Prospective Employees Privacy Policy

If you’ve applied for a job with us or sent us your CV on a speculative basis, below you will find out more about the purposes we will collect and use your personal data as detailed below, amongst other things.

Personal data we collect

• Contact details
• Biographical details (name and any other information you choose to provide us with such as your date of birth, gender or gender identity, marital status, dependants, disabilities, or medical conditions)
• Education and employment history (whether in your CV, job application or covering letter)
• Notes of your responses to questions raised at interview
• The results of any exercises or tests undertaken by you during the recruitment process
• your image and likeness, including as captured in photographs taken for work purposes or CCTV;
• details of your education and references from your institutions of study;
• lifestyle information and social circumstances;
• your interests and extra-curricular activities;
• information that evidences periods of residency (such as utility bills, proof of mortgage and travel) or financial circumstances (such as bank statements and proof of income);
• information that evidences your family relationships (such as a birth, adoption, marriage or civil partnership certificate);
• national insurance number (or other tax identification number) and your passport number or national identity card details, country of domicile and your nationality. We will also allocate you a unique staff number and username;
• References obtained from any previous employer(s)
• Receipts for travel expenses, where we have agreed to reimburse you for these
• Information we find about you online, such as public social media profiles

We may also collect, or you may provide us with, the following “special categories of personal data” about you:

• Information about your race or ethnicity, religious beliefs or sexual orientation (whether or not indicated by your gender or gender identity)
• Information about your health, including any disability or medical condition
• Information about criminal convictions or offences

Where we get your personal data from

• We’ll usually get your personal data directly from you
• We may be provided with your personal data by a recruitment firm
• We’ll check the SRA website for details of any disciplinary or regulatory decisions that have been published in accordance with its Decision Publication Policy
• We’ll undertake anti-money laundering, identity and credit checks for any solicitors or staff who will have access to our client systems
• We’ll undertake a standard Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check for any solicitors and a basic DBS check for any other employees through an approved third-party DBS checking provider
• We may obtain personal data about you through social media platforms (to the extent your privacy settings enable us to view your profile or content that you’ve shared on them)

What we use your personal data for

• Undertaking and communicating with you about our recruitment and selection process
• Monitoring the effectiveness of our recruitment and selection policies and procedures for internal purposes
• Evaluating whether we need to provide appropriate adjustments during the recruitment and selection process
• Ensuring meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting to the Law Society or the SRA (you will not be identified in any reports)
• Complying with our legal and professional obligations, to include checking your eligibility to work in the UK as required by immigration law

Lawful basis for using your personal data?

There are six available legal grounds for using personal data. The grounds relied upon by us for the above purposes are:

• We’ll review and consider your CV or application, take notes of any interviews, and communicate with you by any means in line with our legitimate interests in employing or engaging suitable staff as part of our recruitment and selection process
• We may take up references as part of the steps we need to take to enter into an employment or consultancy contract with you
• We’ll check the SRA website and undertake AML, identity and criminal records checks in line with our legal obligation to ensure that anyone working for us is entitled to work in the UK and is of good character and suitability to work within a regulated law firm
• If we review your social media profile, this will be based on our legitimate interests in ensuring the character and suitability of those working for us and protecting our reputation

Who will we share your personal data with?

In addition to our staff (which may include self-employed consultants) and those providing technical services to us (such as cloud service providers that host our business systems), we may share your personal data with:

• Any recruitment agency engaged by us to find candidates
• Our regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority
• Our outsourced regulatory compliance consultant

Period we keep your personal for

We will keep your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes described in this notice or in the terms of any contract that we enter into or for as long as we are required by law or in order to comply with a regulatory obligation. After this, where allowed by laws and this notice, we will erase your personal data. If you are not successful in your application, we will assume you want us to retain your CV in the event that there are any future vacancies that we believe are suitable for you. If our assumption is incorrect please let us know.