Privacy Policy

What information do we collect about you?

When you engage with us as a client, potential client (or as an employee of one), potential employee, scholarship applicant or service provider, the personal information we may collect includes:

  • your general information, such as your name, contact details (including email and phone number), billing address and billing information;
  • email communications with us, and your written and verbal interactions with us, including instructions, meeting notes and voicemail files;
  • any details you provide to us as part of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 due diligence process;
  • where relevant, information about your health or accessibility requirements (for example, if you attend an event, or we need this to provide you with legal advice);
  • your attendance at any of our events;
  • your business interests and areas of interest and expertise (if you provide these to us or they are publicly available);
  • preferences for any email or marketing communications that you wish to receive from us, such as our AWS Legal/Lawlink eConnect communications;
  • your credit history; and
  • if you are applying for a job or scholarship with us, we may collect information about you relating to recruitment, for example, your work history, academic record and any relevant records or information such as criminal records, visa information, and practising certificates. We may collect such information from third parties such as your previous employer, referees, recruitment agencies, government departments or educational institutions.

How do we use your information?

We may use your personal information:

  • to provide you with our services and information and to maintain and develop our business relationship with you;
  • for employment purposes, such as considering you for a role, clerkship or scholarship;
  • or internal purposes (such as staff training) and internal business purposes such as invoicing and receipting, making payments to you or on your behalf and debt recovery (which may involve disclosing information to debt collectors);
  • to carry out conflict checks and client due diligence and monitor our relationship with you for compliance with applicable laws. This includes any CDD and financial information collected as part of our identity checks, sanction screening and verification of address;
  • for promotional and marketing purposes, including for providing client testimonials where you have given us your consent to do so;
  • to improve or update our services or business;
  • to contact you in relation to any enquiries you make;
  • to confirm or update your contact details; and
  • to provide you with access to our document management system, LawConnect.

We may publish images of CPD sessions or other events we host, and it is possible your image may be shown in our publications.

We may also send you newsletters or other information we think you may be interested in. These could include information that markets our people or services. You can unsubscribe at any time. You can do this through the unsubscribe feature at the bottom of every email you will receive.

We take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction. Some of the ways we protect personal information include:

  • External and internal premises security;
  • Storing your information in access-controlled systems;
  • Providing training on the Privacy Act to staff.

We may store personal information we collect in any format we choose at our offices or at premises outside our offices, including data storage facilities or online storage located within or outside New Zealand, which may be operated by independent service contractors.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as it is required for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.

We may not be able to properly advise you or provide you with the information or other services you require if you do not provide us with necessary personal information when requested to do so.

Who do we disclose your information to?

We will only disclose your personal information to a third party:

  • where you have authorised us to do so;
  • where those third parties help us provide our services to you (for example, another consultancy firm, law firm, expert witness or barrister you have engaged, or your bank);
  • where your personal information is not identifiable or in aggregate form, for example, for the purposes of reporting or responding to surveys;
  • if we are required to or permitted by law to disclose such information; or
  • if we are required to or permitted to by the Law Society’s Rules of Professional Conduct.

Where any third-party disclosure is to an overseas entity, we take reasonable steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and the means of transfer provides adequate safeguards, in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020.

What happens when you visit our website?

Our website uses cookies. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer’s hard drive to

allow us and/or the host of our website to record how many times a user or computers within a user’s network of computers visit the website, the number of times various pages of the website have been accessed and other similar information. You may disable receipt of cookies using features of your web browser that disable or turn off cookies. We do not use cookies to retrieve information that is unrelated to your visit or your interaction with the website.

We collect non-identifying statistical information about all visits to our website and publications. Those statistics allow us to assess the number of visitors to different sections of the website and publications, identify what information is of interest, monitor system performance, and help us make the website and publications more useful to visitors.

Your rights

Under the Privacy Act 2020, you have the right to request access to any personal information we hold about you, and to ask for it to be corrected if you think that it is wrong. If you’d like to exercise that right, or ask us anything else in relation to your privacy, please ask the person you are dealing with, send us an email to privacy.officer@awslegal.co.nz, or send a letter to:

The Privacy Officer, AWS Legal, PO Box 1207, Invercargill 9840

We reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time. All revisions will be made available on the AWS Legal website and will take effect from the date that they are published. This Privacy Policy was last updated on 1 November 2024.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or how AWS Legal protects your information, please contact the firm’s Privacy Officer at privacy.officer@awslegal.co.nz.

Last Updated: December 2024