James & West Law LLP is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (‘SRA’). We take the privacy and confidentiality of our clients, potential clients, ex-clients and their affiliates very seriously and we are committed to protecting it.
We are committed to protecting your privacy when you use our services and we ask that you read this privacy notice carefully as it contains important information on who we are, how and why we collect, store, use and share personal information, your rights in relation to your personal information and on how to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.
James & West Law collects uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under UK Data Protection Legislation We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.
When you make an enquiry to us, via our website, in person, by email, letter or telephone we may collect the following personal information when provided by you:
- contact information including name, email address, telephone numbers, date of birth details of your claim and losses suffered by you, National Insurance number or Passport information
- other information relevant to your enquiry/case
By submitting your details, you are requesting us to process your personal data to enable us to provide information or assistance, to you and we will use and store your information for that purpose.
How we use your personal information
If you are contacting us about a potential legal case or matter we will use your personal information for the purposes of dealing with your enquiry to:
- consider if we should provide legal services to you in accordance with our procedures for accepting instructions
- provide legal services to you
- help us prevent money laundering
- verify your identity to help us prevent fraud
we may use your personal information for the purpose of dealing with your enquiry to:
- respond to claims, exercise and defend your legal rights
- offer you information about events or services
- keep you informed of legal developments
- help us improve our services
If you contact us for a non-case related query we will use your personal information to respond to your enquiry. Depending on the nature of your interest in our firm we may also provide you with information about us, our services and our events.
Our general retention period is six years, from the conclusion of your enquiry or case which we consider a legitimate time period taking into consideration applicable UK law.
If you attend an event
If you attend an event that we host we may need to collect some personal data from you in order to provide you with the appropriate level of service.
The data that we may need to collect from you can include:
- Your name
- Your contact details
- Health data , for example additional mobility requirements or food allergies if appropriate to your attendance;
- During the Covid-19 pandemic we will also ask you to complete a health declaration
Who we share your personal information with
We use third parties to provide us with additional services.
These include (but are not limited to):
- IT (including back up) services;
- Marketing automation and email marketing services;
- Telephone contact support services;
If you become a client we may use additional third parties including:
- Off-site archiving and storage facilities;
- ID verification services and money laundering checks;
- Payment services.
If you become a client, there are times that we will have to share your details with third parties in order to investigate or progress your case, to provide you with legal services or to comply with our legal obligations. Examples of third parties in this case would be the other party in your case, medical experts to provide supporting medical evidence and the Tribunal or Court.
We have contractual relationships with all of the third parties who handle your personal data, and use them only to fulfil the service they provide us on your behalf. This data sharing enables us to provide an efficient service to you in order to progress your matter. After your matter has been closed, they are obliged to dispose of the details in line with data protection legislation.
James & West Law may disclose personal information if required to do so by law or if we believe such an action is necessary to protect and defend the rights, property and personal safety of our company name and its website.
Very rarely we may need to transfer your information outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Countries outside of the EEA do not have the same data protection laws. Any transfer of your personal information outside of the EEA will be subject to an agreement and appropriate safeguards to help protect your privacy rights. If you would like further details please contact us.
Video calls
We do not record video calls as standard. There may be times where it is prudent or necessary to record a call, for example, if we are taking a witness statement from you. If this is the case, we will discuss it with you in advance ask your permission to record the call before the recording begins. The length of time we will hold the recording for will depend on the purpose for which the recording has been made.
Your rights
You have a number of rights. If you want to exercise these rights the process is provided free of charge. In summary, those include rights to:
- The right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal information
- The right to access your personal information
- The right to correct any mistakes in the information which we hold
- The right to erasure of personal information
- The right to restrict processing of your personal information
- The right to move, copy or transfer your personal information
- The right to object to direct marketing
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see:
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email, call or write to either Cathy James or Francesca West (the Partners). Let us have enough information to identify you (e.g. matter reference, full name, address) and let us know the information to which your request relates, including any account or reference numbers, if you have them
Keeping your personal information secure
James & West Law is committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
In order to help us to ensure that your data is accurate and up to date we ask you to let us know where your details, e.g. where your contact details change or you move house. Details for how to contact us will be on any of the correspondence you have received from us.
Changes to this privacy notice
This privacy notice was published in January 2022 and will be reviewed periodically. As this may change this privacy notice from time to time, you should check this policy occasionally to ensure you are aware of the most recent version.
How to contact us
Please contact either Cathy James or Francesca West (the Partners), if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you.
If you wish to contact us, please send an email enquiries@jamesandwest.co.uk or write to us at James & West Law LLP, Labs House, 15-19 Bloomsbury Way, London, WC1A 2TH.
The GDPR also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at www.ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113.
Cookie Policy
What are cookies?
A cookie is a small data file which seeks your permission to be placed on your computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone. These files allow us to distinguish you from other users however they do not store personal information about you such as your name or address but are used to track choices you make when navigating our website.
How do we use cookies?
Our website uses google analytics to compile statistics from our cookies, which help us to measure how many people visit our site, how long people stay on specific pages, what people clicked on and which parts of the website they find the most useful. This enables us to improve our website and the services we offer.
The use of cookies helps us to make our website more relevant to you by developing new content and to monitor the performance of our website to give you a better experience.
Google analytics does not identify individual visitors to our website. You can find out more information about google analytics by reading Google’s privacy policy.
Google will use anonymously tracked activity on our website and may use this information to suggest other websites that you might like to look at. We use Google Analytics tracking code to support Google display advertising features.
We also use some cookies which are essential to the smooth running of the website.
You can opt out of the Google Analytics advertising features you use; there is information on how to do this on Google’s website.
If you continue to use our website we will assume that you are happy to receive all cookies from our website.
You can remove cookies from your computer at any time, by changing your internet browser settings. These settings are usually found in either Privacy or Options tabs within preference panels accessed from your browser’s main menu (usually found under headings such Edit, Tools, Options, or if you’re using a Macintosh under the menu option with name of the application you’re using).
If you set your internet browser preferences to block all cookies, you may not be able to access all or parts of our website.
To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/