Privacy Policy
This notice explains how, why and when we collect personal information about you. It also details how we keep that information secure.
We take data privacy very seriously. For clients of this firm, you should read this notice alongside our general terms and conditions which provide further information on confidentiality, data privacy etc.
Data is collected, processed and stored by Blanchards Law Ltd and we are what is known as the ‘data controller’ of the personal information you provide to us. Blanchards Law is a limited company registered in England and Wales with the registered number 07830331. The company is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (no. 565657).
What we need
The exact information we will request from you will depend on what you have asked us to do or what we are contracted to do for you.
There are two types of personal data (personal information) that you may provide to us:
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- Personal data: is the general information that you supply about yourself – such as your name, address, gender, date of birth, contact details, financial information etc.
- Sensitive personal data: is, by its nature, more sensitive information and may include your racial or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, health data, trade union membership, philosophical views, biometric and genetic data.
Sources of information
Information about you may be obtained from a number of sources; including:
- You may volunteer the information about yourself
- You may provide information relating to someone else if you have the authority to do so
- We may receive information from third parties in order to undertake your legal work. These are organisations such as:
- Banks or building societies
- Panel providers who allocate legal work to law firms
- Organisations that have referred work to us
- Medical or financial institutions
Information collected from this site
Comments
When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.
An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service Privacy Policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.
Media
If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.
Contact forms
If you fill out your details in our contact form, we will use this information to contact you in line with our policies. You are free to opt out of being contacted at any time. You may make this request to info@blanchardslaw.co.uk.
Why we need it
The primary reasons for asking for your personal data is to allow us to carry out our contacted services and your requests. This information is used to represent you and carry out your legal work.
Information may be used for other legitimate reasons, which include but are not limited to:
- Contacting and responding to you
- Verifying your identity
- Verifying your source of funds
- To carry out recruitment processes
- To establish funding for you matter
- Maintaining financial records of financial transactions that we make on your behalf
- Seeking advice from third parties such as experts
- to carry out, monitor and analyse our business or website operations
- to personalise your visit and use of our Internet Services and to assist you while you use those services
- Responding to complaints against us
Who has access to it
We do not sell or rent your personal data to third parties or share it for the purpose of marketing. We have strict data protection processes in place to ensure the effective processing of personal information. The majority of information is only used within Blanchards Law to carry out our services to you. However, in some circumstances we will need to disclose certain information to third parties. These parties include, but are not limited to:
- HM Land Registry in matters relating to property registration.
- HM Revenues and Customs
- Court or Tribunal
- Solicitors acting on the other side of a matter
- An independent Barrister or Counsel
- Non legal experts
- Translation Agencies
- Contracted Suppliers
- External Auditors or Regulators
- Banks or other financial institutions
- Insurance companies
- Any disclosure required by law, such as prevention of fraud or terrorism.
Where we share your information with one of the relevant parties, we ensure that they comply with our policy and instructions. They will be required to maintain data protections consistent with reasonable and appropriate obligations of data processors, including, where applicable, European Union’s data protection laws and regulations.
There may be some uses of personal data that may require your specific consent. If this is the case we will contact you separately to ask for your consent which you are free to withdraw at any time.
How do we protect your personal data
We recognise that your information is valuable, and we take all reasonable measures to protect it. Consistent with our professional obligations, we take the upmost care to exercise discretion regarding client information.
We utilise technology and operational security to protect personal information from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. We have a high threshold of confidentiality.
We maintain reasonable and appropriate, albeit not infallible, physical, electronic and procedural safeguards intended to maintain the confidentiality of Personal Information, including that provided by a visitor to this website and provided while using other Internet Services. We use computer safeguards such as firewalls and data encryption and annual penetration testing; and we enforce, where possible, physical access controls to our buildings and files to keep data safe. We do not guarantee that our safeguards will always work.
How long will we keep it for
We may retain information provided by you for as long as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, or as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which the information was collected. We retain information for a minimum of 7 years from the conclusion or closure of your legal work; in case you, or we, need to re-open your case for the purpose of defending complaints or claims against us. For information about data retention for other purposes, or if you would like more details about our information practices, please contact us at info@blanchardslaw.co.uk.
What are your rights?
Under GDPR, you are entitled to access your personal data which is a ‘right of access.’ This means that you are entitled to a copy of the data we hold on you. It does not mean that you are entitled to the documents that contain this data. In some circumstances, you are entitled to ‘access your data.’ This includes:
- The right to be informed: which is fulfilled by way of this privacy notice.
- The right to rectification: you are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
- The right to erasure / ‘right to be forgotten’: you have the right to request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. This right only applies in the following specific circumstances:
- Where the personal data is no longer necessary in regards to the purpose for which it was originally collected
- Where consent is relied upon as the lawful basis for holding your data and you withdraw your consent
- Where you object to the processing and there is no overriding legitimate interest for continuing the processing
- The personal data was unlawfully processed
- Where you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes
- The right to object: you have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests; and direct marketing. This right only applies in the following circumstances:
- An objection to stop processing personal data for direct marketing purposes is absolute – there are no exemptions or grounds to refuse – we must stop processing in this context
- You must have an objection on grounds relating to your particular situation
- We must stop processing your personal data unless:
- We can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms; or
- The processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
- The right to restrict processing: you have the right to request the restriction or suppression of your data. When processing is restricted, we can store the data but not use it. This right only applies in the following circumstances:
- Where you contest the accuracy of the personal data – we should restrict the processing until we have verified the accuracy of that data
- Where you object to the processing (where it was necessary for the performance of a public interest or purpose of legitimate interests), and we are considering whether our organisation’s legitimate grounds override your right
- Where processing is unlawful and you request restriction
- If we no longer need the personal data but you require the data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim
If you wish to make a request, please make it in writing to info@blanchardslaw.co.uk. You have the right to object to this processing. Should you wish to do so please email info@blanchardslaw.co.uk.
Complaints about the use of personal data
If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact us at info@blanchardslaw.co.uk with the subject of the request being PERSONAL DATA COMPLAINT.
If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Marketing data
We may contact you for the purpose of direct marketing. This means that we may use your personal data that we have collected in accordance with this privacy policy to contact you about our products or services, events etc. which we feel may interest you. The direct marketing communications may be provided to you by social media channels, email or post. We will never send marketing communications via SMS or call you without your specific consent; nor do we ever pass on or sell your details to a third party.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Cookies
If you leave a comment on our site you may opt in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.
When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.
If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.
How we collect personal data
The following are examples, although not exhaustive, of how we collect your personal information:
- Sign-up to receive one of our newsletters
- Submitting an online enquiry or filling an online form
- Following/liking/subscribing to our social media channels
- Agree to fill in a questionnaire or survey on our website
- Ask us a question or submit any queries or concerns you have via email or on social media channels
- Post information to our website or social media channels
- When you leave a review about us on Trustpilot.com or Google Reviews
Whenever we collect your personal data, you will be provided the opportunity to ‘opt in’ to receiving marketing communications from us. We hope you will provide this information so you find our communications useful but if you choose not to this will have no effect on accessing our legal services.
How we may use your details
The following are examples, although not exhaustive, of how we may use your personal information for our legitimate business interests:
- fraud prevention
- direct marketing
- network and information systems security
- data /analytics /enhancing, modifying or improving our services
- identifying usage trends
- determining the effectiveness of promotional campaigns and advertising.
We may use your personal information for legitimate interests such as direct marketing or under reasonable expectation to provide you with information you would expect to receive or that would benefit and enhance our relationship. This information will help us review and improve our products, services and offers.
How we protect your personal information
We will only ever use non sensitive personal information to target individuals with marketing materials; such as name, address, telephone, email, job description and previous buying behaviours. Sensitive information or specific details will never be used to target marketing communications. We may use personalisation to collect analytics to inform marketing and produce relevant content for the marketing strategy to enable it to enhance and personalise the “consumer experience”.
If you do not wish us to continue to contact you in this way, you can either follow the unsubscribe instructions on any of our communications to you or contact us by emailing info@blanchardslaw.co.uk with your name and email address. Your details will be removed immediately. Once unsubscribed, you may still receive transactional emails from us regarding your legal case.
Any questions regarding this notice and our privacy practices should be sent by email to info@blanchardslaw.co.uk
Complaints Policy
At Blanchards, we are committed to providing high quality legal services to all our clients and feedback from our clients demonstrate that we are successful in achieving our aim. If you have a complaint, please contact us as soon as possible by writing or email with the following details to include:
- your name and address
- whom you are complaining about
- the details of your complaint
- what you would like to have done about it
Please address your letter to Punam Denley, who is the Partner, at 19 Market Place, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire, RG9 2AA. If you would like to email us, please do so at pd@blanchardslaw.co.uk. We will, acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 7 days of receipt and provide you with details of how your complaint will be dealt with.
Punam Denley, will investigate your complaint and reply to you within 28 days, her reply will set out:
- The nature and scope of her investigation
- Her conclusion on each complaint and the basis for her conclusion
- If she finds that you are justified in your complaint, her proposals for resolving the complaint
All conversations and documents relating to the complaint will be treated as confidential and will be disclosed only to the extent that is necessary. Disclosure will be limited to the Partner and anyone involved in the complaint and its investigation. Such people may include the individual fee earner or member of staff that you complained about and the person who investigated the complaint if that is not the Partner. The Solicitors Regulation Authority is entitled to inspect the documents and seek information about the complaint when discharging its auditing.
We will keep a written record of the complaint and retain all documents and correspondence for a period of 6 years.
If you remain dissatisfied after receiving our final response to your complaint (including a complaint relating to an invoice) you can contact the Legal Ombudsman as follows:
- Post: Legal Ombudsman PO BOX 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH; or
- Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk; or
- Telephone: 0300 555 0333 or if calling from overseas +44 121 245 3050.
If you wish to refer a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman it should be done within six months of our final response to your complaint, and in any event it must be brought within:
- one year of the date of the act or omission being complained about; or
- one year from the date on which you realised that there was cause for complaint.
The Legal Ombudsman will not normally consider complaints brought outside these time limits, although it can exercise discretion to extend these time periods where it decides it is fair and reasonable to do so.
The Legal Ombudsman has restricted the categories of clients who are eligible to complain to it. Broadly speaking, a complainant must be an individual (including trustees, personal representatives and beneficiaries of estates), a small business or a charity or club with an annual net income of less than £1 million. For further guidance please refer to the Legal Ombudsman Scheme Rules.
If you wish to make a complaint relating to a bill, you must do so within one month of receiving the bill, failing which we will be under no obligation to investigate or to attempt to resolve the complaint. You may also have the right to apply to the court for assessment of the bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974, or Part 48 of the Civil Procedure Rules 1999 normally within twelve months of delivery of the bill. The Legal Ombudsman may decline to consider your complaint if you have applied to the court for assessment of the bill.
No charge will be made for the time spent in investigating and responding to a complaint.
Information about reporting an individual or firm to the SRA is available on the SRA website. If you have any concerns about our behaviour or professional conduct you can raise these with the SRA. Please note that the SRA does not deal with complaints about poor service.
Zero Tolerance Policy - Client Behaviour
Our employees should not be left distressed following an interaction either in person, or over the phone with a client or prospective client.
Purpose
This policy is designed to protect all employees of Blanchards Law from any form of verbal abuse, harassment, or inappropriate behaviour during both phone interactions and in person interaction, with clients and prospective clients. It aims to create a respectful, safe, and professional environment for employees while ensuring that clients are treated fairly and appropriately.
This firm follows strict guidelines that work to protect both our employees’ and clients’ wellbeing. All staff and clients are expected to behave in a respectful and acceptable manner.
Scope
This policy applies to all employees at Blanchards Law who engage in telephone communications with clients or prospective clients, as well as face-to-face meetings, including but not limited to paralegals, legal assistants, lawyers, receptionists, and administrative staff.
Policy Guidelines
- Zero Tolerance for Abusive Behaviour
Blanchards has a zero-tolerance stance on any abusive, threatening, or inappropriate behaviour directed toward employees during both phone and in person interactions. Abuse may include, but is not limited to:- Verbal threats or intimidation
- Profanity, insults, or derogatory language
- Racial, gender-based, or other discriminatory remarks
- Sexual harassment or inappropriate comments
- Excessive yelling, aggression, or unreasonable demands
- Definition of Abuse
Abuse can manifest in various forms, including but not limited to:
- Verbal Abuse: Use of foul, aggressive, or threatening language.
- Emotional Abuse: Manipulation, humiliation, or disrespect meant to demean or intimidate the employee.
- Harassment: Persistent unwelcome behaviour, including sexual, racial, or other discriminatory remarks.
Employee Rights
Employees have the right to work in a professional environment free from harassment, abuse, or inappropriate behaviour. If any employee feels threatened or uncomfortable during a phone call or meeting, they have the right to:
- Politely end the call or meeting if abusive behaviour persists.
- Report the incident immediately to a supervisor or HR.
- Seek further support, including legal counsel if necessary, depending on the severity of the incident.
Procedure for Managing Abusive Calls
If an employee experiences any form of abuse during a call, the following steps should be taken:
- Step 1: Politely inform the caller that abusive language or behaviour is unacceptable and offer them the opportunity to calm down and continue the conversation respectfully.
- Example Script: “I understand you are upset, but I must ask that we keep this conversation respectful. I will need to end this call if the abusive language continues.”
- Step 2: If the abuse persists, inform the caller that you will be ending the call.
- Example Script: “I’m sorry, but I cannot continue this call under these circumstances. I will now be ending this call. Thank you.”
- Step 3: End the call, document the incident (date, time, nature of the abuse), and report it immediately to the appropriate manager or HR.
Documentation of Incidents
Any employee who experiences or witnesses abusive behaviour must document the incident immediately after it occurs. The documentation should include:
- The date and time of the call
- The name of the caller (if available)
- A description of the abusive behaviour or language used
- The steps taken by the employee to de-escalate or terminate the call
- Any follow-up actions taken by the firm
Support for Employees
Blanchards Law is committed to supporting employees who experience abuse on phone calls. Support measures include:
- Access to counselling services if necessary
- Training on de-escalation techniques and handling difficult conversations
- A clear reporting and grievance mechanism for addressing incidents of abuse
Consequences for Clients and Prospective Clients
Blanchards Law reserves the right to take appropriate action against clients or prospective clients who engage in abusive behaviour. This may include:
- A formal written warning
- Refusing further service or representation to the client
- In extreme cases, filing legal action or notifying law enforcement (if threats or illegal behaviour occur)
Non-Retaliation Clause
Blanchards Law strictly prohibits any form of retaliation against employees who report abusive behaviour. Employees are encouraged to report any abuse without fear of retribution.
Reporting and Resolution
- Employees are encouraged to report any abuse or harassment promptly to their direct supervisor or the Human Resources department.
- The firm will investigate all complaints thoroughly and in a timely manner, taking any necessary actions to protect the employee and prevent further occurrences.
- In cases where legal action is necessary, the firm will take steps to support the employee and pursue appropriate remedies.
Review and Updates
This Zero Tolerance Policy will be reviewed annually to ensure its effectiveness and compliance with applicable laws and regulations. Blanchards Law reserves the right to modify this policy as needed.
Conclusion
At Blanchards Law, we are committed to providing a safe, professional, and supportive work environment for all our employees. We value our relationships with clients and prospective clients, but we will not tolerate abusive or inappropriate behaviour. This policy ensures that our employees can carry out their professional duties without fear of harassment or mistreatment.
