Privacy Policy coming soon
Privacy Policy
Introduction
The Associate Law Firm is the ‘controller’ of the information that we collect about you (‘personal
data’). Being controllers of your personal data, we are responsible for how your data is processed. The word ‘process’ covers most things that can be done with personal data, including collecting, storing, using and destroying that data.
This notice explains why and how we process your data and explains the rights you have around your data, including the right to access it and to object to the way it is processed. Please see the section on ‘Your rights as a data subject' for more information.
Who we are:
The Associate Law Firm is a Limited Company registered in England & Wales under number 06573351.
Our registered office is at 184 Chillingham Road, Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 5BU. A list of
Directors are available from our registered office.
We are a legal practice regulated and authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) under number 487841.
The SRA Code of Conduct sets out the regulatory framework imposed on service
providers such as ours.
The current edition of the Code is available on the SRA Website
at www.sra.org.uk.
Personal data
‘Personal data is any information that relates to a living, identifiable person. This data can include your name, contact details, and other information we gather as part of our relationship with you. It can also include ‘special categories of data, which is information about a person’s race or ethnic origin, religious, political or other beliefs, physical or mental health, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, sex life or sexual orientation. The collection and use of these types of data are subject
to strict controls. Similarly, information about criminal convictions and offences is also limited in the way it can be processed.
We are committed to protecting your personal data, whether it is ‘special categories’ or not, and we only process data if we need to for a specific purpose, as explained below. We collect your personal data mostly through our contact with you, and the data is usually provided by you, but in some instances, we may receive data about you from other people/organisations. We will explain when this might happen in this notice.
Later sections of this Policy contain more information about:
• Contacting you
• Our grounds for processing your date when we work with you
• Who we share your data with
• How we store your data and how long we keep it for
• Your rights as a data subject
Contacting you about events or areas of interest
As an individual, we will only send general invitations or updates to you if you have provided your consent for us to do so. If you represent an organisation, we may write to you from time to time unless you have told us that you do not wish to receive further mailings. Any marketing and briefing emails will provide you with the option to opt-out of future mailings. You can also use this option to manage the type of mailings that you receive from us.
If you do not provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you do not provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may stop providing that service, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
Personal data received from third parties
Our clients, the courts and other legal professionals may include personal data about individuals that is relevant to a legal matter that we are working on. We are committed to protecting all personal data that we hold and will treat this data with the same care that we treat data held about our clients.
Processing your data to provide you with our services
In general terms, we process your data to fulfil our responsibilities in the relationship that we have with you. The table below lists more specific purposes for processing your data, and the legal basis for each type of processing.
Data we may process to provide our services to you
• Your contact details so that we can share information with you.
• Information that you provide to us to confirm your identity when you first instruct us so that we can meet anti-money laundering requirements.
• Information contained in emails or other correspondence from you and records of telephone calls or meetings with you so that we can:
• Understand your objectives
• Provide you with advice
• Carry out your instructions.
• Survey data which you may choose to provide that we use for research purposes.
• Details of transactions you carry out through us and of the fulfilment of our services to you so that we can:
• Monitor progress
• Deliver our services
• Complete financial transactions
• Issue bills and arrange payment with you.
• Details of your preferences where you have requested to be contacted about events, products or services, legal updates and/or news that we feel may interest you,
• Information about you that we retain on your behalf.
• Legal bases for processing
There are three grounds under which we may process your data to provide you with legal services.
• Processing is necessary to agree to your requirements and to deliver the services that we have contracted to provide for you: or
• You have given consent for us to process your personal data; or
• It is a requirement of the court to provide information that we hold about you.
The nature of some of our work dictates that we will hold special category data that relates to you.
Additional grounds under which may process your data are:
• When establishing, exercising or defending a legal claim;
• When protecting your interests if you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent;
• Where you have provided us with explicit consent to process your data; or
• Where the data we are processing has already been made public by you.
For some processing purposes, we share your data with third parties. This is a list of the information we may share with external recipients, and for what purpose:
Who do we share your data with
Our IT system providers have access to data so that we can ensure that our systems operate effectively and that we are running current versions of software. Financial and quality auditors view data to monitor that we are complying with statutory and regulatory requirements.
We will share your data with other legal professionals, cost drafting and other technical experts when that is appropriate to fulfil the requirements of the service we are providing for you. Specialist confidential waste disposal contractors manage our paper archive records and carry out controlled destruction of the records when they reach the end of their retention period.
Website
Should you visit a website belonging to The Associate Law Firm, we may gather information about you. The information we collect may include your personal information, such as your name, contact information, IP addresses or other things that identify you individually.
Across our website, you may come across a form which allows you to make enquiries about the firm.
Should you use these forms a member of our team will receive the enquiry. This information will then be sent to a lawyer in the department best placed to handle the enquiry.
Cookies are used on websites to help provide a website that is informative and enjoyable to use.
Cookies are small files that are found in your computer’s internet browser and are beneficial. These small files allow a website to recognise you. You should not be concerned about any use of cookies as any website of the firms will not contain any advertising from other organisations so allowing us to ensure your privacy is respected. You can apply settings to your computer to stop it from accepting cookies,
but this may affect your ability to use the internet and to get the best from it.
By accessing a website belonging to The Associate Law Firm we may be able to get information about that usage. This allows us to:
• Administer our website and internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• Improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
• As part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure.
How we store your data
Your personal data is held in both hard copy and electronic formats. Electronic data, including emails, is stored on our servers, which are located in the UK. Our cloud-based electronic systems store data in servers located within the European Economic Area (EEA).
We will not normally send such data outside the EEA. We may sometimes send such data to a recipient in a country outside the EEA which has been designated by the EU Commission as providing adequate data protection. If we need to send the data to a country outside the EEA that has not been so designated, we will have appropriate contract clauses agreed upon with the recipient place to protect the data.
How long we keep your data
If we are providing legal services to you, we will notify you about how long we will keep your data when we close your matter with us. We maintain a schedule which dictates how long we keep documents for. Our document retention schedule applies dates that meet statutory requirements,
Reflect limitation periods for action following the completion of a legal transaction or reflect good business practice.
Once the applicable retention period expires, unless we are legally required to keep the data longer, or there are important and justifiable reasons why we should keep it, we will securely delete/destroy the data.
Your rights as a data subject
The General Data Protection Regulation provides you with a number of rights. These include:
• Requesting a copy of the personal information we hold about you. We require you to prove your identity with two pieces of approved identification. Please address requests to the Data Protection Manager at the email address below. Please provide as much information as possible about the nature of your contact with us to help us locate your records. This request is free of charge unless the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.
• Having any inaccuracies in your data corrected. If you would like to update the details we hold about you, please contact our Data Protection Manager at the email address below.
• Requesting that we delete your personal data so it is erased from our records.
• Having the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation.
• Objecting to certain types of processing such as direct marketing.
• Objecting to automated processing, including profiling. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Manager at the email address below.
Exercising your rights, queries and complaints
The Associate Law Firm is a data controller under the data protection rules and is registered with the information Commissioner’s Office with Registration Number Z1390286.
For more information on
your rights, if you wish to exercise any right or for any queries you may have, or if you wish to make a complaint, please contact our Data Protection Manager, Jane Jelly, info@talf.co.uk
Complaints to the Information Commissioner
You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about the way in which we process your personal data. You can make a complaint on the ICO’s website https://ico.org.uk.
Changes to this Policy
We may change this privacy notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will take reasonable steps to draw your attention to this.
General
The Associate Law Firm Limited (the ‘Firm’) is a Limited Company registered in England and Wales with company number 06573351. The Firm’s registered office is at North Tyneside Business Centre, Howard House, Saville Street, North Shields, NE30 1NT.
Terms of Website Use
These terms and conditions (the ‘Terms) set out below will govern your use of this website which can be found at www.theassociatelawfirm.co.uk (the ‘Website’).
References on the Website to ‘The Associate Law Firm Limited’ ‘TALF’, ‘the Firm’, ‘we’, ‘us’ or ‘our’ mean the Firm. The term ‘Partner’ in relation to the Firm refers to a Director of the Firm or to an employee or consultant with equivalent standing and qualifications. A list of our Directors can be found at Companies House and on the firm’s letterhead.
The legal information on the Website is to provide users with the Terms upon which they use the Website and to make accessible certain other legal and regulatory information which it is best practice to place in the public domain where it can be easily accessed by clients and other interested third parties. The legal information on the Website should, for clients of the Firm, be read in association with our client care letter and terms of business (the ‘Client Care Documents’) and other documents referred to in the Client Care Documents (such as the conditional fee agreement). The Client Care Documents shall take precedence over any legal notice on the Website in the event that they differ from one another.
The Website is owned and operated by the Firm. For the purposes of the Terms, the Firm includes any and all of the Firm’s subsidiary undertakings, co-branded businesses and joint ventures which may exist from time to time.
Use of the Website is governed by the following Terms which were last reviewed in February 2021. The Firm reserves the right, at its discretion, to make changes to any part of the Website or the Terms. Should the Terms be amended, the Firm will not notify you and it is your responsibility to check the Terms every time you use the Website. Specific terms may also apply to the provision of any of the services that we provide via the Website. You should check any specific terms that apply to the services which you use.
We reserve the right to alter, suspend or discontinue any part of the Website or the services provided through it, including your access to it. Whilst we make every effort to ensure that the information contained within the Website is correct, visitors should be aware that the information may have become out of date and we give no warranty or make any representation regarding the fitness for purpose, continued availability, quality, accuracy or completeness of the content of the Website. Accordingly, the materials on the Website do not give specific legal advice and should not be relied on as doing so. In particular you should be aware that laws and regulations might be different outside England. Your use of the Website does not create a contractual or solicitor-client relationship between you and the Firm. We recommend you contact the advisers who are named in the Website for advice about particular matters. The Firm excludes all liability for any kind of loss or damage that may result to you or a third party in connection with the use, inability to use, or the results of use of the Website.
Website visitors are permitted to read the contents and to download and store on a temporary basis any of the contents of the Website provided this is for their own personal or non-commercial use. Apart from content specifically made available for download, such as court forms and publications, you may not permanently copy, store or redistribute the contents of the Website in any way. Where we make content available for downloading this is only for your personal use, or for circulation within your business and is not for commercial re-use. You may not set up links from your own websites to the Website without our prior written consent.
Any links to other websites from the Website are provided for convenience only and the Firm accepts no responsibility or liability in connection with your use or reliance on the content of any linked website. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by the Firm of any linked website or its provider.
For further information on the use of materials from the Website, or if you experience any problems with the Website, please contact us by sending an email to info@theassociatelawfirm.co.uk.
Copyright and Intellectual Property
Copyright and other intellectual property rights in the content of the Website, including any of the Firm’s marks, logos and brands, belong to the Firm or its licensors (who have expressly licensed content to the Firm). All rights, save as expressly granted, are reserved. If you are in doubt whether an item is a copyright or a trade mark of the Firm, please contact us for clarification.
Disclaimers Relating to Downloads
The Website may allow users to download certain documents which are also available directly from the original source website and various other websites e.g. court forms.
To the extent permitted by law, the Firm excludes all liability in contract, tort (including negligence) breach of statutory duty or otherwise for any costs, losses, claims, damages, expenses or proceedings (including special, incidental or consequential loss or damage, loss of profits and wasted management time) incurred or suffered by you arising directly or indirectly in connection with the use of the download facility and the content of any downloaded material including any loss, damage or expense arising from, but not limited to, any defect, error, imperfection, fault, mistake or inaccuracy or copyright with the downloads, their content or associated services or due to any unavailability of part or all of any associated website or associated service.
The documents available for download are created exclusively by third parties and the Firm excludes all liability for any illegality arising from error, omission, inaccuracy or copyright in such material and takes no responsibility for such material.
Any downloads are provided solely for your convenience and the Firm does not necessarily endorse the material which can be downloaded and will have no liability to you in respect of the same.
Downloading documents from the Website should not be used as an alternative to legal advice from a qualified solicitor and using any such documents does not create a solicitor-client relationship between you and the Firm.
Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through the use of the Website is done at your own discretion and risk and that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any such material.
The Firm cannot guarantee that downloading documents from the Website will be free from error and/or uninterrupted and we shall not be liable for any damages including, but not limited to, indirect or consequential damages, damages for loss of opportunity or chance, or any damages whatsoever arising from use or loss of use, data, or profits, whether in contract, negligence or other tortious action, arising out of, or in connection with the download facility or any associated website.
Whilst effort has been taken to ensure that any downloads are free from viruses, no warranties are given to that effect and users are responsible for ensuring that they have installed adequate virus checking software. The Firm shall not be liable for any viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, restrict, destroy, limit the functionality of or compromise the integrity of users’ computer hardware. All documents are downloaded at the user’s own discretion and risk and the user shall be solely responsible for any damage to the user’s computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any documents.
Nothing in the Terms serves to exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury arising from negligence or any liability which is otherwise prohibited from being excluded by law.
Financial Services and Insurance Distribution
Marketing
Where the Website or any other of our promotional literature or materials refer to the provision of financial services by the Firm (such as our ability to help clients arrange after the event legal expenses insurance or title indemnity insurance), such references do not indicate and should not be understood as indicating that the Firm is a person to whom the general prohibition does not apply. The general prohibition against providing financial services which are regulated activities does apply to the Firm and its regulated principals and employees. The Firm is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority nor is it exempt from authorisation under sections 38 – 39A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.
Insurance distribution activity
The Firm is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. However, we are included on the register maintained by the Financial Conduct Authority so that we can carry on insurance distribution activity in the UK, which is broadly the advising on, selling and administration of insurance contracts. This part of our business, including arrangements for complaints or redress if something goes wrong, is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Register can be accessed via the Financial Conduct Authority website.
Investment transactions
The Firm is not authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 but we are able in certain circumstances to offer a limited range of investment services to clients because we are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. We can provide these investment services if they are an incidental part of the professional services we have been engaged to provide. Nothing we say or do should be construed as an invitation or inducement to engage in investment activities, nor as advice on the investment merits of acquiring or disposing of particular investments.
Electronic Commerce (EC) Directive Regulations 2002 and Provision of Services Regulations 2009
The following information is provided by us to ensure our compliance with the above regulations:
The Firm is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (ID Number: 487841) and as such is bound by the SRA Standards and Regulations which can be viewed at https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/.
The Firm is registered for VAT with the registration number 922 8040 44.
The Firm maintains qualifying Professional Indemnity Insurance, details of which can be provided on request.
The Firm is committed to providing excellent service and operates an internal complaints procedure that can be made available on request. We are also committed to cooperating fully with the Legal Ombudsman, contact details of which can be found at www.legalombudsman.org.uk.
Severability
If the Terms or any part of them should be determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable under the laws of any state or country in which the Terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent that they are so illegal, invalid or unenforceable, they shall in that state or country be treated as severed and deleted from the Terms and the remaining provisions contained within the Terms shall survive and remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable in that state or country.
Events Beyond our Control
The Firm will not be responsible for any breach of the Terms caused by circumstances beyond its reasonable control.
Governing Law
This legal notice and all issues regarding the Website are governed by English law. Access is granted on condition that you accept all of the above and agree to the jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales to settle matters in relation to the Website.
Reports of Misuse
We take feedback very seriously and are constantly looking for ways to improve the Website. If you have any comments or concerns regarding the information or the Website content generally or would like to report any misuse of the Website, please contact us by sending an email to info@theassociatelawfirm.co.uk.
Email Policy
The views and opinions expressed in any email from the Firm are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Firm.
All information contained in any message or attachments is intended solely for the addressee. It is confidential and may also be legally privileged. If you have received this message in error, please send it back to us, and immediately and permanently delete it. The unauthorised use, disclosure, copying or alteration of this message and/or any attachment is strictly prohibited.
It is your responsibility to scan for viruses or otherwise check any email and any attachments. All email messages and any attachments are scanned for viruses prior to leaving our network. However, the Firm does not guarantee the security of any message or any attachments and will not be responsible for any damages arising as a result of any virus being passed on or arising from any alteration of any message by a third party.
We may monitor emails sent to and from our network.
If you require verification of the content of any email message and/or attachment, or if you have any questions about this policy or our usage of email, please contact us at our offices or by sending an email to info@theassociatelawfirm.co.uk.
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