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Website Disclaimer
Cookie Policy
Privacy Notice Website Users
Privacy Notice Clients
Complaints Procedure

Website Disclaimer

Although we endeavour to ensure that the contents of this website are accurate, up to date and in accordance with English law, the details contained in it should be regarded as for general information purposes only.

Due to the fact that the information on this website should not be construed as advice, we cannot accept liability in relation to loss arising out of your use of or reliance on the information on the website (save to the extent we are unable to do so by law). We advise that users should always seek appropriate legal advice before taking or refraining from taking any action. If you have a specific legal problem, please contact Colette Stroud on 0191 580 6044 or alternatively you can send an email to colette@csfamilylaw.co.uk

As to the contents of external internet sites that link to this site or are linked from it are beyond our control and we accept no responsibility in relation to those sites. The copyright on all other intellectual property rights in the contents of this website belong to Colette Stroud Family Law save where the contrary is stated. All right reserved.

Permission is given for the downloading and temporary storage of one or more of these pages for the purpose of viewing on a personal computer or monitor. The reproduction permanent storage or retransmission of the contents of this site is prohibited without the prior written consent of Colette Stroud Family Law. Whilst we use reasonable endeavours to ensure that all content and downloads on this website are free from viruses and other harmful content, we cannot guarantee this and you are recommended to put in place your own anti-virus measures. Colette Stroud Family Law cannot accept any liability for any virus or other harmful content downloaded from or contained on this site.

Colette Stroud Family Law’s name, trademarks and logos appear on this website. They may not be used without the prior written consent of major family law.
Please read our privacy policy to understand how information you submit, or which is collected through the website is used by us.

Cookie Policy

Privacy Notice: Website users

At Colette Stroud Family Law (hereinafter referred to as CSFL) Law we are committed to ensuring that you can use and enjoy our website without having to compromise your privacy in any way. The purpose of this notice is to explain how we collect, use and are responsible for any personal data you provide to us as a result of using our website.  If you are a client or employee of ours (or become one) we process a wider range of personal data and you will be provided with further information about how we use that data. A copy of our Privacy Notice for clients can also be accessed via our website.

CSFL is the sole owner of the information collected on this website. We do not sell, share or transfer this information except as set out in this statement.

Who we are

CSFL is the ‘controller’ of your personal data for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and other applicable data protection laws. Colette Stroud is responsible for data protection within our firm. Please contact her using the details available on the main site if you have any queries about this Notice. CSFL is registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Categories of personal information we process and our lawful reasons for doing so

Potential Clients or Persons Looking for Information or Assistance

You do not have to give us any personal information in order to use most of this website. However, if you wish to make an enquiry, you will need to provide certain information on the Enquiries Form. If you wish to access our free online consultation/assessment service, you will be asked to provide more detailed personal information. This online service is operated by a company called ???? and before providing any information you will be able to access its Privacy Notice which clearly explains how ??? look after your personal data when you use the system, what your privacy rights are, and how the law protects you.
If you make an enquiry then the type of information which we collect about you includes your name, address, telephone number, email and date of birth. We rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing this information, and by making the enquiry you agree to us contacting you regarding the information provided.

Who do we share the information with?

The personal information you provide via this website will only be used for the purposes of responding to your query. We will not disclose information we keep about you to any third parties without your consent unless we are required to do so by law enforcement agencies, for example to prevent money laundering, terrorist financing or financial crime. We may also be obliged to disclose information by court order.

How long we keep your personal data

If you contact us with an enquiry via an online enquiry form, a telephone call or an email to any of the email addresses provided on our website, but do not become a client of ours, we will retain your name, contact details and any other data you submit to us on our client database for 7 years. This is so that we have a record of the enquiry should you come back to us again. After 7 years your details will be deleted from our system.

Our security

CSFL uses industry standard safeguards to protect the confidentiality or your personal data. We use firewalls and anti-virus software, our computers are encrypted, and we use password protection access for all of our systems. We follow the government’s National Cyber Security Centre guidelines with regard to the safe storage of your data and password protection procedures.

Use of cookies

Cookies, are very small text files that are stored on your computer when you visit some websites. 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. Primarily, we use cookies to find out information on the number of visitors to the various parts of the site so that we can compile statistical reports on website activity. We collect this information in a way which does not identify any individuals. You can disable any cookies already stored on your computer through your browser settings, but this may stop some aspects of our website from functioning properly.

Contacting us via social media

Colette Stroud manages our social media interactions. If you send us a private or direct message via social media the message is deleted once it has been actioned by us.

Access to your information, questions, or complaints

You have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you and/or to ask us to correct or remove information which you think is inaccurate. In certain circumstances you have a right to object to the processing of your personal information and can ask us to delete personal data that we hold about you, but this does not apply where we have a legal justification to continue processing your data or an overriding legitimate interest.

To obtain a copy of this information or to make a request as outlined above, please email or write to Colette Stroud whose details appear on our main website.

Data protection law in the UK is regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). We are accountable to the ICO in relation to all of our personal data processing activities. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the ICO (https://ico.org.uk/concerns/). We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so we request you to kindly contact us in the first instance.

Inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy notice or privacy policy.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this webpage. This privacy policy was last updated in January 2022.

Privacy Notice Clients

The Firm’s Compliance Officer for Legal Practice is Colette Stroud.

Please read the following information carefully. This privacy notice contains information about what data Colette Stroud Family Law (hereinafter referred to as CSFL) collects and stores about you and why. It also tells you who we share this information with, the security mechanisms we have put in place to protect your data and how to contact us if you have a complaint.

What information do we collect?

CSFL collects, uses and is responsible for personal information about you. When we do this we are the controller of this information for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UKGDPR) and other applicable data protection laws. CSFL collects and processes a range of information about you.
This may include:

• Your name, address and contact details including email address and telephone number.
• Your date of birth and gender.
• Information about your marital status, next of kin, dependents and emergency contacts.
• Details of your bank account and National Insurance number.
  Information about your renumeration, tax and entitlement to benefits such as pensions.
• Information about your assets including those of your spouse/partner.
• Information about your nationality and entitlement to work in the UK.
• The terms and conditions of your engagement of CSFL.
• Information about medical or health conditions including whether or not you have a disability for which CSFL needs to make reasonable adjustments.
• In some cases, information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion or belief. CSFL may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be collected through a questionnaire which we complete, obtained from your passport or other identity documents such as your driving licence, from forms completed by you, from correspondence with you or through interviews and meetings that we have.

CSFL only seeks personal information about you from third parties such as employers, doctors, HMRC and benefits offices with your consent.

Why do we process personal data?

CSFL needs to process data to enter into a legal services contract with you and to provide you with the appropriate rage of legal services.

In some cases, CSFL needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, it is required to meet its obligations under anti money laundering legislation and to comply with the requirements of its regulator (currently the Solicitors Regulation Authority).

In other cases, CSFL has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the client relationship. Processing client data allows CSFL to:

• Ensure the right parties are engaged to provide you with the optimal legal services. through the court system (if necessary) and to provide you with advice most appropriate to your case.
• Liaise effectively with government agencies such as the Child Protection Agency or Child Maintenance Service.
• Effectively represent you when dealing with other solicitors and third parties e.g. expert witnesses and council.
• Ensure the options for your case direction are presented in full e.g. mediation and collaborative law.
• Respond to any complaints by you.
• Where we process other special categories of personal data such as information about ethnic origins, sexual orientation, religion or beliefs, details about your health (where relevant), this is done not only for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring but also to fulfil the terms of engagement with you

Who will we share your personal information with?

Your information may be shared internally including with support and IT staff if access to the data is necessary for the performance of their roles. CSFL also shares your data with third parties that process data on its behalf in connection with their IT and case management systems.

We will share personal information with law enforcement agencies if required by applicable law.

We will not share your personal information with any other third parties such as barristers or other law firms without your consent.

What if you do not provide personal data?

You have some obligations under your legal services contract to provide CSFL with data under the implied duty of good faith. Failing to provide the data may mean that you are unable to exercise your statutory rights during and at the end of your case.

Certain information such as contact details, identity documents for anti-money laundering checks and payment details are required as part of our entering into a legal services contract with you. If you do not provide other information as required, this will hinder CSFL’s ability to administer your case efficiently.

How do we protect data?

Data will be stored in a range of different places including in your case matter file, in CSFL case management systems and in other IT systems (including the CSFL email system).

CSFL takes the security of your date seriously. CSFL has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidently destroyed, misused or disclosed and is not accessed except by its employees in the performance of their duties.

Where CSFL engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions. The third party will be under a duty of confidentiality and obliged to implement appropriate, technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.

How long will we store your data for?

CSFL will retain your personal data only for as long as is necessary to ensure that we can fulfil our business requirements and to comply with our regulatory requirements. After that period, we will confidentially destroy all data.

CSFL will typically hold all personal data for the duration of your matter and for a further seven years after your matter concludes. In some cases, however, we retain personal data for a longer period to enable us to adequately address and assist with any query or dispute that may arise in the future such a request to vary an existing order. This includes private children proceedings, cases involving a financial order for child maintenance and cases involving a financial order for spousal maintenance, payable beyond a 6 year period. We will notify you of the specific period for which your data will be retained by us in our file closure letter.

The Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 require us to keep client identification records and documents for 5 years from the end of our business relationship. At the end of the 5 year period the regulations require us to delete this personal data unless certain exceptions apply. As stated above, in most instances we retain complete files including personal identification documents for over 5 years. We do this because the data may be required by us should we be sued, or should some other action be brought against us in relation to the matter for which we were instructed by you.

By ensuring our business records are adequate, we can maintain the requisite levels of insurance to protect our clients.

Your rights

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights that you can exercise free of charge. In summary, these rights are to:

• Access to your personal information and other supplementary information.
• Require us to correct any mistakes or complete missing information we hold on you.
• Require us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances, for example where the data is no longer necessary for the purposes of processing.
• Receive a copy of the personal information you have provided to us or have this information be sent to a third party. This will be provided to you or the third party in a structured commonly used in machine readable format.
• Object at any time to processing of your personal information for direct marketing (note CSFL does not currently engage in direct marketing).
  Object in certain other situations to the continue processing of your personal information.
• Restrict our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

If you want more information about your rights under the UK GDPR, please see the guidance from the Information Commissioners Office on individual rights under the UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact Colette Stroud.

How to make a complaint

The UK General Data Protection Regulation also gives you the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office who can be contacted by calling 0303 123 1113.

Future processing, we do not intend to process your personal information for any reason other than stated within this privacy notice. If this changes, we will inform you by letter or email.

Changes to this privacy notice

We constantly review our internal privacy practices and may change our policy from time to time. When we do, we will update the notice on our website.

Get in touch

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you, please contact Colette Stroud on 0191 5806044 or colette@csfamilylaw.co.uk

Colette Stroud Family Law Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing a high-quality legal service to all our clients. When something goes wrong, we need you to tell us about it. This will help us to improve our standards. If at any point you become unhappy with the service that we provide to you or you have concerns about your bill, then you should inform us immediately so that we can do our best to resolve the problem for you.

If you have a complaint, please contact Colette Stroud with the details.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within 3 working days of receiving it enclosing a copy of this procedure.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. This means that Colette Stroud will review your file and speak to the member of staff against whom the complaint is made.
3. Colette Stroud where necessary and if appropriate, may invite you to attend a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. She will do this within 14 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
4. Within 3 days of any meeting should it be deemed necessary and appropriate; Colette Stroud will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions she has agreed with you.
5. If you do not want a meeting or it is not possible or indeed it is not considered appropriate, Colette Stroud will send you a detailed written reply to your complaint including her suggestions for resolving the matter within 21 days of sending you the acknowledgement letter.
6. At this stage if you are still not satisfied, you should contact us again and we will arrange for someone unconnected with the firm to review her decision.
7. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving your request for a review confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.
8. If we are unable to resolve your complaint within 8 weeks after you have brought it to our attention, then you can have the complaint independently looked at by the Legal Ombudsman. The Legal Ombudsman investigates complaints about poor service from lawyers. The Legal Ombudsman can investigate complaints up to 6 years from the date of the problem happening or within 3 years of when you found out about the problem. If you wish to refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, this must be done within 6 months of our final response to your complaint.The contact details for the legal ombudsmen are as follows:Website: www.legalombusman.org.uk.
   Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
   Telephone: 0300 555 0333 between 8.30am to 5.30pm.Call from both mobiles and landlines to 03 numbers cost no more than calls to national geographic numbers starting 01 or 02. Calls are recorded and may be used for training and monitoring purposes.

For Mini com call 0300 555 1777.

In writing: Legal Ombudsmen, PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9W

Do not send original documents to the Legal Ombudsman. They will scan any documents you send to make computer copies and then destroy the originals.

• The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority (SRA) can help you if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for concerns about dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability, or other characteristic. You can raise your concerns directly with the solicitor’s regulation authority (www.sra.org.uk)
• If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.
• We will not charge you for handling your complaint.

 

January 2022.