There are a number of changes in our services each year driven by evolving industry standards, technology, and new laws. The changes for 2025 are minimal, and include these items, listed according to section of the engagement agreement:
INTRODUCTION
The engagement agreement is defined as one part of a three part agreement: the engagement agreement, the Work Plan, and the invoice.
PAPER DOCUMENT HANDLING
This is reworded to clarify that we normally do not anticipate handling any paper documents. If it happens, it will be addressed separately.
SECURE COMMUNICATIONS
This section is reworded for clarity and names our secure messaging and document handling service provider as Verifyle.
OPTIONAL OR REQUIRED TWO STEP VERIFICATION
This section is new in response to increased privacy and fraud concerns.
IF THE FEE IS NOT AGREED IN ADVANCE
For the first time, this section now includes an hourly rate as a ‘last resort’ pricing under the rare situation that a fee is not agreed in advance.
ADVANCE FEE PAYMENT
This section is reworded for clarity to emphasize that advance payment is expected or required.
MINIMUM FEE
This section is added for the first time to better communicate our intention to increase the minimum client fee from $1,200 to $1,500. In actual practice, the fee for services is set by the work plan, not this engagement agreement.
LEGAL SERVICES
An additional legal service is added to the list of services that are not considered unauthorized practice of law in New Jersey: Preparing Business Ownership filings with FinCEN.
LIMITED DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR WORK PLAN ACTIONS
This section is reworded for clarity. This is perhaps the most innovative and potentially risky provision of the engagement agreement, but increasingly important as our lives become more complicated and technology occasionally fails.