Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Ethical Law (ABN 88 396 644 304) collects, uses, discloses and otherwise handles personal information. Personal information is information or an opinion about an identified (or reasonably identifiable) person.

Ethical Law is committed to protecting the privacy of our contacts, customers, and suppliers and complying with the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (Privacy Act) in relation to personal information that it collects, holds and administers.

What types of personal information do we collect?

The types of personal information that Ethical Law collects about you will depend on how you engage with us. For example, if you:

• Seek legal advice or services: we may collect your name, organisation, job title, contact details including address, and information about the matter you are seeking assistance with (which may include personal information)

• Subscribe to our newsletter or another Ethical Law publication: we may collect your name, organisation, job title, contact details and details about the information you access in our publications

• Send us an enquiry: we may collect your name, contact details, any other information included in your email signature, information and details of your circumstances and query

• Make a complaint: we may collect your name, contact details, the details of your complaint, information collected in any investigation of the matter and details of the resolution of the complaint

• Are a supplier or prospective supplier: information about your business skills, services, products and prices.

In most of Ethical Law’s dealings, it is unlikely that we will need to obtain any of your ‘sensitive information’ (which includes details of your racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, health information, etc). If we do require any sensitive information, we will generally only collect it and deal with it with your consent, and only if it is reasonably necessary for what we do.

What if you don’t provide us with your personal information?

Where possible, Ethical Law allows individuals the option of not identifying themselves, or of using a pseudonym, when dealing with us (for example, when viewing our website). 

We are required to collect the full name and address of our clients by Rule 93 of the Legal Profession Uniform General Rules (2015). Therefore we will not be able to provide legal services to clients if name and address information is not provided.

If you do not provide us with accurate personal information we also may not be able to carry out our instructions or achieve the purpose for which the information has been sought.

How do we collect and hold personal information?

Collecting personal information

Where practicable we collect personal information about you directly from you. However, we may have collected information about you from a third party such as a client, a third party information provider, the courts or a person responding to our questions or inquiries.

Ethical Law collects personal information in a number of ways, including:

• through our website (for example, if you subscribe to our newsletter)

• when you correspond with us (for example by email, letter, telephone, video calls or in person)

• when you instruct us to act for you and we open a file and conduct a conflict check

• through forms that we may ask you to complete

• when our clients provide information relating to related and adverse parties relevant to the advice or services we are providing

• when we undertake a search or investigation.

Storing personal information

Ethical Law mostly keeps electronic documents and minimal hard copy documents. We hold personal information in secure and reputable, password-protected, cloud-based servers and applications. We generally do not hold hard copy documents containing personal information, but where this is required, they will be held in secure and locked storage.

If you are a client, we will return any of your original documents that we have to you when we finish working on your matter. We will keep copies of your documents on file, generally for 7 years after the date that the matter has been closed.

Why do we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information?

Ethical Law mainly collects, holds and uses personal information for the following purposes:

• Providing legal services: although most of our legal services are provided to organisations, this will still require us to liaise with one or more people from the organisation, and will require us to collect their personal information in order to determine their authority to represent the organisation.

• General administration: answering queries and resolving complaints.

• Direct marketing: Ethical Law may, from time to time, send you newsletters, invitations and legal updates about our services. You can opt out of receiving further such communications by notifying us using our contact details here or by clicking the "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of any marketing e-mail received from us. Your contact information may be shared with our email marketing provider so they can send these emails on our behalf.

Ethical Law may disclose personal information for the following purposes:

• in order to carry out the instructions of our clients; and

• subject to our confidentiality obligations, when using services in support of our legal practice.

Who do we disclose personal information to?

In the nature of our services, Ethical Law generally will not need to disclose much of your personal information to other recipients, however we may need to share some relevant personal information with parties related to a matter you have with us, government authorities and service providers as reasonably required to carry out your instructions.

In some cases, your personal information may be disclosed to our contracted service providers which may include, for example, information technology service providers, or external business advisors (but only where appropriate and necessary).

We also will disclose your information if required by law to do so or in circumstances permitted by the Privacy Act – for example, where we have reasonable grounds to suspect that unlawful activity, or misconduct of a serious nature, that relates to our functions or activities has been is being or may be engaged in, in response to a subpoena, discovery request or a court order.

Overseas disclosures

As noted above, Ethical Law may store some personal information on databases that are in the cloud. Sometimes these cloud servers may be located outside Australia, for example, if you enter your details on this website, they may be stored by Squarespace in data centres in the United States.

Ethical Law does not otherwise transfer personal information intentionally outside of Australia without express consent, and will take reasonable steps to ensure any information stored in cloud servers not located in Australia is held, stored and dealt with in a manner consistently with the Australian Privacy Principles. By providing us with your personal information you consent to your personal information being stored this way.

Accessing and correcting your personal information

You can contact us to request access to the personal information that Ethical Law holds about you, and we will take reasonable steps to provide it to you (which may incur a fee to cover our reasonable costs for doing so).

You can also request to correct the personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. If we have provided your personal information to third parties we will also notify them of the correction if you ask us to do so, unless it is impracticable or unlawful.

Requests to access and correct your information should be made by email or phone using the details provided here. Note that we will need to verify your identity before processing your request. We will endeavour to respond to your request within 30 days.

If there is a reason for which it is inappropriate for us to comply with your request to access or correct your information, we will provide you with written reasons for our decision and available complaint mechanisms.

How to make a complaint

If you have a complaint about how Ethical Law has collected or handled your personal information, please contact our Principal using the details provided here. We will endeavour to respond to your complaint within 30 days of receipt. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can seek separate advice about whether and how you can take your complaint further, noting that Ethical Law is not legally required to comply with the APPs.

Visiting this website

This website is hosted by Squarespace, which collects personal data when you visit this website, including:

• information about your browser, network and device,

• web pages you visited prior to coming to this website, and

• your IP address.

Squarespace needs the data to run this website, to protect and improve its platform and services, and to provide us with analytics about our website (so we can learn about site traffic and activity). Squarespace analyses the data in a de-personalised form.

Cookies: This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses.

By visiting and using this website, you consent to the above collection, use and disclosure of information.

While Ethical Law strives to protect the personal information and privacy of users of our website, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you disclose online and you disclose that information at your own risk. If you are concerned about sending your information over the internet, you can contact Ethical Law by telephone (details under ‘Contacting Us’) or post (ask us for the postal address). You can also help to protect the privacy of your personal information by letting us know as soon as possible if you become aware of any security breach.

Third party websites: For your convenience, this website includes links to third party websites that may contain useful information for you. Those websites are not operated or controlled by Ethical Law, and we are not responsible for the privacy or security practices of those websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any other websites you visit before providing any of your personal information to them.

Updated 29 December 2020.