Membership rules that match how your organisation actually runs

This service is commonly used by charities, incorporated societies, clubs, associations and social enterprises that need clearer rules for how membership works in practice. That may include organisations setting up new governance documents, updating outdated rules, or dealing with growth that has made informal processes unworkable. We can help where issues such as member categories, voting rights, eligibility, discipline processes or meeting procedures need to be properly set out. It is broader than a single board governance document because it deals with the member relationship itself.

Problems often arise when the rules are silent or vague on key points such as who can become a member, whether different classes of members have different rights, how votes are counted, or what process applies if a member breaches standards. Those gaps can create friction at meetings, uncertainty around decisions, and challenges when leadership needs to act on complaints or conduct issues. A well-structured set of rules helps assess and reduce risk, but it focuses on helping you prepare clearly and understand the practical risks in every scenario because the outcome still depends on how the organisation follows those rules in practice.

The rules will usually cover eligibility for membership, application and approval steps, member rights and responsibilities, subscriptions or fees if relevant, meeting procedures, notice requirements, voting mechanics, committee or board interaction points, and processes for suspension, resignation or removal. Depending on your organisation, they may also deal with different membership classes or special voting thresholds. As part of this service, we draft the rules and provide legal input on the governance settings behind them, rather than only supplying a bare template document.

Yes. In many cases the issue is not starting from scratch, but updating older rules that no longer reflect how the organisation operates. For example, your current rules may not fit online meetings, changed membership categories, a larger voting base, or a more formal complaints process. We can review the existing position, identify the parts that are causing practical difficulty, and prepare updated rules that better match your current structure. If you need ongoing representation in a dispute or regulator engagement, that would be handled separately.

Once the draft is prepared, you can review it internally and raise questions or requested changes within the included revision rounds. We then finalise the rules based on your instructions. Many organisations use this stage to check that committee members, administrators and office holders understand how the new rules will operate day to day, especially around admissions, meetings and voting. If you later need related governance documents or further legal support beyond the included drafting and revisions, that can be arranged as additional work.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

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

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Membership Rules Pack service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (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 ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.