Privacy Policy
This policy is intended to explain how we use your information and what your rights are in relation to how we use your information.
Berkson Family Law Solicitors Limited trading as Berkson Family Law Solicitors (‘the Firm’) is a Limited Company registered in England and Wales with company number 10189977. The Firm’s registered office is at 2nd Floor Granite Building, 6 Stanley Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 6AF.
The Firm is the ‘Controller’ for data protection purposes. This means that the Firm collects and holds your information and decides what it will be used for. The Firm is subject to the requirements of data protection legislation applicable to the UK and must use your personal data in accordance with the law. The Firm is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), with registration number ZA426369.
Our services frequently involve children and vulnerable individuals. Where we process personal data relating to children, this will usually be provided by a parent, guardian or person with parental responsibility, or obtained in connection with legal proceedings
Adele Schofield, is responsible for data protection compliance within the Company and you can contact her to discuss this privacy policy any data protection related issues or queries.
Telephone: 0151 236 1234
Email: a.schofield@berksonfamilylaw.co.uk
Post: 2nd Floor Granite Building, 6 Stanley Street, Liverpool, Merseyside, L1 6AF
We are not required to appoint a statutory Data Protection Officer under UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
IF YOU ARE A VISITOR TO OUR WEBSITE
When you visit our website, we use Google Analytics to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this so that we can find out how people use our website e.g., how many people visit our website and which areas they look at.
We have anonymised this information by ensuring that your IP address cannot be identified.
You may refuse the use of the cookies used by analytics via the settings in your browser (see cookies section below).
Our lawful basis for using your information in this way will be two-fold:
- For our legitimate interests in understanding how our website is used; and
- Your consent to our use of cookies via our cookies consent bar which appears when you first visit the homepage of our website.
How we use cookies
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. 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.
Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies. A persistent cookie consists of a text file sent by us to your computer and will be stored on your computer until its set expiry date (unless deleted by the user before the expiry date). A session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when you leave our site.
We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on this website. This list below explains the cookies we use and why:
(a) _gid – keeps an entry of unique ID to provide statistical data
(b) _gat – monitors Google Analytics server requests
(c) _ga – records particular ID used for data on website usage
Cookies _gat is a session cookies, whereas cookies _gid and _ga are persistent cookies.
Our lawful basis for using your information in this way will be two-fold:
- For our legitimate interests in understanding how our website is used; and
- Your consent to our use of cookies via our cookies consent bar which appears when you first visit the homepage of our website.
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.
Using our contact form
If you submit your personal details to us by completing and submitting our contact form, we will use your information to:
- Contact you to respond to your request for contact.
- Send information to you about the firm and its services, where you have given us express authority to do so.
We will add your contact details to our electronic database and keep them for as long as you provide your consent for us to use your contact details in this way.
Our lawful basis for using your information in this way will be two-fold:
- For our legitimate interests in marketing our services; and
- Upon your express consent (where required by law).
Will not share information received through our contact form with any third party unless you expressly authorise us to do so or we are required by law.
TELEPHONING OUR OFFICES
We record telephone calls to our offices for training, quality assurance and regulatory compliance purposes. Call recordings are retained for a limited period and access is restricted to authorised personnel only. Our lawful basis for this processing is our legitimate interests and compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.
VISITING OUR OFFICES
We do not use Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) at our office premises.
IF YOU MAKE AN ENQUIRY TO OUR FIRM
Where you make an enquiry to our firm but do not instruct us following that enquiry, we will hold details of your enquiry on our systems for up to 12 months. This is for our legitimate interests in being able to ensure that we can recall your enquiry should you revisit the matter with us some weeks or months later, therefore improving your experience with us, and to ensure that we can call upon it if any complaint is made about the way that we handled your enquiry. After this time, the record of your enquiry to us, along with your personal data that you provided to us, will be permanently deleted from our systems.
If we seek consent from you to send details of our services that we may think may interest you in the future, then we will hold your contact details on our marketing database until you ask us to stop sending such materials. Where this is by email, you can unsubscribe from our marketing at any point using the unsubscribe facility in each and any marketing email that we send to you. Your details will be removed from our systems as soon as possible after receipt of a notification from you that you no longer wish to receive our marketing material, and no longer than one month after receipt of your notice.
IF YOU ARE A CLIENT
Legal basis for processing personal data
We keep your information confidential and will not disclose it to third parties unless disclosure is:
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- Authorised by you;
- Necessary as part of the legal services we are providing to you (to perform our contract with you);
- Required by law or our professional rules;
- Necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party (in other words, we have a compelling justification for the disclosure or processing); or
- Necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person i.e. to protect a life.
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Our reasons for processing your personal data will also fall into at least one of the five categories listed above.
Where we process any special categories of your personal (such as health data, racial or ethnic data, religious data etc.), our processing will be based on at least one of the following conditions:
- Explicit consent from you.
- It is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another natural person where you are physically or legally unable to give consent.
- Processing relates to personal data which you have manifestly made public.
- Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims.
In most cases, our processing of your personal data is necessary to perform our contract with you and to comply with our legal and professional obligations as solicitors. We do not generally rely on consent as the legal basis for processing client data, except where consent is required by law or where processing is optional.
Please contact us if you would like more information about our legal basis for processing your personal data.
How we use your personal data
We use your information primarily to provide legal services to you. We also use your information for: accounting and billing purposes; to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations, and to manage our business effectively. With your authority, we may also send you information about our services or events that we think may be of interest to you. We will seek your written consent to do this.
Sharing your personal data with third parties
We may, on your authority, work with other professionals to progress your matter, and may need to disclose relevant information about you to them. Examples include barristers/ counsel, experts, costs specialists, other lawyers etc. We will seek your consent to do this.
Where there is another party(ies) to your matter (i.e., an opponent in litigation etc.), we will liaise with their legal representative (or the third party directly if they are not represented) in order to progress your matter. This may involve us disclosing relevant information about you, to this party(ies) in order for us to provide our legal services to you (to perform our contract with you). Please contact us if you have any queries about this.
Sometimes we outsource part of our work to other people or companies to improve efficiency and your client experience. We will always carry out due diligence and obtain confidentiality undertakings from such outsourced providers. Where we use third-party service providers to assist with your matter, we will ensure appropriate confidentiality and data protection safeguards are in place. You may contact us if you would like further information about these arrangements.
We may in some cases consult credit reference agencies in order to assess your creditworthiness. If you are an individual, we will seek your written consent before we do this. Please note that if you withhold your consent, this may limit the payment options that will be available to you. For example, we may not complete work for you unless you have made a payment on account. Details of the credit agency we use are available on request.
The Firm may become subject to periodic checks by Law Society approved consultants and/or assessors and compliance specialists that we engage the support of. This could mean that your file is selected for checking. All such checks are conducted by individuals who have provided the Firm with a confidentiality undertaking. If you do not agree to your file being able for auditing purposes, please let us know as soon as possible.
We may correspond with you by email if you provide us with an email address, unless you advise us in writing that you do not wish us to do so. You acknowledge that email may not be secure. Email will be treated as written correspondence, and we are entitled to assume that the purported sender of an email is the actual sender and that any express or implied approval or authority referred to in an email has been validly given. Please be aware that the Firm may monitor and read any email correspondence travelling between you and any mail recipient at the Firm as part of its monitoring activities to ensure compliance with its Information Management and Security Policy. Any monitoring is carried out in a proportionate manner and in accordance with our internal IT, communications and monitoring policies.
We will aim to communicate with you by such method as you request. More often than not this will be in writing but may be by telephone if it is appropriate.
Where you provide us with fax or email addresses for sending material to, you are responsible for ensuring that your arrangements are sufficiently secure and confidential to protect your interests. You must tell us if this method of communication is not secure so that can use an alternative method.
The internet is not secure and there are risks if you send sensitive information in this manner or you ask us to do so. Please be aware that the data we send by email is not routinely encrypted.
We will take reasonable steps to protect the integrity of our computer systems by screening for viruses on email sent or received. We expect you to do the same for your computer systems.
Bank details
It is very unlikely that we will change our bank account details during the course of your matter. In any event, we will never contact you by email to tell you that our details have changed. If you receive any communications purporting to be from this firm, that you deem suspicious or have any concerns about (however slight), please contact our office by telephone straightaway.
Holding your personal data
During the progress of your matter, we may hold your information both electronically and in paper format. We will use all reasonable measures to ensure that your information remains confidential and will advise you immediately if we believe that any of your information has been released. We have procedures in place with our staff members to ensure that your information is only seen by members of staff who have a legitimate reason for accessing your file, such as fee earners and support staff working on your file and senior members of the firm for the purposes of supervision, checking your file for quality purposes or to deal with any complaints.
Retention and destruction of your personal data
Once your matter has concluded, we will hold your files in our archive storage (paper files) or archive them on our file management systems (electronic files) for at least 6 years from the date that the matter is closed in line with our retention periods. After that period has elapsed, we will destroy your file securely and/or delete it from our electronic records. Once that has happened, your file will no longer be available.
Transferring your personal data outside of the United Kingdom (UK)
We may transfer your personal data outside of the UK where our storage and/or backup systems are hosted outside of the UK. However, appropriate safeguards are in place, such as adequacy decisions or approved contractual safeguards, to ensure that personal data transferred outside the UK is protected in accordance with UK GDPR.
IF YOU ARE A THIRD PARTY OR THE OTHER SIDE TO OUR CLIENTS’ MATTERS
Personal data that we may receive about you
We will receive information (including personal data) about third parties that are involved with our clients’ matters. For example, opponents to our clients in litigations matters. We will primarily receive information about you from your legal representative unless you are unrepresented and provide this to us directly.
How we use your personal data
We receive this information so that we can provide legal services to our client and therefore our legal basis for processing your information is for our client’s legitimate interests in respect of the legal services that we are providing to them. Your legal representative (if you have one) should have informed you of their purposes for processing personal data and explained that they would need to share your information with us to progress your matter.
Legal basis for processing your personal data
We keep your information confidential and will not disclose it to third parties unless disclosure is:
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- Authorised by you;
- Necessary for the performance of a contract;
- Required by law or our professional rules;
- Necessary for the purposes of our legitimate interests or those of a third party (in other words, we have a compelling justification for the disclosure); or
- Necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person i.e. to protect a life.
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Our reasons for processing your personal data will also fall into at least one of the five categories listed above.
Where we process any special categories of your personal (such as health data, racial or ethnic data, religious data etc.), our processing will be based on at least one of the following conditions:
- Explicit consent from you.
- It is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another natural person where you are physically or legally unable to give consent.
- Processing relates to personal data which you have manifestly made public.
- Processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise, or defence of legal claims.
Please contact us if you would like more information about our legal basis for processing your personal data.
During the progress of our clients’ matters, we may hold your information both electronically and in paper format. We will use all reasonable measures to ensure that your information remains confidential and will advise you immediately if we believe that any of your information has been released. We have procedures in place with our staff members to ensure that your information is only seen by members of staff who have a legitimate reason for accessing your file, such as fee earners and support staff working on your file and senior members of the firm for the purposes of supervision, checking your file for quality purposes or to deal with any complaints.
Retention and destruction of your personal data
Once our clients’ matters have concluded, we will hold your information on our clients’ files in our archive storage (paper files) or archive them on our file management systems (electronic files) for at least 6 years from the date that the matter is closed in line with our retention periods. After that period has elapsed, we will destroy our clients’ files securely and/or delete it from our electronic records. Once that has happened, your information will no longer be available.
Transferring your personal data outside of the United Kingdom (UK)
We may transfer your personal data outside of the UK where our storage and/or backup systems are hosted outside of the UK. However, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place obliging our system and storage providers to process your personal data to the standards expected in the UK. Our providers are bound by the same data protection laws as us, meaning that they have the same obligations to keep your data safe.
IF YOU HAVE APPLIED TO WORK FOR US
Please see our Recruitment Privacy Notice, which provides detailed information about how we process personal data during the recruitment process.
IF YOU ARE CURRENT EMPLOYEE OR FORMER EMPLOYEE
Please see our Employment Privacy Notice, which provides detailed information about how we process personal data during the recruitment process
YOUR RIGHTS
If you are an individual, you have the following rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR):
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- Right to access personal data – you can request details from us of the personal data that we hold about you. This is called a Data Subject Access Request. This request can be made in writing or verbally. Email info@berksonfamilylaw.co.uk or telephone: 0151 236 1234.
- Right to object to processing – you can tell us that you want us to stop processing your personal data.
- Right to object to automated individual decision making including profiling – you can object to us making decisions about you solely by using a computer system without any human consideration.. We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
- Right to rectification – you can ask us to correct personal data that we hold because you believe it is inaccurate.
- Right to erasure – you can ask us to delete the personal data that we hold about you.
- Right to restrict processing – you can tell us that you only want us to use the personal data for a specific reason.
- Right to data portability – you can ask us to transfer the personal data you have provided to us to another organisation or to you, where this applies.
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Please note that these rights are not absolute rights (they are not rights that will be automatically granted), as we have to consider whether there are any reasons why we cannot meet your request. For example, we will not be able to delete data that we are legally obliged to keep. We will let you know if we are not able to meet your request and the reason why (where it is appropriate to disclose this information to you).
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are not happy with the way that we handle your personal data. You can contact the ICO at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF or by calling the ICO’s helpline on 0303 123 1113.
Please note that where you provide consent to us using your personal data, you are entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. You can do this by informing your file handler or contacting our designated Data Protection Manager.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES
This Privacy Policy does not cover any links to other websites that have been included on our website. Please read the Privacy Policies on the other websites that you visit.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
This privacy policy is reviewed regularly and was last updated in February 2026.