Terms

Terms of use

These terms apply to mycivillawyer.com.au. My Civil Lawyer is an informational website about civil disputes in New South Wales. If you do not accept them, please do not use the site.

Last updated: 23 September 2026

Most of what follows exists to make one thing unambiguous: reading this website does not make anyone your lawyer, and nothing here is advice about your situation.

That is not a disclaimer written to avoid responsibility. Civil outcomes turn on particulars — what your documents say, when the cause of action accrued, what you can prove and whether the other side can pay — and a page written for everyone cannot know any of them.

General information, not legal advice

My Civil Lawyer is an informational website about civil disputes in New South Wales. Legal services offered through this website are provided by Jameson Law.

Everything on this site is general information about civil law and procedure. It is not advice, it is not a substitute for advice about your circumstances, and it is not an offer to act for you.

Where a page states a rule, it cites the official source that rule came from at the foot of the page. Those sources are the authority and this site is not. If the two ever differ, the official source is right.

Working out how the law applies to you takes a conversation about your facts. How we work sets out what that involves, and our guides are written to help you prepare for it, not to replace it.

Never work out a deadline from this website. Limitation periods depend on the kind of claim and on when the cause of action first accrued, and those are facts about your matter rather than about this page.

Accuracy and currency

The legislation behind these pages is amended, and the figures around it move more often than the law does. A page that was accurate when it was written may not be accurate when you read it.

Every page here carries the date it was last reviewed. Treat that date as the limit of what we are telling you. It means the page matched the official sources on that day. It does not promise the page still matches them today.

Some things are deliberately left off this site because publishing them invites reliance on a number that moves. Court monetary limits and filing fees are the clearest example: the courts publish and revise their own, so we link to the court’s page rather than printing a figure that will be wrong without any sign of it.

Check the current monetary limit and fees with the court that would hear your matter.
Check the current text of an Act on the NSW legislation website or the Federal Register of Legislation, and look at the compilation date shown at the top of it.
Check that anyone advising you holds a current practising certificate on the Law Society of NSW's Register of Solicitors.

If you have been served with a court or tribunal document, the date that matters is the one on the document you were given, not anything written here.

When you become a client, and when you do not

Reading this site does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Neither does sending the enquiry form, and neither does the reply you receive to it.

The relationship begins when three things have happened: a conflict check has been run and has found nothing preventing the firm acting, the firm has agreed to act for you, and you have signed the costs agreement sent to you. Until that last step, nobody is your lawyer, whatever has been discussed in the meantime.

That costs agreement is settled in writing before work starts. It sets out the work, the basis on which costs are calculated and an estimate. Costs disclosure by a law practice in New South Wales is governed by the Legal Profession Uniform Law, and the Office of the NSW Legal Services Commissioner publishes material explaining what a disclosure must contain and what you can do if you disagree with a bill.

How we work describes the sequence in more detail, including what happens if the conflict check means the firm cannot act.

What you send before anyone acts for you

Keep a first enquiry short. Tell us what the dispute is about, who it is with and what you are trying to achieve. That is usually enough to say whether we can help and what the next step would be.

Material you send before a firm acts for you may not attract legal professional privilege. We also cannot promise to hold it in confidence if it turns out the firm already acts for someone on the other side of your matter, which is exactly what the conflict check exists to find out. Sending a full set of documents with a first enquiry does not speed anything up, and occasionally it creates a problem that did not need to exist.

How information is handled once it is held is set out in the privacy policy.

Links to other sites

This site links to New South Wales and Commonwealth legislation, to the courts, to NCAT and to legal regulators, because those bodies are the authority for what they publish. We do not control them, we cannot guarantee a link still works, and we are not responsible for what sits at the other end of it.

If a link has moved, search the same body’s own site rather than relying on a copy of the page somewhere else. Legal information reproduced on third-party sites goes out of date quietly, and a superseded provision reads exactly like a current one.

A link is not an endorsement.

Copyright

Copyright in the text, layout and design of this site is owned by Jameson Law or its licensors, and is protected by the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth).

You are welcome to read these pages, print them and share them for your own use, and to quote a short passage with a link back. Please do not republish a page in full, reuse the copy on another site, or present this material as someone else’s work.

Illustrations and icons may be licensed from third parties and remain subject to the licences they came with. Material reproduced from an Australian government source remains subject to the terms set by the body that published it.

Availability, and what we are responsible for

We take care with what is published here and we cite a source for statements of law and procedure. We do not warrant that the site is free of error, that it is complete, or that it will be available without interruption.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for loss arising from reliance on the general information published on this site. Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right or guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Jameson Law’s liability is limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation. A scheme of that kind caps the occupational liability of participating solicitors for the legal services they provide, on conditions that include holding professional indemnity insurance to a set standard. It is created by statute rather than by these terms, and it is about legal services, not about a website.

Which law applies, and changes to these terms

These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, and the courts of New South Wales have jurisdiction over any dispute about them.

We may change these terms. The version on this page is the current one, and the date shown at the top is when it last changed. If any part of them cannot be enforced, the rest continues to apply.

If a part of this site is difficult or impossible for you to use, accessibility explains the standard the site is built to and how to report a barrier. We would rather hear about it than have you give up on the page.

How to reach us

Questions about these terms, or about anything published on this site, can go through the contact page.

Enquiries and requests

Through the form on our contact page. Say plainly what kind of request it is so that it reaches the right person.

Who you are contacting

My Civil Lawyer is an informational website about civil disputes in New South Wales. Legal services are provided by Jameson Law. Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.