Privacy Notice
This privacy notice explains how we collect and use personal information about you. The information we collect will be different depending on the relationship we have with you.
Who we are
Thompsons Solicitors and Solicitor Advocates is an award-winning firm of solicitors with a passion for justice.
We are best known for our expertise in personal injury and employment law claims and are one of the leading firms of accident injury lawyers in the country.
We are the data controller for the personal data we process.
How to Contact Us
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or want to exercise your rights under data protection, please email
If you are a client
To be able to provide our legal services to you we may require to collect and process personal information about you.
We collect, use and store different types of personal data about you. Detailed below is the data we may collect, what it is used for and our legal basis for processing this data.
Where relevant to your case we may collect the following special category information:
If you make an enquiry
If you make an enquiry directly to us by contacting our contact centre or completing an enquiry form on our website, or contact us via social media, make an enquiry via a third party or at one of our events, we may require to collect and process personal information about you.
We collect, use and store different types of personal data about you. Detailed below is the data we may collect, what it is used for and our legal basis for processing this data.
If you are a witness in a case
We collect and use personal data about you if your details are passed on to us by a client or other witness in a case we are progressing.
We collect, use and store different types of personal data about you. Detailed below is the data we may collect, what it is used for and our legal basis for processing this data.
If you attend one of our events
If you attend one of our events, we may collect and process personal information about you.
We collect, use and store different types of personal data about you. Detailed below is the data we may collect, what it is used for and our legal basis for processing this data.
If you enter a competition
If you enter one of our competitions, we may collect and process personal information about you.
We collect, use and store different types of personal data about you. Detailed below is the data we may collect, what it is used for and our legal basis for processing this data.
If you apply for a job with us
We have a separate Privacy Notice that explains what we do with your personal data when you apply for a job with us. This can be found here.
If you work with us
We have a separate Privacy Notice for our employees. This can be obtained by contacting
Who we may collect your personal information from
We may collect personal information about you from the following sources:
- Directly from you
- From other organisations who refer you to us e.g. Trade unions, charities, other solicitors
- Credit reference agencies and fraud prevention agencies
- Witnesses who provide information about you relevant to your case
- Professional experts e.g. medical experts, occupational health providers, GPs
- Department of Work and Pensions and HMRC
- Recruitment agencies
- Employers / Former employers
Who we may share your information with
We may share your personal information with the following third parties:
- Third parties relevant to your case, e.g. opposing party and their solicitors, counsel, mediators, witnesses, courts, search agents
- Trade Unions or third-party organisations that are supporting you through your case
- Professional experts, such as medical professionals
- Third parties who carry out anti-money laundering checks on our behalf, for example Transunion. More information about how Transunion process your personal data can be found at https://www.transunion.co.uk/legal-information/bureau-privacy-notice.
- The police or other law enforcement agencies, government or regulatory bodies where it is necessary to do so for the purpose of your case, or where we have a legal or regulatory obligation to do so
- Our Insurers
- Our professional advisors such as lawyers and accountants
- Third parties to whom we outsource certain services such as IT system or software providers, confidential waste disposal, translation services, postal/ courier services
If you choose not to give your personal information
If you do not provide us with requested information that we need to collect to meet our legal obligations, or under the terms of the contract we have with you, it may delay or prevent us from being able to perform the contract and/or comply with our own legal obligations.
In some cases, we may be unable to progress your case you or may have to withdraw from representing you.
Keeping your records up to date
You should contact us and let us know if any of your personal information changes to allow us to maintain accurate records for your case. It is important that you always inform us if you change address, email address and/or phone number. Please advise us in writing to
How long we keep your personal information
For those who make enquiries with us for legal advice, and where we are unable to proceed to open a file and act in any substantive legal manner, we will retain your personal information for a period of ten years.
We require to retain this information to satisfy any enquiries or legal actions which may arise following any advice given or view taken by us. We also require to retain this information in order to follow guidelines set out by the Law Society of Scotland.
We will retain client files (which will contain your personal information) for the length of time that we are acting for you in the legal contract in which we have been instructed by you and for a period of ten years after closure of your file. There are some types of personal injury claims where we may retain client files for longer than this, to enable any subsequent claims to be processed.
We require to retain these files to satisfy any enquiries or legal actions arising after the end of your claim and to follow the guidelines set out by the Law Society of Scotland.
In some cases, such as wills, trusts and executries, the nature of the matters, may require us to hold your personal information for longer periods because the time periods for which legal claims can arise are twenty years from conclusion of the Estate.
International Transfers
The information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored on our secure servers in the European Economic Area (“EEA”). However, from time to time, your personal data may be transferred to our trusted partners in a destination outside the EEA (for example in Australia). This will normally be for the purposes of processing a claim we are dealing with on your behalf where international companies are involved. You have the right to object to your personal data being further transferred by our partners to another third party outside the EEA (for example from Australia to the United States). However, please be aware that if you do object, this may adversely affect how we can progress your claim.
Where we transfer your personal data outside the EEA, we will ensure that it is protected in a manner that is consistent with how your personal data will be protected by us in the EEA. This can be done in a number of ways, for instance:
the country that we send the data to might be approved by the European Commission or a relevant data protection authority;
the recipient might have signed up to a contract based on “model contractual clauses” approved by the European Commission, obliging them to protect your personal data; or
where the recipient is located in the US, it might be a certified member of the EU-US Privacy Shield scheme.
In other circumstances the law may permit us to otherwise transfer your personal data outside the EEA. In all cases, however, we will ensure that any transfer of your personal data is compliant with data protection law.
You can obtain more details of the protection given to your personal data when it is transferred outside the EEA (including a copy of the standard data protection clauses which we have entered into with recipients of your personal data) by contacting us in accordance with the “Contact us” section below.
Your Rights
You have the following rights in respect of the personal information we process about you:
- Right of access – you have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you.
- Right of rectification – you have a right to correct data that we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Right to be forgotten – in certain circumstances you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records.
- Right to restriction of processing – where certain conditions apply to have a right to restrict the processing.
- Right of portability – in some circumstances you have the right to have the information we hold about you transferred to another organisation.
- Right to object – you have the right to object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing.
- Right to object to automated processing, including profiling – you also have the right to not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.
- Right to withdraw your consent – if you have given your consent for us to process your information, you have the right to withdraw this at any time.
Please note that some of these rights may be limited where we have an overriding interest or legal obligation to continue to process your personal information, or where personal information may be exempt from disclosure due to reasons of legal professional privilege.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please email
Complaints
We aim to resolve all complaints about how we handle personal information directly and would like you to give us the opportunity to address any concern you have by contacting us at
Our Data Protection Officer is RGDP who can be contacted by email at
You also have the right to make a complaint directly with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). https://ico.org.uk/ 0303 123 1113.
This Privacy Notice was last reviewed January 2023. We may require to update this Privacy Notice occasionally and we will notify you of any significant changes that we make.
