Cookies Policy

COOKIES

This Website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our Website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy.

USES MADE OF THE INFORMATION

We gather this information to allow us to provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you (where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes) and to enable us to contact you in the event of any queries. We also gather information to enable us to present features of the Website in the most effective manner for you, to personalise your use of the Website, and for security reasons. We may also use the information to communicate with you on any matter relating to the provision of The Legal 500 service in general, however if the matter is not integral to the nature and operation of the Legal 500 service or the Website, we will only do so where you have consent to be contacted.

On occasions we carry out surveys which may be for research processes relevant to our published materials, for our own purposes, or for more general interest. Participation in any survey is entirely optional. If you give us your consent to send marketing messages we may contact you from time-to-time with carefully selected offers and promotions from us from which you may always opt-out or unsubscribe. It is not our practice to contact you if you have made it clear that you do not wish to hear from us about our products and services.

We may also use aggregate information and statistics for the purposes of monitoring Website usage in order to help us develop the Website and our service and may provide such aggregate information to third parties.

We may disclose any details as required by law or court order or in response to reasonable enquiries from law enforcement agencies.

Unless required to do so by law (see below under section entitled “Disclosure of your information), we will not release, rent or sell your personal information, other than as part of a sale of the whole or a substantial part of the assets of Legalease, without ensuring that suitable arrangements are in place to protect your privacy.

We may also use information held about you in the following ways:

  • to tailor the content that we display to you;
  • to deliver our services and correspond with you in relation to our products;
  • to notify you of changes to our service;
  • to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer or other device used to access our site;
  • for system administration and to report aggregated statistical information about browsing patterns and actions which does not identify any individual;
  • to store usage logs which may be used by us to provide existing and potential authors, contributors, associations that we partner with, subscribers and clients with firm-level (ie not individual) information about the user base and usage patterns;
  • to administer our site and for internal operations, including product development, troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure; and
  • to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about goods or services that may interest you or them.

We may combine information received from other sources with information you give to us and information that we collect about you. We may use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above.

 

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in Section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

We will not usually share your personal information with other third parties without your consent, but may do so in the following situations:

  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property or safety of Legalease Ltd, our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction;
  • where we share aggregated information which does not identify individuals with potential authors, contributors, subscribers and clients;
  • where we are requested to provide information by authorised third parties or regulatory or governmental agencies investigating illegal activities;
  • where we believe that an emergency, illegal activity or some other reasonable basis exists for notifying the relevant authority;
  • where we use subcontractors to provide the service. Any such subcontractor will use your personal information only for the purposes of providing services to us and will have no right to use your personal information for its own purposes;
  • in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;
  • if Legalease Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets;
  • where advertisers and advertising networks require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. Save as expressly stated, we do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users. We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target. We may make use of the personal data we have collected from you to enable us to comply with our advertisers’ wishes by displaying their advertisement to that target audience.
  • where you register for events including seminars and conferences which are sponsored by third parties or have third-party speakers, in which case your details may be shared with those third parties;
  • for analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site; and
  • for third-party payment processing services when you make payment through our site. We do not have access to any credit card or other financial information processed by the third party.

 

WHERE WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Because the internet infrastructure is global, the information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”) that do not have similar data protection legislation during use as set out in this policy (for example, we may host the Website on servers located outside the EEA). However, we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy. Should we wish to transfer data for processing to a country outside the EEA we will ensure that suitable arrangements are in place to protect your privacy. By submitting your information you consent to these transfers.
Your data may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among other things, hosting or maintaining our websites, processing your payment details and providing support services. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

 

SECURITY

We employ security measures to ensure that your personal information is kept secure.

Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

The Internet is not a completely secure medium. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

 

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. We may also give you choices about how we use your information which you can exercise by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at [email protected]

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

 

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

You have a right of access to personal data that is held about you. To obtain a copy of such information, please send an email to [email protected]. Legalease is entitled to charge a reasonable fee this service.

 

UPDATING YOUR DETAILS

If any of the information that you have provided to Legalease Ltd changes (for example if you change your e-mail address) then please log in to the Website and update your profile where necessary, or email us at [email protected] to request that we make the change for you.

 

NEWSLETTER SERVICES

If you sign up to a newsletter service: we shall use your personal information to send it to you by email. If at any time you wish to stop receiving it, please click on the “unsubscribe” link at the end of the newsletter. Your details will be removed from our database.

 

PRINT SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES

Where you have subscribed to a print product connected or affiliated with legal500.com we may ask you for certain personal information in order to allow us to deliver our products by post. The print product to which you have subscribed may be delivered with accompanying printed materials relevant to the product. We will not share delivery information with any third party sponsors or advertisers without your express permission.

To facilitate delivery your data may also be processed by third party suppliers (eg couriers and postal fulfilment companies). Depending on location, those suppliers may use staff operating outside the EEA. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. The date at the bottom of this page indicates when this privacy policy was last updated.

YOUR CONSENT

By submitting your information you consent to the use of that information as set out in this policy. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, and may place notices on other pages of the web site, so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it. Your continued use of the Website will signify your agreement to any such changes.

HOW TO CONTACT US

We welcome your views about our Website and our privacy policy. If you would like to contact us with any queries or comments please send an e-mail to [email protected].

INFORMATION ABOUT OUR USE OF COOKIES

Our Website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our Website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our Website and also allows us to improve our site. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive.

We use cookies to:

  • create a specific log-in session for a visitor to the website in order that page requests by that visitor are delivered in an effective, secure and consistent manner;
  • recognise when a visitor to the Website has visited before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to the Website and allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get;
  • customise elements of the promotional layout and/or content of the pages of the Website; and
  • collect statistical information about how our visitors use the Website so that we can improve the Website and learn which parts are most popular to visitors

Some of the cookies used by the Website are set by us, and some are set by third parties who are delivering services on our behalf. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that or to notify you each time a cookie is set.

1. OUR COOKIES

We have described the main cookies we use and what we use these for below:

Name Purpose More information
SQ_SYSTEM_SESSION  It stores your PHP sessionid so we can store data as part of the standard PHP session system. If you are not logged in, it normally stores nothing, except the fact you are not logged in.

2. THIRD PARTY COOKIES

Certain cookies are either set by third parties on the Website or these are set by us using the third parties cookie code. More information about cookies placed by third parties and how to restrict or block their cookies can be accessed by following the link to their website. In addition to cookies, tracking gifs may be set by us or third parties in respect of your use of the Site. Tracking gifs are small image files within the content of our site or the body of our newsletters so we or third parties can understand which parts of the website are visited or whether particular content is of interest.

Name Purpose More information
Google Analytics: _utma / _utmb / _utmc /_utmz These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html

Some third party cookies are set by services that appear on our pages. They are set by the operators of that service and are not in our control. They are set by Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest and relate to the ability of users to share content on this site.

You can also learn more about cookies by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org which includes additional useful information on cookies and how to block cookies using different types of browser.

Please note however, that by blocking or deleting cookies used on the Website you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website.