Legal & regulatory

By accessing or using our website, you agree to be bound by the provisions set out below and to use this site for lawful purposes only and in a manner consistent with any and all applicable law and regulation in any country in which you access this site.

If you do not agree to be bound in this way, do not continue to access or use our website. We may modify these provisions at any time. Any such modifications are effective immediately from the time they are included on our website. You agree to review these provisions regularly to ensure you become aware of any modifications to them.

Security

The internet is not a secure medium and privacy cannot be assured. We cannot accept any responsibility for any harm or damage you may experience or incur by sending personal or confidential information to us over the internet or by email.

Content

We may remove any material from our website at any time. We are not able to continuously monitor the material relating to any notice board, forum and/or chat room but we may reactively moderate or post-moderate. If you think that any material on any notice board, forum and/or chat room is offensive, infringes your rights or is otherwise inappropriate please contact us immediately.

Contracts

contracts may not be generally be concluded on behalf of ourselves by email.  Where any client engagement with you is entered into via email, you may be able to bring a complaint about our services via the European Online Dispute Resolution platform which can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/odr.

Encryption

Please note that any e-mail sent to or from ourselves and any attachments will not be encrypted unless a secure e-mail service is utilised for communications with you. They may therefore be liable to be compromised. This is an inherent risk in relation to email.  We do not, to the extent permitted by law, accept any liability (whether in contract, negligence or otherwise) for any external compromise of security and/or confidentiality in relation to transmissions sent by email.

Forums, notice boards and chat rooms

Any views expressed on any notice board, forum and/or chat room are not our views but the views of the contributor of that material.  Any notice boards and/or forums or other similar communication channels must not be used by you to upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate any material which is or may be libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, abusive, illegal, invasive of any privacy and/or publicity rights, infringing of any third party intellectual property rights, criminal, in violation of any law or which is otherwise objectionable.

Intellectual property

All website design, text, pictures, graphics and the selection and arrangement of them and all software compilations, coding, underlying source code, software and all other material on this website are copyright the relevant Gateley Group member unless otherwise acknowledged. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.  Any material you upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate via our website will be non-confidential and non-proprietary. We have the right to use, copy, upload, distribute, disclose, publish or otherwise disseminate any such material to any person for any purpose. We have the right to disclose your identity to a regulator and to any person who claims that any material you upload, distribute, publish or otherwise disseminate via our website infringes their rights.  Infringement of our copyright in this website or the materials associated with this website may lead to criminal and/or civil sanctions in the UK, US and other countries.

Permission is granted to you to electronically copy and to print hard copy portions of this website for the sole purpose of using this website as a research and information resource provided you agree not to change and/or delete any content, web design and/or layout contained in that material and acknowledge us (and any identified contibutors) as authors of such material. Any other use of materials on this website including modification, distribution, or republication are strictly prohibited. If you believe that any content of our website in any way infringes intellectual property rights belonging to you or any third party, please contact us immediately.

Any rights not expressly granted by us are reserved.

Links

You may link to our website homepage from a website owned and controlled by you in a way that is lawful and does not damage (or risk damage to) our reputation or take unfair advantage of it. We may withdraw linking permission without notice.  You must not use any link to our homepage to suggest any association, approval or endorsement by us.   You must not frame our website on any website.  We do not accept any responsibility for the information practices of a website you are able to access through a link on our website. We make no representations about any other websites which you may access through links on our website.   The inclusion of a link to a third party website contained on our website does not mean that we endorse that third party website.

Liability

We shall have no liability to you for any loss or damage you may suffer if you enter into any contract as a result of viewing a third party website linked to our website.   Neither we nor any of our affiliates, directors, employees or other representatives will be liable for losses arising out of or in connection with the use of and/or inability to use this website.   We are only providing this website and its contents on an 'as is' basis.  To the maximum extent permitted by law, we make no (and expressly disclaim all) representations, terms, conditions or warranties of any kind with respect to this website or its contents including without limitation warranties of satisfactory quality and fitness for a particular purpose.  In addition, we do not represent or warrant that the information accessible from or via this website is accurate, complete or current.  Materials on our website are commentary, not advice. We will not be liable for any losses arising out of reliance placed on any such materials by you, or any person informed of its contents. If you would like bespoke advice in relation to any matter, please contact one of our team.

The limitations of liability in relation to this website apply to all damages of any kind, including (without limitation) compensatory, direct, indirect or consequential damages, loss of data, income or profit, loss of or damage to property and claims of third parties.

The limitations of liability in relation to this website do not limit our liability to the extent that it cannot be limited and/or excluded by applicable law.

Your use of our website is subject to English law. Any dispute and/or claim arising out of this website is subject to the non exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.
 

If you have a complaint and you have an engagement letter then please use the complaints process set out in your engagement letter. If your complaint is not resolved to your satisfaction then please send your complaint to Executive Director & Partner Michael.Ward@gateleylegal.com.

If you do not have an engagement letter, please send your complaint to Executive Director & Partner, Michael Ward Michael.Ward@gateleylegal.com.

What will happen next?

1. We will send you a letter acknowledging receipt of your complaint within three working days of receiving it, enclosing a copy of this policy.
2. We will then investigate your complaint. 
3. We will then write to you within 14 days of sending the acknowledgement letter with a view to resolving your complaint. In some cases, before writing, we will invite you to a meeting to discuss and hopefully resolve your complaint. Within five days of any meeting, we will write to you to confirm what took place and any solutions agreed with you.
4. At this stage you will be asked to confirm whether any additional information needs to be considered or whether any additional  clarification is required.
5. We will write to you within 14 days of receiving any further information or requests for further clarification confirming our final position on your complaint and explaining our reasons.

If we have to change any of the timescales above, we will let you know and explain why.

If your complaint relates to work by Gateley Legal, and you are not satisfied on written receipt of our final position, you can contact: 

Legal Ombudsman
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton
WV1 9WJ

About your complaint

Any complaint to the Legal Ombudsman must usually be made within six months of the date of receiving our final written response to your complaint  and no more than six years from the date of act/omission; or no more than three years from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint. For further information, you should contact the Legal Ombudsman on 0300 555 0333  or at enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk. 

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help you if you are concerned about the behaviour of Gateley Legal. You can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.