team is made up of experienced commercial lawyers with strong backgrounds in contracts, privacy, employment, intellectual property, corporate and general business law. For Sprintlaw NZ, legal services are provided by Australian- and UK-qualified lawyers who are familiar with the New Zealand legal requirements relevant to the business matters we support.