Data Commitment

The Legal 500’s Data Commitment

“We will never pass, sell or otherwise transfer any submission information or any client referee data on to any third party, or use that data or information for any other purpose.”

The Legal 500‘s client research process is constantly updating to reflect and adhere to the latest legislation around the world on data protection and privacy, including GDPR guidance. We are committed to treating all client data with the highest possible sensitivity and transparency, and always in the strictest confidence. We go to great lengths to ensure data we handle is secure, that we only ask for essential, directly relevant data in the first place, and that we only retain any data at all for as long as is absolutely necessary.

Our Data Handling Toolkit below sets out the specific ways in which we take care of client data and privacy.

Comprehensive terms and conditions for the transfer of submissions data between your law firm and The Legal 500 can be found here. The Data Handling Toolkit is a summary of those terms and conditions.

Why does The Legal 500 need this data?

Client referee data is used solely and exclusively for research processes. It is never used for any marketing purposes or sales campaigns of any kind. Contact information is used only for the purposes of sending clients our confidential survey, and to let them know when we have published our findings that year. Thereafter, we delete it all immediately – no exceptions.

NB: We will never pass, sell or otherwise transfer any submission information or any client referee data on to any third party, or use that data or information for any purpose other than our legal market research.

How does The Legal 500 research team obtain its client data?

We use client referee data supplied to us by law firms in strictest confidence. We ask for data to be supplied in Excel – to allow firms to process their referees internally collaboratively, and to allow the research team to handle the data consistently and accurately.

What data do you ask for?

We ask for the following information:

  • Name of client
  • Name of company
  • Industry sector
  • Geographical jurisdiction of client
  • Name of the law firm that is representing the client
  • Email address of the client

Indentifiable information is deliberately restricted to the bare essentials required to contact the client.

We never ask for sensitive personal data, or for information not directly relevant to The Legal 500 client research process.

Where does The Legal 500 store the data, and how is it handled?

Data submitted via our website is temporarily stored in our secured site files, before being exported to our dedicated research support team for the purposes of contacting the clients. We take all sensible precautions to ensure that our site files and email clients are secure at all times, and we only store any client research data in those systems for as long as is necessary. Our research support team is based exclusively in the United Kingdom, and is made up only of direct employees of Legalease Ltd.

Nobody outside the client research team has access to identifiable data or contact information for clients without their express permission.

How long is this data stored, and when is it deleted?

We only store client information for the duration of the research period for the specific edition of The Legal 500 in question. As soon as we have alerted clients to the publication of the research, all identifiable and contact information is deleted immediately.

If in the mean time you or your clients request at any point to have specific information deleted from our records, for whatever reason, that request will be processed entirely and immediately.

Do you have a privacy policy?

Our full privacy policy can be found here. The Legal 500’s Client Data Commitment is designed to complement and extend the privacy policy where necessary.