Privacy Notice
No.53 Legal Limited is committed to protecting your personal information. This notice explains how we collect and use the personal information we request from you. We are what is known as a registered Data Controller with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
No.53 Legal Limited is an Alternative Business Structure authorised and licensed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under no. 628100.
Our data protection officer is Lea Christiaanson who can be contacted by email.
Protecting the Data
We know that your information is valuable and we will take all reasonable steps to protect it whilst in our care. We use technology (firewalls, data encryption and physical access controls to our offices and computer systems) and operational security to protect personally identifiable data from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. We have high standards in relation to confidentiality obligations and both internal and external parties agree to protect the confidentiality of all information to ensure all personal data is handled and processed in line with our strict confidentiality and data protection policies.
Children
Neither our services or our website are aimed at children as we do not typically take instructions from children and therefore do not typically process their data except under instruction from their parents or guardians.
Collecting Data
The exact information we collect from you will depend entirely on what you have asked us to do for you, the vast majority of which will usually be under contract. There are two types of personal data, which are detailed below. The data we request in most cases will be restricted to basic information needed to complete identification checks, however given the nature of our work, there is every possibility that a client will need to disclose data that will fall into the sensitive category.
Personal Data: general data such as name, address, gender, DOB, contact details, financial information and so forth.
Sensitive Personal Data: ethnicity, religion, race, sexual orientation, political opinions, health data, trade union membership, biometric/genetic data, philosophical views and so forth.
Obtaining the Information
The information may be gathered from various sources including:
From you, which you volunteer to us
Information you have provided to us about someone else if you have the authority to do so (e.g. in relation to a child or ex partner)
Information which may be passed to us by third parties so that we can undertake legal work on your behalf, this may include, but is not limited to:
Banks and building societies
Organisations, such as PSU, who may have referred you to us
Medical or financial institutes who provide your personal records and information
Submitting an online enquiry, or an email enquiry to ask us a question or concerns you have
Post comments on our website where we have invited the public to comment.
When you leave reviews about us online, such as Trustpilot and so forth
The personal data we collect will be used for the following purposes:
Confirm and verify your identity
Fraud prevention
Direct marketing (rarely)
Network and information systems security
Communicating with you
To establish the source of your funds and to establish the funding of your case or transaction
Internal record keeping, including transactions received from you and or made on your behalf
Seeking advice from legal and non-legal experts
Data analytics to improve our products and services
To contact clients for market research purposes – via email only.
To customise our website according to interests
To enable us to work on clients’ cases effectively
Responding to complaints or allegations of negligence against us
Identifying effectiveness of marketing/promotions
Our legal basis for processing the personal data:
Contract – where you request us to assist you with a case and or where you instruct us in your case.
Consent: where we assist you on a duty day or undertake a financial assessment
Legal Requirement: where we represent you in court or assist you under contract where our regulator requires us to retain information.
Consent
Consent is not required for No.53 Legal Limited to process both types of personal data in relation to work we carry out for you under contract, but it must be explicitly given for other purposes. Where we are asking you for sensitive personal data we will always tell you why and how the information will be used.
You may withdraw your consent at any time by emailing us to request such to team@No53Legal.co.ul in line with the withdrawal of consent procedure under GDPR Doc 2.74
Disclosure
No.53 Legal Limited will not pass on your personal data to third parties without first obtaining your consent, except in line with contractual or legal duties.
Retention & Access
We have a data protection policy to oversee the secure processing of your data. We do not sell your information to third parties or share it with third parties for the purposes of marketing. We will rarely use your data to market directly to you ourselves. There may be circumstances in carrying out work on your case where we will need to disclose some information to third parties, for example, but not limited to:
Solicitors/barristers/legal executives acting for the other party
Asking an independent barrister for advice or to represent you in court
Non legal experts to obtain advice/assistance
External auditors to our regulator, e.g. Lexcel, SRA, ICO and so forth
Insurance Companies
Providers of identity verification
Any disclosure required by law or regulation
If there is an emergency and we think you or others are at risk
All such third parties must also comply strictly and confidentially with our instructions to not use your personal information for their own purposes unless you have explicitly consented to them doing so.
Where specific consent to keep your data is required, we will ask for it. See ‘Consent’ section above.
We will retain your data in computer/manual files only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purpose for which the data was collected, or as required by law or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you may hold with us. E.g.:
As long as necessary to complete your legal work
For a minimum of seven years from the conclusion or closure of your legal case in case you or we need to re-open your case for the purpose of defending complaints or claims against us.
Accessing your personal information
You have a right to ask us to provide you with the information we hold about you. Please email us your request to team@No53Legal.co.uk. We will send information we hold via email in PDF format. You will be asked to prove your identity before information is released and may be required to do so in person.
Your Rights
You can access your personal data under the GDPR and can do so by emailing us. You are entitled to a copy of the data we hold on you such as your name, address, contact details, DOB, information regarding your health etc., but it does not mean you are entitled to the documents that contain this data. Under certain circumstances in addition to the entitlement to access your data you have the following rights:
The right to be informed – this privacy notice and our explanation covers this
The right to rectification – you can have your personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
The right erasure/right to be forgotten – to ask for your personal data to be deleted where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing. This right only applies in the following specific circumstances:
Where the personal data is no longer necessary in regards to the purpose for which it was originally collected
Where consent is relied upon as the lawful basis for holding your data and you withdraw your consent
Where you object to the processing and there is no overriding legitimate interest for continuing the processing
The personal data was unlawfully processed
Where you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes
The right to object – you have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests and direct marketing. This right only applies in the following circumstances:
An objection to stop processing personal data for direct marketing is absolute, there are no grounds or exemptions to refuse. We must stop processing in this instance
You must have an objection on grounds relevant to your particular situation.
We must stop processing your personal data unless
We can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your interests, rights and freedoms, or
The processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
The right to restrict processing – you have the right to request the restriction or suppression of your data. When processing is restricted, we can store the data but not use it. This right only applies in the following circumstances.
Where you contest the accuracy of the personal data – we should restrict the processing until we have verified the accuracy of that data
Where you object to the processing (where it was necessary for the performance of public interest or purpose of legitimate interests) and we are considering whether our organisation’s legitimate interests) and we are considering whether our organisation’s legitimate grounds override your right
Where processing is unlawful and you request restriction
If we no longer need the personal data but you require the data to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.
Complaints
Please raise all complaints via email.
If you are unhappy with our work or something that we have done or failed to do, please inform us in writing. We will acknowledge receipt of all complaints and will endeavour to investigate the complaint within 28 days. If you are a client, please refer to your client care letter for further details of how you can complain.
You are also entitled to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are concerned with how we are handling your personal information. You can find their online concerns form.
Our Clients
Prospective Clients: We will ask for your consent to hold your data.
Fixed Fee Clients: The legitimate interest for us to hold your data is on a legal basis. You have the option to exclude yourself from any marketing we may send by informing us by email to team@No53Legal.uk.
Full Conduct Clients: as for fixed fee clients the legitimate interests are legal. We rarely send marketing information but you have the right to exclude yourself from it by emailing us to the email address above.
Recruitment: We will ask for your express consent for your personal data on our application forms.
We rarely market directly to individuals, so it is very unlikely that your personal data will be used for this purpose, but if it is, we will ask for your consent when we take that data from you.
Lea Christiaanson
Data Controller
12 May 2025