At First Legal Solicitors we take your privacy seriously and this privacy statement explains what personal data or information we collect from you, and from people who visit our website, and how we use it. We would encourage you to read the information below.
Who are we?
First Legal Solicitors Limited is a company registered in England and Wales (10381298).
Our registered address 4th Floor 8 Princes Parade Liverpool L3 1DL.
What personal data or information do we collect?
We may collect personal data about clients, prospective clients, job applicants, our current and former employees, suppliers, and external experts. The personal information we collect may include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages you access on this website and when.
How do we collect data or information from you?
We collect personal information about you when you:
How is your information used?
We collect your personal data or information to operate the firm effectively and provide you with a high-quality service. We may use your information:
We will process special categories of personal data (for example your health information / medical records) only when processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims (e.g., road traffic accident claims or holiday sickness).
We believe that all these purposes are justified on the basis of our legitimate interests in running and promoting the firm, our contractual requirements to deliver the agreed legal services to you, and our legal obligations, both as a Limited Company and responsible employer. The exception is for sending email marketing about our services, which we carry out on the basis of consent.
If you would like to know more, please read below:
Clients
Clients
As a client, we will hold the following information about you:
We store your information in our practice management system and our accounting system on our secure servers based in the UK. We also hold paper copies of your information in the client matter files, stored in our offices and in a secure, offsite storage archive, managed by Restore.
We will retain your client matter file for the duration of our relationship with you, then for 7 years if you are an adult, or 7 years from your 18th birthday if you are a child. Where there are specific retention periods relating to your matter file, we will make you aware of these at the time we open and close the file. We will retain financial records for 6 years, following the end of the current financial year.
Where we identify that you may be eligible to benefit from other products or services offered by associated third parties, we may contact you by email, phone, or letter to let you know. It is in our legitimate interest as a business to grow our business through existing clients, and we believe that it is also in your interest as you may benefit financially from that product or service. If you disagree and would prefer that we do not contact you about those products or services, you can opt-out at any time. We will remind you how to opt-out in any communication we send you, or you can contact us on:
Prospective Clients
As a prospective client, we may hold the following information about you:
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. Communications with you relating to your initial enquiry may also be stored in our email system for a period of 6 years. We will retain minimal personal information about you to enable us to conduct conflict of interest checks. The information we collect as part of your enquiry can help us identify that you may be eligible to benefit from other products or services offered by associated third parties. If this is the case, we may contact you by email, phone, or letter to let you know. It is in our legitimate interest as a business to do so, and we believe that it is in your interest as you may benefit financially from that product or service. If you disagree and would prefer that we do not to contact you about those products or services, you can opt-out at any time. We will remind you how to opt-out in any communication we send you, or you can contact us on:
Job Applicants
When you apply for a job with us, we may hold the following information about you:
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK. We will also store communications with you relating to the interview process on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data relating to the review, interview, and selection process for a period of 2 years after the interview date.
Current and Former Employees
When you work for us, we may hold the following information about you:
We store your information in our practice management system on our secure servers based in the UK and in hard copy in a secure filing cabinet in the office. We will also store communications with you on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data for the duration of your employment and for a period of 6 years after you leave the firm. We may store your hard copy file in our offsite storage location, managed by Restore. Beyond this point, we only retain minimal information about you to confirm the period of time you were employed by the firm for reference purposes. We share your information with HMRC, and our chosen pension / private healthcare providers.
External Experts
When you work with us to provide expertise to matters, we are working on, we may hold the following information about you:
We store your information in our local secure server and our accounting system on our secure servers based in the UK. We will also store communications with you on our email server, based in the UK. We will retain your personal data for the time you are available as an expert and for a maximum of 1 year after you are no longer available.
Event Attendees
When you work with us to provide expertise to matters we are working on, we may hold the following information about you:
We will store your information on our secure servers hosted in the UK. We may also store communications with you after you have signed up in our email system on our secure servers hosted in the UK.
Who has access to your information?
We do not sell or rent your personal data or information to any third party or share your information with third parties for their marketing purposes.
We will disclose your data or information if required by law, for example by a court order or for the prevention of fraud or other crime.
We may pass information about your matter to the prosecution and to other parties within the justice system (e.g., Counsel, Barristers) as required to provide legal services to you.
We may pass your information on to third party service providers, agents, or subcontractors for the purposes of completing a task or providing services to you on our behalf (e.g., to provide external expertise in your matter).
However, we disclose only the personal information necessary to deliver that service and have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for other purposes.
Third party service providers types who act as data processors on our behalf:
Transfers outside of the European Economic Area
Your personal information in the European Economic Area (EEA) is protected by data protection laws, but other countries do not necessarily protect your personal information in the same way. The EEA covers all countries in the EU plus Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland. Your Stamp Duty Claim do not store personal data on any servers outside of the EEA.
Your rights
You have certain rights over the processing of your personal information by First Legal Solicitors. These are:
We do not undertake direct marketing activities, so you will not receive such information from us.
How you can update your information
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change your contact details or if you want to update any of the information we hold on you, please write to us at: 4th Floor 8 Princes Parade Liverpool L3 1DL.
How you can access your personal information
You have the right to ask for a copy of the personal information First Legal Solicitors holds relating to you. To do this please contact You also have the right to lodge a complaint about our processing of your personal data with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office
Keeping your data secure
When you give us personal information we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely and strive to protect it on our internal systems. Our secure server systems encrypt your information.
Contacting us via email
We use Microsoft 365 to encrypt and protect email traffic in line with GDPR. If your email service does not support Microsoft 365, you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit. We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law.
Visitors to our Website
Cookies
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or or www.allaboutcookies.org.
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. Unless you have set your browser to block cookies, this site will place the following cookies on your computer. We use the following cookies on our websites.
Google Analytics, Adwords, Tag Manager
Collects URL and Title of the page being visited, Browser Name, Size of Browser Window, Screen Resolution, Flash version, whether Java is enabled, location and language settings. The location is figured out from the IP Address though this is not stored as it is personally identifiable information which would violate the terms of Google Analytics.
You can view the Google’s Privacy and Terms here.
Our websites are hosted on UK-based secure servers.
More questions?
To contact First Legal Solicitors about a data protection query regarding the processing of your personal data, please use the contact us page or email enquiries@firstlegalsolicitors.com
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 04/08/2022