Privacy Policy

data protection privacy notice.

We are committed to protecting your personal data and respecting your privacy.

This privacy notice explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your information when you engage with us, and your rights in relation to your personal information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA), the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 (DUAA) and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), collectively referred to as “Data Protection Legislation”.

who we are.

Howell-Jones LLP (OC Number OC326254) is a law firm authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA Number 463477).

We provide legal services to individuals and businesses.

We collect and use certain personal information about you. When we do so, we are regulated under the Data Protection Legislation, and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

the personal information we collect and use.

information collected by us.

In the course of advising and / or acting for you we will collect the following personal information when you provide it to us and when you contact us to enquire about our services, completing forms on our website or in person and when you communicate with us via phone, email or post:

  • Your name, address and telephone number.
  • Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g., your date of birth, passport, driving licence details and utility bills.
  • Electronic contact details, e.g., your email address and mobile phone number.
  • Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation.

In the course of advising and / or acting for you we may collect the following personal information, depending on why you have instructed us:

  • Information to enable us to undertake a credit or other financial checks on you
  • Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g., the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction.
  • Your National Insurance and tax details.
  • Your bank and/or building society details.
  • Details of your professional online presence, e.g., LinkedIn profile, X and similar social media accounts.
  • Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g., if you instruct us on a family matter or a will or if the matter involves funds derived from a family member for a transaction, e.g. a gift for a purchase of a property
  • Your employment status and details, including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant, such as the purchase of a property.
  • Details of your pension arrangements, e.g., if you instruct us on a pension matter or in relation to financial arrangements following the breakdown of a relationship.
  • Your employment records, including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances (including relevant special category personal data such as criminal convictions), e.g., if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant.
  • Your racial or ethnic origin, gender and sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim.
  • Your trade union membership, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim or your matter is funded by a trade union.
  • Personal identifying information, such as your hair or eye colour or your parents’ names, e.g. if you instruct us to incorporate a company for you.
  • Your medical records, e.g., if we are acting for you in a personal injury or employment claim.
  • Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information, e.g. if using our secure online client portal

This personal data is required to enable us to provide our service to you. If you do not provide the personal data we ask for, it may delay or prevent us from providing services to you.

information collected from other sources.

We collect most of this information from you directly. However, we may also collect information:

  • from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House or HM Land Registry;
  • directly from a third party, e.g.:
    • sanctions screening providers;
    • credit reference agencies;
    • client due diligence providers;
    • other law firms;
    • the courts;
    • HMRC.
  • from a third party with your consent, e.g.:
    • your bank or building society, another financial institution or advisor;
    • consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;
    • your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators;
    • your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals;
  • via our website – we use cookies on our website. We only use non- essential cookies with your consent, in accordance with PECR. You can manage your cookie preferences at any time using our cookie consent tool. (for more information on cookies and managing preferences, please see our cookie policy)
  • via our information technology (IT) systems, e.g.:
    • case management, document management and time recording systems;
    • reception logs;
    • automated monitoring of our websites and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, CCTV and access control systems, communications systems, email and instant messaging systems;

how and why we use your personal information.

Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use your information, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered the impact on your rights and ensured that our use of your data is fair and proportionate.

We will use (process) your personal data:

  • Providing legal services for contractual necessity for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract:
    • to provide legal services to you
    • updating and enhancing your records
    • to trace your whereabouts to contact you about your matter, and
    • recovering debt
  • Legal obligation to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations:
    • conducting checks to identify you and verify your identity
    • screening for financial and other sanctions or embargoes
    • updating and enhancing your records
    • statutory returns
    • ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments
    • ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information
    • other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g., under health and safety regulations or relating to quality checks, audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies or rules issued by our professional regulator
  • Legitimate interests for us or those of a third party:
    • ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g., policies covering security and internet use
    • operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control
    • ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information
    • statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g., in relation to our financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures
    • updating and enhancing your records
    • preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems
    • marketing our services to existing and former clients
  • Consent – where you have given consent.

Special category personal data includes personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, genetic and biometric data, data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.

Where we process special category personal data, we will ensure we have a valid legal basis and an additional permitted reason for doing so. These include

  • the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims;
  • reasons of substantial public interest (including providing legal services, preventing fraud and safeguarding);
  • compliance with employment law obligations.

Where required, we maintain appropriate internal policies governing this processing.

Where we process data relating to criminal convictions or offences, we do so only where permitted by law and with appropriate safeguards in place.

accessing your data.

Where applicable, we comply with data sharing and access laws and ensure that any third parties we work with handle personal data securely and in line with data protection requirements.
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we will use your personal data to.

  • Deliver our legal services to you
  • Manage our relationship with you
  • Carry out identification and verification checks
  • Communicate with third parties as required by your matter
  • Comply with our legal, regulatory and professional obligations.

who we share your personal information with.

We routinely share personal data with:

  • professional advisers and experts involved in your matter who we instruct on your behalf or refer you to, e.g., barristers, medical professionals, accountants, tax advisors or other experts;
  • other third parties where necessary to carry out your instructions, e.g., your mortgage provider, estate agent, search agencies, panel managers, other conveyancers or HM Land Registry in the case of a property transaction or Companies House;
  • courts, to comply with legal requirements, and for the administration of justice:
  • credit reference agencies;
  • our insurers and brokers;
  • external auditors, e.g., in relation to ISO, CQS or Lexcel accreditation compliance specialists and the audit of our accounts;
  • our bank;
  • external service suppliers, representatives and agents that we use to make our business more efficient, e.g. IT and cloud service providers, typing services, marketing agencies;
  • Regulatory bodies (e.g. the Solicitors Regulation Authority, HMRC, Land Registry, National Crime Agency).

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.

We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law. We will not share your personal data with any other third party.

promotional communications.

We may use your personal data to send you updates about legal developments and our services.
For electronic marketing (such as email or text messages), we will only contact you where permitted by law. This may include where:

  • you are an existing or former client;
  • the marketing relates to similar services; and
  • you were given the opportunity to opt out when your details were collected and in every message we send.

In all other cases, we will ask for your consent.

You can opt out of receiving marketing at any time.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations outside Howell-Jones LLP for marketing purposes.

whether information has to be provided by you, and if so why.

We will inform you at the point of collecting information from you, whether you are required to provide the information to us.

how we store your personal information.

We take appropriate technical and organisational security measures to protect your data. This includes secure servers, encrypted communications (where agreed), and restricted access.

how long your personal information will be kept.

We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
  • to show that we treated you fairly;
  • to keep records required by law.

We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this notice. Different retention periods apply for different types of data (for not less than 6 years after the matter has concluded), depending on legal, regulatory and insurance purposes. When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will delete or anonymise it.

transfer of your information out of the UK.

To deliver services to you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal data outside the UK, e.g.:

  • with your and our service providers located outside the UK;
  • if you are based outside the UK;
  • where there is an international dimension to the matter in which we are advising you.

These transfers are subject to special rules under the Data Protection Legislation. Where we transfer your data outside the UK, we rely on;

  • UK adequacy regulations; or
  • International Data Transfer Agreements; or
  • Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Whenever we transfer your personal data outside the UK, we ensure it is protected by appropriate safeguards and that it continues to receive a level of protection equivalent to UK data protection standards.

If you would like further information, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).

your rights.

Under the Data Protection Legislation, you have a number of important rights free of charge. In summary, those include:

  • the right to be provided with a copy of your personal data (the right of access)
  • the right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data (the right of rectification)
  • the right to require us to delete your personal data in certain situations (the right to be forgotten)
  • the right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data in certain circumstances (the right to restrict processing)
  • the right to move, copy or transfer your personal data (the right of data portability)
  • the right to object to the processing of your personal data
  • the right to object to decisions being taken by automated means which produce legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you (the right not to be subject to automated individual decision-making). We do not carry out automated decision- making that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
  • the right to withdraw consent (where applicable) to us processing your data
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)

For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the Guidance from the ICO on individuals’ rights under the Data Protection Legislation. If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

  • email, call or write to us
  • let us have enough information to identify you
  • let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill), and
  • let us know the information to which your request relates

If you would like to unsubscribe from any email newsletter you can also click on the ‘unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of the email newsletter.

keeping your personal information 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. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality. 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.

how to complain.

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information. The Data Protection Legislation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone: 0303 123 1113.

If you reside or work in another country within the European Economic Area, you may also have the right to complain to the relevant supervisory authority in that jurisdiction.

changes to this privacy notice.

This privacy notice was last reviewed and updated on 20th April 2026. We may change this privacy notice from time to time.

how to contact us.

Please contact us if you have any questions about this privacy notice, wish to exercise your data protection right(s) or inform us of any updates to the information we hold about you. Our contact details are:

Data Privacy Manager: Jess Buttaci
Registered Office Address: 75 Surbiton Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2AF
Contact Address:

Telephone: 020 8090 5192
Email: enquiries@howell-jones.com

We do not have a statutory Data Protection Officer. Our Data Privacy Manager is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this policy notice.

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