The Legal Advice Clinic

The Middlesex University Legal Advice Clinic (MDX LAC) enables law students at Middlesex University to gain practical legal experience while providing free legal advice to members of the local community. Our student advisers work under the direct supervision of qualified solicitors who hold current practising certificates.

The Data Controller is Middlesex University, The Burroughs, London NW4 4BT.

The lawful basis for processing your personal data is the consent that you will be asked to provide when submitting your personal data to MDX LAC.  This Privacy Notice sets out how MDX LAC will use any personal information you send us in relation to your legal query.

Who has access to your personal information?

When you request an appointment with us, you will be asked to provide personal details that will be shared with your consent with our supervising solicitor and student volunteers.

All information you provide will be treated as confidential and securely stored. Access to your data is restricted to authorised staff and advisers within MDX LAC.

Your personal data will not be shared with third parties without your explicit consent, except:

• where required by law;
• where there is a safeguarding concern or risk of serious harm; or
• where you agree to an appropriate referral to another organisation to support your enquiry.

External organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on MDX LAC. Any such organisations are required to maintain complete confidentiality regarding all files that they review.

How information about you will be used

MDX LAC complies with the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Personal information will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Notice for the purpose of providing legal services to you and for case management and service delivery purposes.

In accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, we collect and process your personal data to manage your enquiry and provide free legal advice.

Your rights

You have the right to correct inaccurate information that we hold about you, and in certain cases, to have that personal information deleted by us.

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information on certain grounds, and you can withdraw your consent at any time to our processing of your personal information.  You should be aware that withdrawing your consent may affect our ability to continue providing advice or support.

If you wish to obtain copies of the personal information we hold about you, information about how to do so is in our Middlesex University Subject Access Request Policy.

If you have any concerns or queries about any of the above, please speak to a member of the clinic’s staff or contact the University’s DPA Officer: dpaofficer@mdx.ac.uk

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) about our handling of your personal information.

How long information about you will be retained by us

We will only keep your personal information for as long as necessary, which will depend on the type of information held and the reason for holding it.

We will keep information about you only:

• for as long as necessary to comply with any legal requirement concerning your information;
• in the event that a complaint is made which needs to be resolved;
• to ensure that information about you is accurate and up to date; and
• for the purposes of anonymised research and statistical analysis. 

Client records containing personal information are stored securely for a period of not less than six years after your advice is provided, unless there is an explicit requirement to retain information for a longer period or to destroy information earlier.

Once we decide that it is no longer necessary to keep your information we will either delete it from our records or it will be anonymised.

The MDX LAC stores documents relating to your case in electronic format only. We maintain technical and security measures consistent with standards generally observed in the legal profession.

Information held by third parties outside the EEA

In order to store and process your information we may rely on other organisations that are based outside the EEA. We will only transfer your personal information outside the EEA in order to enable us to assist you with your matter and only on terms which comply with the requirements of applicable data protection legislation.

More information about how we use your personal data

Once you have provided your details to us, we will be in contact with you.

This may be to collect more information about your legal query, or to inform you whether we are able to assist you. At that point we will be able to provide you with more information about how we will be using your personal data.