Privacy notice

PURPOSE OF THIS NOTICE

This notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you, in accordance with the retained EU law version of the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (UK GDPR) and any other data protection and privacy laws and regulations applicable to us or to our processing of your personal information (‘Data Protection Legislation’).

This notice describes how we may collect and process information about any data subjects including:

Our clients and other people who use our services, including the employees of any clients (referred to for convenience in this notice as ‘clients’);
Our directors, employees, consultants, workers, work experience students, and job applicants (referred to for convenience in this notice as ‘employees’);
Our suppliers and service providers and their agents, employees and representatives; and
Visitors to our website.

Our ‘website’ includes this website and any other websites of Lawrence Stephens.

Please read this notice carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

INFORMATION ABOUT US

Lawrence Stephens Limited (‘Lawrence Stephens’, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ and ‘ours’) is a limited company with company number 12165148. We are authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority – SRA number 806802 and practice in accordance with the SRA Standards and Regulations 2020 which can be viewed on the SRA’s website at www.sra.org.uk. Our registered office is at 50 Farringdon Road, London EC1M 3HE. Further details are available on our website. We maintain compulsory professional indemnity insurance, details of which are available for inspection by our clients at our practising address.

We are registered under the Data Protection Act 2018 with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) who are the Supervisory Authority for Data Protection Law in the UK, on the Data Protection Public Register, registration number ZA792096. For the purpose of the Data Protection Legislation and this notice, we are the “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under the Data Protection Legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

GUIDANCE ON THE CONTENTS FEATURED ON THIS PAGE

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR DATA

The data that we may collect from you

All data subjects

We will collect and process information about you:

(i) When you contact us by email, telephone, post or social media;

(ii) From third parties and/or publicly available resources (for example, from Companies House).

Visitors

We will only collect personal data via our website, apart from your IP address and cookie data, when you contact us to request further information about our legal services or if you apply for a position with us. On various occasions, including through forms on our website, we may invite or request you to submit your contact details and other information about yourself or your organisation, or to send us emails, each of which will identify you.

Clients

If you are a client then we will collect and process information about you:

(i) When you make an enquiry into our services;

(ii) When you or your employer or other relevant organisation engages with us to provide our services; and

(iii) During the course of the provision of those services.

Employees

If you are an employee then we will collect and process additional personal information about you as described in your employment contract, our employee policies, and/or any other applicable separate documents provided to you in connection with your position or your application for a position with us.

The information that we hold about you

All data subjects

The information we hold about you may include the following:

Your personal details (such as your name, address and other contact details);
Details of any contacts we have had with you in relation to the provision, or the proposed provision, of our services;
Details of any services you have received from us;
Our correspondence and communications with you;
Information about any complaints and enquiries you may have submitted to us;
Information from any research or surveys conducted by us in which you may have participated;
Information from any marketing activities to which you may have responded or in which you may have participated;
Information we receive from other sources, such as publicly available information, and information provided by your employer or other relevant organisation.

Clients

If you are a client then we may collect and process additional information about you relevant to:

(i) Your enquiries raised in relation to our services;

(ii) Your engagement of us to provide our services;

(iii) The provision of our services; and/or

(iv) The management and administration of the relationship between us; which will be as described in the engagement terms between us.

Employees

How we use the information we hold about you

All data subjects

We may process your personal data for the following purposes:

For the performance of our contract with you, or for steps preparatory to entering into a contract with you, and to comply with our legal obligations.
Where it is necessary for our own legitimate interests provided that those interests do not override any of your own interests, rights and freedoms which require the protection of your personal data. This includes processing for marketing, business development, statistical and management purposes.
With your consent, and in these limited circumstances where your consent is required for the processing of your personal data then:

(i) We will request such consent from you separately, and

(ii) You have the right to withdraw your consent to processing for such specific purposes.

Please note that we may process your personal data on more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We may use your information in order to:

Carry out our obligations arising from any agreements entered into between you or your employer or other relevant organisation and us (which will most usually be our engagement for the provision of our services);
Provide you with information related to our services, our events and activities that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, provided you have consented to be contacted for such purposes;
Seek your thoughts and opinions on the services we provide; and
Notify you about any changes to our services.

In some circumstances we may anonymise or re-identify the personal data, so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

If you refuse to provide us with certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you. Alternatively, we may be unable to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations.

We may also process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in accordance with this notice, where we are legally required or permitted to do so.

Data Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it is collected.

When assessing what retention period is appropriate for your personal data, we take into consideration:

The requirements of our business and the services provided;
The purposes for which we originally collected the personal data;
The lawful grounds on which we based our processing;
The types of personal data we have collected;
The amount and categories of your personal data; and
Whether the purpose of the processing could reasonably be fulfilled by other means.

Change of purpose

Where we need to use your personal data for another reason, other than for the purpose for which we collected it, we will only use your personal information where that reason is compatible with the original purpose.

Should it be necessary to use your personal data for a new purpose, we will notify you and communicate the legal basis which allows us to do so before starting any new processing.

Deleting data

After a period of at least 7 years from the date of matter closure, depending on the type of work undertaken, Lawrence Stephens will review the stored matter files and commence destruction of the file and all personal data contained therein as appropriate. The file will only be retained if there is a legitimate business reason for doing so. Deeds will continue to be kept in secure storage.

Prior to this date, and at the choice of the data subject or data controller, Lawrence Stephens shall return or destroy all copies of personal data unless the retention of data is required by legislation, regulation, or insurers for the defence of legal claims. Where Lawrence Stephens is not able to comply with a destruction request, an explanation shall be provided in writing.

Clients

If you are a client then we will use your personal information for purposes additional to the purposes set out in this notice including in relation to the provision of our services and the management and administration of the relationship between us; which will be as described in the engagement terms between us.

Employees

If you are an employee then we will use your personal information for purposes additional to the purposes set out in this notice, as described in your employment contract, our employee policies, and/or any other applicable separate documents provided to you in connection with your position or your application for a position with us.

Our website and your data

If you make contact with us via our enquiries section, register for newsletters/events or bulletins through the use of our website, we may ask you specific questions to provide us with further personal information about yourself. This information may be disclosed to us subsequently to providing our services to you. Any personal information supplied to us using the website will be used only for responding to your enquiry. This does not include any business contact information supplied.

You may use our website also to apply for any employment vacancies which include Training Contracts at Lawrence Stephens. You may be directed to a third party data processor in these circumstances.

As we use cookies, please click here for our Cookie Policy for more details.

Data capture forms on our website

When applying for vacancies for employment or training contracts at Lawrence Stephens, you will be required to submit personal information including your employment and education history, professional qualifications, criminal record history, and other information at the initial stages of the application. This is important for our use in the recruitment process and will not be used for any other reason.

When completing your application for vacancies, you could be asked for sensitive personal information such as ethnic origin and religion. Disclosure of this information is always optional. We can assure you that this will not adversely affect your application for employment at Lawrence Stephens and these are requested solely as an opportunity to measure diversity quotas.

If you do supply us with the sensitive information requested, it is only used for ensuring that we are maintaining our values in advocating equal opportunities as an employer.

Information collected directly from you when signing up to newsletters may be stored by a third party. We will use this information to contact you and provide you with information that we feel may be relevant including legal updates, news from around the firm and deal highlights as well as information that may promote our services.

Data sharing

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We will share your personal information with third parties where we are required by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship between us or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.

Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

‘Third parties’ includes third-party service providers. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers: IT and data storage services, professional advisory services, word-processing, photocopying, translation and other administration services, marketing services and banking services.

All of our third-party service providers are required to take commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to protect your personal information. We only permit our third-party service providers to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

What about other third parties?

We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible transfer of our business. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law. We may disclose your personal information in order to protect our rights or property or those of our clients or others; and this includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud prevention, compliance with anti-money laundering and ‘know your client’ requirements, and credit risk reduction.

Transferring information outside the UK

We will not ordinarily transfer the personal information we collect about you outside of the UK. However, if any third parties by whom your personal data are to be processed are based outside the UK so that their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK we will ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring that at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.
Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
Where the third parties are based in the US, we may either use the above contracts approved by the European Commission or we may transfer data to them if they are part of the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the UK (the EU) and the US.

Data security

We have put in place commercially reasonable and appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

You have certain rights under the UK GDPR in relation to the information that we hold about you.

These rights include the rights set out below:

Be informed about how your data is being used
Access your personal data
Have incorrect data updated
Have your data erased
Stop or restrict the processing of your data
Data portability (allowing you to get and reuse your data for different services)
Object to how your data is processed in certain circumstances

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Should your personal information change, please notify us of any changes of which we need to be made aware by contacting us, using the contact details below.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request access to your personal information. This enables you to receive details of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are processing it lawfully.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you.
Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please email dataprotection@lawstep.co.uk

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

How long do we keep your personal data?

It is our policy that if you contact us with an enquiry about our professional services but you do not subsequently become a client, we can delete your data within a period of 24 months.

If you are or become a client we will usually retain information including your personal data until the end of the client relationship or in some circumstances we may retain records indefinitely. We will retain your personal data where it is relevant to a particular matter on which we are instructed for a period of at least seven (7) years from the date of matter closure.

Personal data relating to our professional contacts will be retained for so long as is necessary, or until you indicate otherwise to us.

Your right to withdraw consent

In those circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose (for example, in relation to direct marketing that you have indicated you would like to receive from us), you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please email dataprotection@lawstep.co.uk

Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Changes to this notice

Any changes in our privacy policy will be updated on this page so that you are full informed on the current position on how information is collected and how we use it at all times.

Contact us regarding data privacy

If you have any questions regarding this notice or if you would like to speak to us about the manner in which we process your personal data, please email dataprotection@lawstep.co.uk or telephone +44 (0)20 7936 8888 or write to: Data Protection, Lawrence Stephens, 50 Farringdon Road, London, EC1M 3HE. We seek to provide the best possible service to our clients and will respond within 7 days to any concerns raised by our clients with our compliance team.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO: www.ico.org.uk), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues, at any time. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Your feedback enables us to continually improve our website for your benefit; monitor and analyse our relationship with website visitors and other contacts to help us maintain and grow our business; as well as enable the firm to recruit new employees.

This notice was last updated on: 20^th November 2023

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