Lodders Solicitors LLP Privacy Notice for Clients & Prospective Clients
1. What this Privacy Notice covers
This Privacy Notice will inform you about how we will collect, use, or otherwise process your personal data when you instruct us and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. In this Notice, any reference to ‘we’ or ‘us’ means Lodders Solicitors LLP.
“Personal data” means any information relating to you as a living, identifiable individual. Lodders Solicitors LLP will process your personal data in accordance with data protection and privacy laws applicable to the firm including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK GDPR.
2. Who we are
Lodders is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales under registration number OC306995. Our registered office is at Number Ten, Elm Court, Arden Street, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6PA.
Lodders is a data controller for the purposes of applicable data protection laws and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as such with registration number Z5987574.
Lodders operates the website www.lodders.co.uk (the “website”). Please see our website for our dedicated website privacy notice.
Contact details
If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or would like to contact us about any other matter, please use the following contact information:
Address
FAO Tom Hughes (Risk & Data Protection Manager)
Number Ten, Elm Court
Arden Street
Stratford upon Avon
Warwickshire
CV37 6PA
Email: data@lodders.co.uk
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk).
3. The data we collect about you
As a current or prospective client of Lodders, the type of information we hold might include the following:
- Your name, address and contact details (including email address);
- Personal details and information relevant to the matter on which you have instructed us, including background and ancillary information that we may need to be aware of (e.g. if you have instructed us to act for you in relation to a matrimonial matter, such information might include details of your marriage, children, finances, and other relevant personal information)
- Identification information (e.g. biometric data, passport, driver’s licence, utility bills, Companies House details) to comply with money laundering and related obligations;
- Details of your bank account and/or credit card;
- Your financial history and details of your assets if relevant to your matter;
- Details of your current employment and issues relating to your employment (if relevant);
- Credit history and financial sanctions checks for the purposes of setting credit limits for the work we do for you;
- Records of instructions received and advice given;
- Reports from third parties (e.g. medical reports) where relevant to your matter;
- Information about your health (including disabilities) if relevant to your matter or our duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act 2010;
- Details of protected characteristics under the Equality Act where relevant to your matter or where required for equality and diversity reporting;
- Personal information regarding your family if relevant to your matter;
- CCTV images at our Henley office and details from our visitor signing in books at each of our premises.
In some instances, we will collect special category data only where relevant to your matter. This may include details of the following:
- Information about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership.
- Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.
- Information about criminal convictions and offences.
- Genetic and biometric data.
Primarily, we will gather data from you directly when undertaking your matter or receiving instructions from you. We may also receive information about you from third parties. This may come from publicly available sources (such as Companies House or the Land Registry) or from other parties who are involved in your matter (e.g. a counterparty or their solicitor).
4. How we may use your information
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which it was acquired, or where we have a proper reason for using it. Those reasons include the following:
- where the use is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party, or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract;
- where the use is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation to which we are subject;
- where the use is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third-party, except where those interests are overridden by your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms which require protection of personal data, in particular where you or the relevant person is a child;
- where you have given consent to the use of your personal data for one or more specific purposes;
- where the use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
- where the use is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us.
In most cases, we will only process your personal data:
- in order to comply with legal and regulatory obligations which we have. For example, carrying out anti-money laundering (“AML”) and other client due diligence (“CDD”) checks (using electronic software and otherwise) to verify your identity;
- where the use is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party, save where those interests are overridden by the rights of others (as above); and
- for specific purposes, with your consent.
5. Special category personal data
Processing of some special category or criminal offence data may be necessary to be able to:
- provide services to our clients;
- to comply with legal or regulatory obligations (including our obligations to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Complaints Service);
- to seek confidential legal advice; or
- to establish or defend legal claims.
Special category and/or criminal offence data relating to you may also need to be processed during investigative, grievance, disciplinary, redundancy and other internal processes within the firm. This data may also need to be shared with law enforcement authorities or regulators, either due to a legal requirement or where it is in the public interest to do so voluntarily, i.e. if a solicitor is under investigation. We will process such data where it is necessary for, connected to and/or or relates to legal claims including:
- for the purposes of assisting with legal proceedings;
- obtaining legal advice; and/or
- establishing, exercising or defending legal rights.
Legal bases for processing special category data depend on the context of the processing. We have considered the risks and impacts associated with the processing of special category and criminal offence data, including regarding data minimisation, security and transparency. If you wish to understand more about the legal basis for processing your specific personal data, please contact: data@lodders.co.uk
If you voluntarily send us your sensitive personal data, in the absence of another legal basis, we shall treat that as your explicit consent for us to hold and process that data. If data is processed by us on the basis of your explicit consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time; this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing before you withdrew it.
6. Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.
If we need to use your personal data for any unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
7. Marketing
We use your details to provide you with information about our work, activities and matters such as invitations to events that we think may be of interest to you. We may send you general updates by email or post, including notifying you of upcoming events and updates or alerts containing relevant legal news.
Occasionally, we may invite you to events that we run jointly with other organisations. The invitation to such an event will provide a link to this Privacy Notice.
Further relevant privacy information and details of the data we collect and process for marketing purposes is set out in our Privacy Notice for our website and marketing which can be found on our website.
If you wish to update your marketing preferences, please contact: marketing@lodders.co.uk
Alternatively, if you wish to opt-out, unsubscribe links are also provided within our marketing communications.
8. Disclosure of your personal data
For the purposes described in paragraph 4, Lodders may disclose and/or transfer your personal data to the following third parties:
1) Lodders’ group companies: Lodders may disclose your personal data to our network.
2) Service providers: We share personal data with third-party suppliers and service providers to provide services, perform on behalf or to assist with our business operations under our instructions. Lodders may disclose your personal data to service providers including, but not limited to the following:
- client due diligence (“CDD”) checking software;
- bank and financial institutions;
- telecommunication and/or mobile service providers;
- IT system service providers or software vendors;
- data storage and cloud service providers;
- auditing and accounting service providers;
- insurers and brokers;
- printing service providers;
- event organizers; and
- other operational service providers.
3) Business partners: We may disclose your personal data to business partners (such as associated firms, advisors, agents, etc.), to provide services to you or for other purposes as listed under this Notice.
4) Third parties with whom you request Lodders to share your Personal Data to: Lodders may disclose your personal data with your consent or at your direction (such as your counterparty).
5) Third parties required by law or legal claims: In some instances, we may be required to disclose your personal data to comply with legal or regulatory obligations. This includes various law enforcement agencies, courts, arbitration institutions, the Attorney General’s Office, regulators, government authorities or other third parties where we believe it is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation; or otherwise to protect our rights, the rights of any third party or individuals’ personal safety, or to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or safety issues.
6) Professional advisors: Such as auditors, accountants, or other consultants who assist in running our business.
7) Assignee of rights and/or obligations: Third parties as our assignee, in the event of any reorganisation, merger, business transfer, or other similar nature of transactions whether in whole or in part, will comply with this Notice to respect your personal data.
When we use third party service providers, we only disclose personal data that is necessary to be able to fulfil our services to you. If a third-party processor is used, it will only be when we are reasonably satisfied your personal data is secure and will not be processed other than in accordance with our instructions.
In some instances, we may transfer your data to a country in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or a country with data protection rules equivalent to those in the UK.
It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK and EEA. This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection of personal data as the UK or EEA.
We will transfer your personal data outside the UK or EEA only where:
- the UK government or European Commission has decided the recipient country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an adequacy decision); or
- there are appropriate safeguards in place (e.g. standard contractual data protection clauses published or approved by the relevant data protection regulator), together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
- a specific exception applies under data protection law.
9. Keeping your records
Lodders will retain your personal data for as long as it is reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we obtained it, and to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. However, we may have to retain your personal data for a longer duration, as required by applicable law. We may be obliged to suspend any planned destruction or deletion where legal or regulatory proceedings require it or where proceedings are underway such as require the data to be retained until those proceedings have finished.
We may retain your personal data relating to the client due diligence (“CDD”) checks we are obliged to carry out for such period as we consider necessary. This period may exceed the periods specified by regulations 40(3) and 40(4) of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017.
10. Keeping your personal data secure
Lodders will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely, in accordance with this Privacy Notice and in compliance with the legal and regulatory obligations of confidentiality which we owe to you.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are required to do so.
11. Your rights
You have the right to:
- be informed about how we handle your personal data. This Privacy Notice is one of the ways we do this;
- request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. Please send requests by email to data@lodders.co.uk or by telephone on 01789 293259. The usual timeframe to respond to a request is one calendar month from receipt of the request but this can be extended in some circumstances. Please provide as much information as possible about the nature of your contact with us to help us locate all your records. Please bear in mind we may need to take steps to verify your identity in order to deal with you request;
- have any inaccuracies in your data corrected. If you would like to update the details we hold about you, please contact our data protection contact on the details set out at the beginning of this Notice;
- request that we delete your personal data so it is erased from our records;
- request the transfer of your personal information to another party;
- object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing and to automated processing, including profiling;
- ask us to restrict or suppress your personal information;
- not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.
Please note, some of the above rights are not automatic or unqualified. In circumstances where we cannot comply (or comply fully) with a request from you to exercise a right, we will explain the reasons why.
Where we have relied on your consent for the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time.
12. CCTV
Please note that Lodders has CCTV in operation in our Henley in Arden office. These cameras are located at entry and exit points both inside and outside the premises. Signage is displayed to alert employees and visitors that CCTV surveillance is in use.
Lodders uses CCTV in our Henley in Arden office for the following purposes:
- For the prevention and detection of crime
- To assist in investigations
- For safety and security
Lodders considers the processing of personal data to be in our legitimate interests so that we can operate in a safe working environment. CCTV is never used for any automated decision making.
We will only disclose images and audio to other authorised bodies such as the police or other law enforcement agencies for the purposes set out above.
13. Changes to this notice and the way we treat personal information
We may occasionally update the terms of this Privacy Notice, so please do check it from time to time.
This notice was last updated in March, 2025.