In order to perform our services, we need to process personal data. You can request we stop processing your personal data at any time. But if you do, it is likely to mean that the contract will be breached by you, and costs or charges could then become payable. If you were to fail to pay any such charges, we would still be processing some or all of your personal data, albeit in that case it would be for the purposes of collecting the outstanding sums from you, and would be because of our own legitimate interests in using that data.

Assuming you do not wish us to stop processing your data, the legal basis for the processing will be a contract between you and us. The data we hold will be used to enable us to work on your behalf, communicate with you to obtain your instructions, communicate with third parties in order to progress your matter and generally follow your instructions to us.

The data we hold may be shared with or disclosed to third parties, including in some cases courts, tracing agents, process servers, other solicitors acting on our behalf, opponents in any cases (or the “other side” in any transaction), solicitors for opponents, advocates for use in court, ombudsmen, regulators, banks or financial institutions for the purpose of initiating payments to or from you, experts, witnesses, third parties, insurance companies (acting for you, your opponent, or us), any intermediary who has instructed us on your behalf, and – if you ask us to – other third parties you wish us to share your data with.

We do not transfer your data outside of the European Economic Area unless it is to a country with adequate safeguards. Some copies of your data may be held in computer systems off our premises, to which other companies based in other countries may have physical access. (This is not unusual and is likely to be the case for things such as your own email, your social media profiles, data from your Android or iPhones, etc.) However, in our case this data is encrypted and not accessible by anybody other than ourselves without great difficulty and expense. Furthermore, the location of the physical machines storing that data is almost impossible to identify. Our data security is also guaranteed by one of the world’s largest software companies who have given contractual assurances to us. Taking that together, we can safely say that the data is as secure as is technically possible.

We retain personal data for as long as is necessary to undertake the work for you, and then for a period necessary in accordance with the work done, and then for a further retention period. For example, if the work done involved a court case, we would keep the data for as long as is necessary for any appeals to be exhausted, and for any court orders to be put in effect (which in some cases could take years). After that, we retain data in accordance with our current retention protocol, which varies from time to time, but is usually around six years in most cases. We may (but do not always) “archive” any electronic data and in that case it would be stored indefinitely until you ask us to delete it. This would not usually apply to hard copy paper files which we hold.

The data is obtained from you, third parties, and publicly accessible sources.

Sometimes, we use automated decision making or processing using your personal data to determine how we work. However, we also use manual processing and the processing in all cases has the end result of achieving the goal of seeking to follow your instructions.

Due to the nature of the work we do, we may also process highly sensitive personal data about you or third parties, including details of health conditions, credit standing, and criminal convictions. Where this is done, it is for the purposes of following your instructions or for use in court proceedings.

You have rights as a data subject, including the right to have your data sent to you, rectified, or deleted. If you are unhappy with any aspect of our processing of your data, or the way in which we handle any request by you, you can complain to the supervisory authority, which is the Information Commissioner in the UK.

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Should you choose to instruct us, additional provisions would apply, including in particular:-

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1. We would use your name and address, and the name and address of any opponent or third party involved in your matter or case, to check both our own records and those of certain third party companies we use, to ensure that neither us nor those companies would be likely to create a conflict of interest. (e.g. it may turn out we, or companies we work closely with, already represent your opponent. This could be a conflict of interest, so we will use your opponent's details to check that).

2. We reserve the right under our contract to transfer your case to a third party, if this is necessary to keep continuity of service to you. You would have the right to object if you so wished, but if we did need to transfer your case, and you did not object, your data would also be transferred to that third party.