Terms in plain English
Operative.law presents attorney-led commercial contract services and provides a route to enquire about a matter. Using the website or sending an enquiry does not itself create an attorney-client relationship. A matter begins only after conflicts have been cleared and the responsible attorney confirms the parties, scope, fees, timing and engagement terms in writing. Do not send documents, confidential information or detailed legal facts through the website form.
1. Operator and contact
Operating model. The website is operated by Threshold 0 (Pty) Ltd, registered at 7 Bergh Rd, Stellenbosch. Operative.law is a shared public brand and website used by independent admitted attorneys practising for their own accounts. It is not a law firm and does not itself accept legal mandates. Each accepted matter is owned and performed by the named attorney who accepts it.
Website contact. Paul Kruger, an admitted attorney practising for his own account, is the contact for initial website enquiries. Questions about these Legal Terms can be sent to paul@operative.law.
Registered address. Threshold 0 (Pty) Ltd is registered at 7 Bergh Rd, Stellenbosch. The responsible attorney’s professional particulars and any matter-specific service address are confirmed in the applicable engagement or matter-specific notice.
In these Legal Terms, “Operative”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to the confirmed operator identified above. “You” means a person who visits the website, requests a resource or submits an enquiry.
2. What the website provides
The website describes commercial contract review and drafting, service-agreement and SOW preparation, contract-flow design and related legal or implementation services. It also provides short forms through which you may request a resource or ask Operative to consider a matter.
Website descriptions are general. They do not guarantee that a service is available, suitable for you, offered at a particular price or capable of being completed by a particular date. We may change the website, resources and service descriptions as the practice develops.
A website submission is a request for contact. It is not an acceptance of a mandate, a quotation, an engagement letter or a promise that Operative will act.
3. Enquiries and starting a matter
No attorney-client relationship arises merely because you visit the website, use a resource, send an email or submit a form.
A matter begins only when the responsible attorney has completed the required conflict and suitability checks and the engagement has been accepted in writing on confirmed terms.
Until that written confirmation is given, neither the website nor any preliminary exchange obliges Operative to advise you, protect a deadline, preserve a right, take a procedural step or refrain from acting for another person.
You remain responsible for monitoring signing dates, court or regulatory deadlines, notice periods and other time-sensitive obligations unless responsibility for a specific deadline has been expressly accepted in writing.
4. Scope, fees, timing and delivery
Each accepted matter will be governed by its written engagement terms, scope or proposal. Those matter-specific terms should identify the responsible attorney, client, work, assumptions, exclusions, fees, taxes, dependencies, timing, communication route and acceptance or completion mechanics.
If these website terms conflict with signed matter-specific terms, the matter-specific terms control for that engagement. Website examples, package descriptions and indicative language do not expand an agreed scope.
Any estimate depends on the information, documents, counterparties, responsiveness and assumptions identified for the matter. A change in facts, instructions, urgency or scope may require revised timing and fees, which should be confirmed in writing before the additional work proceeds.
5. Confidentiality and information security
The website forms are deliberately short and marked as non-confidential. Do not upload documents or submit detailed legal advice, privileged material, trade secrets, personal identifiers or other sensitive information through them.
Information sent before an engagement is accepted may still need to be reviewed for conflicts and handled responsibly, but you should not assume that every pre-engagement communication is privileged or that Operative can protect your interests merely because information was sent.
Once a matter is accepted, confidentiality, legal professional privilege, information-security arrangements and document-sharing methods will be governed by applicable law, professional duties and the engagement terms.
6. Website content and outcomes
The website and any general resources are provided for commercial and educational context. They are not legal advice for your particular facts, transaction, counterparty or jurisdiction. Law and commercial practice change, and general material may not be complete or current for your situation.
No contract structure can promise signature, payment, enforceability, regulatory acceptance, dispute avoidance or a particular business or legal result. Professional services are provided with the care and skill required by applicable law and professional obligations, but outcomes also depend on facts and people outside Operative’s control.
Nothing on the website should be treated as an endorsement by a current or former employer, client, institution or organisation shown in biographical material.
7. Acceptable use and intellectual property
You agree not to misuse the website, interfere with its operation, attempt unauthorised access, submit unlawful or harmful material, impersonate another person, scrape the site at unreasonable scale or use it to infringe another person’s rights.
Operative or its licensors own the website, brand, layout, original text, graphics, tools and resources, unless a page states otherwise. You may view and print website material for your own internal evaluation. You may not reproduce, resell, publish, sublicense or present it as your own work without written permission.
Third-party names, marks and materials remain the property of their respective owners. Their appearance does not imply sponsorship or endorsement.
8. Third parties, liability, law and changes
The website may rely on hosting, database, email, font or linked services supplied by third parties. Their own terms and notices apply to services they operate. We are not responsible for a third-party site merely because the website links to it.
To the extent permitted by law, Operative is not liable for loss caused solely by reliance on general website content, inability to access the website, unauthorised misuse of the website or a third-party service outside Operative’s reasonable control. Nothing in these Legal Terms excludes or limits liability, professional duties, consumer rights or other remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.
Liability arising from an accepted legal matter is governed by the applicable law, professional obligations and the written engagement terms, not by a broader statement on this website.
These Legal Terms are governed by South African law, subject to any mandatory law that applies to a visitor or matter. The courts of South Africa have jurisdiction over disputes about the website, subject to any mandatory jurisdictional rights. An accepted matter is governed by the law and forum stated in its engagement terms.
We may update these Legal Terms when the website, services or legal requirements change. The date at the top identifies the current version.