Privacy policy

What information we collect, use, and why

The personal information we collect or use to provide legal services for clients and/or to comply with legal requirements includes:

• Names and contact details
• Addresses
• Gender
• Occupation
• Date of birth
• Marital status
• Payment details (including card or bank information for transfers and direct debits)
• Identification documents
• Any other personal information required to comply with legal obligations

Lawful bases and data protection rights

Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. There is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.

Which lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights which are set out in brief below. You can find out more about your data protection rights and the exemptions which may apply on the ICO’s website:

• Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for. Read more about the right of access.
• Your right to rectification– You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete. Read more about the right to rectification.
• Your right to erasure– You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information. Read more about the right to erasure.
• Your right to restriction of processing– You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information. Read more about the right to restriction of processing.
• Your right to object to processing– You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. Read more about the right to object to processing.
• Your right to data portability– You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you. Read more about the right to data portability.
• Your right to withdraw consent– When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Read more about the right to withdraw consent.

If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

Our lawful bases for the collection and use of your data

We will collect information about individual clients and organisation clients’ staff and keep this on our computers, in our email, in cloud storage and on paper for a certain period of time. The main reasons for this are to:

• Provide the legal services we have agreed in contract to provide to you. For example, we may use your information to write letters on your behalf or prepare legal documents to help you with your matter.
• Comply with the law. For example, as solicitors we have to perform ‘conflicts of interest’ checks for new cases against a list of current and former clients. We also have a legal duty to report suspicious activity to the National Crime Agency (‘NCA’) if we suspect money laundering.

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information to provide legal services for clients are:

• Consent – we have permission from you after we gave you all the relevant information. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to object. To be clear, you do have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
• Contract – we have to collect or use the information so we can enter into or carry out a contract with you. All of your data protection rights may apply except the right to object.

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information to comply with legal requirements:

• Legal obligation – we have to collect or use your information so we can comply with the law. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to erasure, the right to object and the right to data portability.

Where we get personal information from

• Directly from you
• Regulatory authorities
• Legal bodies or professionals (such as courts or solicitors)

How long we keep information

While we reserve the right to destroy non-original material at any time after the conclusion of your matter, we generally retain files for a period of 6 years after payment of the final bill and then destroy them thereafter. At the end of a case original documents will be returned to you but if we both agree we may retain certain originals for longer than this time period. We will also always keep a small amount of information after file closure to do conflicts of interest searches in the future to comply with our professional duties.

Who we share information with

Others we share personal information with:

• Regulatory authorities such as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA).
• Other financial or fraud investigation authorities. In rare circumstances we sometimes need to make reports of suspicious activity to the NCA when it is our legal obligation to do so.
• Third parties who are necessary to fulfil our contract with you. Generally speaking, we will not share your information with third parties unless this is part of the work on your legal matter. For example, lawyers frequently may need to send certain information about clients to other lawyers working on the matter, to Court or to government bodies. We do also work with some trusted contractors or consultants who may have access to your information such as service providers or copiers. All contractors have a contract with us which requires that your information be accessed appropriately and kept confidential (among other data protection requirements).

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO’s address:           

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint