Privacy Policy

This notice explains how DE Law Ltd will collect, use or otherwise process your personal data.

“Personal data” is information relating to you as a living, identifiable individual. DE Law Ltd will process your personal data in accordance with data protection and privacy laws applicable to the firm (including, as applicable: the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK GDPR and the EU GDPR).

The information we use and where we get it from

We are committed to providing a confidential service to its clients. Most of the information that we process will have been provided by you. We may also process information when we talk to experts, witnesses, the Legal Aid Agency or other statutory agencies on our clients’ behalf and with their consent. We only collect the minimum amount of data that we need to offer effective legal representation. We process various categories of personal information such as; contact details and information about housing, employment, benefits, immigration, finance and relationships. All of the information is relevant to the services that we access for our clients. We often process certain special categories of information, including that concerning health and criminal convictions and we also collect data for The Legal Aid Agency about age, gender, ethnicity and disabilities. These special categories are counted for statistical purposes to ensure compliance with the Equality Act 2010.

We processes personal information about its staff on the basis of contractual requirements or its legitimate interests to manage human resources. Telephone systems that we use are able to record messages, some of which, may contain personal information.

How we use information

Client information is used on the basis of consent to enable us to provide all legal services expected from a firm of solicitors. At the first meeting with a client we will obtain written permission, from that client, authorising our contact with that client to convey, when necessary, the appropriate and relevant advice throughout the duration of the matter upon which we are instructed. With regard to employee personal data, the legal basis we rely on for processing personal data is that necessary for the performance of a contract or to take steps, before entering a contract. All personal data is processed entirely within the European Economic Area.

Sharing your information

Each client receives a confidential service, the commitment to which we observe very seriously. No information we receive will be shared with any other organisation or individual, without each individual client’s permission. We use third parties to provide specific services for us. They act as data processors on our behalf and we have written contracts in place with them. This means that they cannot do anything with our client’s personal information unless we have instructed them to do so. They will not share personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

How long we will keep your information

The Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) requires that we retain each client’s personal data for a period of six years beyond the resolution of each case conducted. Human resource data will be kept for six years after an employee leaves the firm. Personal information supplied as part of a job application will be kept for one year before it is destroyed. Telephone messages are usually deleted after the message has been retrieved. This period is usually twenty four to forty eight hours but could be up to three weeks, if a solicitor is on leave.

Security

As part of our data protection responsibilities, we have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that your information is kept secure and confidential.

Your rights

You have certain legal rights to control what we do with your information. You have the right to get access to your information; to request that we correct or update your information; to object about or request that we restrict processing your data in some circumstances and to receive your information in a portable format. You also have the right to withdraw your consent at any time or to request that we delete your information.

You should understand that exercising your rights could mean that we are no longer able to provide you with access to our services. If consent is withdrawn, it will not affect the lawfulness of processing that took place prior to the withdrawal. If you think we have breached your rights in any way then you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. They can be contacted via their website at www.ico.org.uk or by telephoning their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

You have rights as a Data Subject under the General Data Protection Regulation as incorporated into the law of the United Kingdom by virtue of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (and known as the UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Our Privacy Policy which is made available on our website and will be provided upon request contains important information on how and why we collect, process, and store your personal data. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data.

Your rights include the right to be informed what information we hold about you which is known as a data subject access request (although obviously it is likely that you will have provided us with such information as we hold). 

You also have the right of access and to request a copy of any information about you that we hold at any time. You also have a right of rectification and, in particular, to request that information is corrected if it is inaccurate. 

There are also other rights available to you, but these may be limited to a certain extent should you become a client as we may have overriding regulatory duties with respect to handling of your data for the purposes of providing services to you.

In particular, you may have a right of erasure (also known as the right to be forgotten). In certain circumstances, this allows you to request that we erase your personal data. This is not an absolute right however and, once you become a client of our firm, we will be required by our regulators and for legal purposes to retain some of your personal data and other information within casefiles (for retention periods, please see below). 

If you are concerned about our handling of your personal data, there are also other rights available to you: a right to restrict processing; a right to data portability; a right to object and to request we stop processing your personal data; and a right in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

Importantly, you also have rights to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you feel that your data is not being handled properly. 

For information on how your information is used, how we maintain the security of our information, and/or to exercise any of your data rights as explained above, please contact us. Similarly, if you wish to make a complaint in relation to our handling of your data, such as any potential data breach, then please contact us at the earliest opportunity.

We are regulated by ICO.

Further Information about your data rights and how to exercise them is set out in our Privacy Policy (see above about how to access that). Further details are also available by visiting the Information Commissioner’s Office’s website at https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/.

Please mark your enquiry, request, or complaint for the attention of Richard Demczak, who is our Data Protection Officer and the person in this firm responsible for data protection. All enquiries and requests can be sent by emailing richard@delaw.co.uk or in writing to DE Law Ltd, 27 Bankside, Station Approach, Kidlington, Oxon OX5 1JE.

How long will we hold your data?

We will only hold your information for as long as necessary to provide you with legal services and then for only so long as we are required either contractually or under our regulatory obligations. This will generally be six  (6) years after the end of your matter. For some cases, for instance where you or a named party are currently under the age of eighteen (18), we may decide that we are required and/or it is proper and appropriate to keep your data for longer than this period, but we will notify you if we believe that your case falls into this category.

After the designated retention time, we will destroy all information that we hold about you (in accordance with the clauses below relating to storage and retrieval) other than your name, address and date of birth or other information which we will be obliged to continue to hold for the purposes of ensuring that we never act for another client where doing so would conflict with our obligations of confidentiality to you.

USE OF COOKIES

This website uses cookies to better understand the users’ experience while visiting the website. Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer’s hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server, to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website onto their computer’s hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browser’s security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors or use the cookie control system if available upon their first visit.

Complaints Procedure

We are committed to providing high quality legal service to all of our clients.  When something goes wrong we need you to tell us about it.  This will help us to improve our standards. 

Our Complaints Procedure

If you have a complaint please contact us with the details. You may either telephone or set out your complaint in writing.

What will happen next?

We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within seven days of receiving your complaint enclosing a copy of this procedure. 

We will then investigate your complaint thoroughly.  This will normally involve passing your complaint to our Complaints Officer who will review your matter file and speak to the member of staff who acted for you.  We will also record your complaint in our central register.

We will ask you whether you wish us to deal with your complaint over the telephone, by way of a meeting or in writing.  We will aim to respond in full to your complaint within 21 days of receiving the file of papers (sometimes in storage) together with the relevant information from the fee earners involved.  

Once you have received a response you can, if you are not satisfied contact us again and we will arrange to review our decision. 

If you want us to review your decision we aim to be in a position to respond to you in full with our further decision within 21 days of your request.  At this time we will write to you confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

Legal Ombudsman

We hope that we have been able to resolve your complaint satisfactorily. However, if you remain unhappy with our response then you can refer your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, an independent complaints body established under the Legal Services Act, who can investigate complaints about the legal service you have received from us. The Legal Ombudsman expects complaints to be made to them within one year of the date of the act or omission about which you are concerned or within one year of you realising there was a concern. You must also refer your concerns to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of our final response to you. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are: – 

Telephone: 0300 555 0333 

Website: www.legalombudsman.org.uk 

Post: Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough, SL1 0EH

Fees

DE Law operates as a private legal practice. From October 2025, we hold a Legal Aid contract, enabling us to provide Legal Aid services to individuals charged with, or interviewed in connection with, criminal offences. For matters before the magistrates’ court, we offer a fixed-fee private service for single appearances relating to road traffic offences.

In most cases, an application for Legal Aid will be made. Our private fee structure is designed to be fair, transparent, and reflective of the high calibre of our advice and proven track record. We will clearly explain our fees to you prior to commencing any work on your behalf.