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Introduction
Garth Coates Solicitors are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. We comply with the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”) unless and until the GDPR is no longer directly applicable in the UK, together with any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation as amended or updated from time to time in the UK, and any successor legislation to the GDPR and the DPA (together “Data Protection Legislation”). We are the data controller of data you pass to us pursuant to this policy.
This Privacy Policy together with our website terms and conditions and Cookie Policy sets out how we collect personal information from you and how the personal information you provide will be processed by us. By visiting the website at www.garthcoates.com (the “Website”) you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent, please do not submit any personal data to us.
Who are we?
We are Garth Coates Solicitors, a UK Law Firm. Garth Coates Solicitors is the trading name of Garth Coates Solicitors Limited, a limited company registered in England and Wales (Company Number: 07936562), authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA No. 838255). Our data is controlled by us, the Data Controller, Garth Coates Solicitors Limited, Bloomsbury House, 29B Montague Street, London WC1B 5BW. If you are seeking any advice regarding your data, please address your query by email to our Data Compliance Manager, Mr Marc Carmel, at [email protected]. Alternatively, Mr Carmel can be reached by telephone during office hours [09:30 – 17:00] on 020 7799 1600.
What personal data do we collect?
You give us information about you when you complete an enquiry form on our website or by requesting via the website that we send you marketing information and by authorising website cookies. Information about you is also contained in mail communications, phone calls, invoices and supporting documents for your case as well as in all contracts and agreements. The information you give us may include your name, email address, address/location and phone number. All this data is collected from us as the first party and we do not retrieve any data from third parties. We will retain this information while we are corresponding with you or providing services to you.
How do we use personal information?
The Data Protection Act 2018 requires that eight data protection principles are followed in the management of personal data. Bearing these principles in mind, we are committed to being transparent and open about our Privacy Notice, inclusive of how we protect, collect, share and hold your personal data.
We use data for both service- and business-related purposes. Please see below how we use your personal information in both categories:
Service-related
- Providing consultancy services
- Recommending programmes suitable for your requirements
- Setting up an account with us
- Scanning personal documents
- Availability via email and/or phone communications
Business-related
- Legal obligations, for example, prevention of fraud
- Meeting internal audit requirements
- Internal research and development purposes
- Administrative work
- Producing contracts and agreements tailored to your needs
- Delivering marketing communication
The lists above are tailored according to your needs on how you best would like us to use your personal data; some of these will not be relatable to you.
Who might access or receive your personal data?
We never share personal data with anyone outside of Garth Coates Solicitors, including fee earners, unless we have been authorised to do so by you. When data is to be shared within the Company as a means of providing our services to you and conducting our business operations, we protect it and treat it with confidentiality.
Your rights in respect of your data
If any of the information you provide to us via the website changes, please let us know as soon as possible so that we can make the necessary changes to the information we hold for you on our database. If you wish to make any changes to your information, please contact us via the following webpage www.garthcoates.com.
If you wish to access or rectify the information we hold about you, or request that such information be transmitted directly to another data controller, please contact us via the following webpage www.garthcoates.com. We will process your request to access your information within one month of receipt, or will let you know within that timeframe if we need more information from you. We will process your request free of charge.
To request that your information is deleted or if you wish to restrict or object to the processing of your information, please contact us via our website www.garthcoates.com.
If you have any complaints about our use of your personal data, please contact us. You also have the right to complain to the relevant supervisory authority in your jurisdiction. In the UK, the supervisory authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office. Contact details for the ICO can be found at https://ico.org.uk/.
If you have any further queries or comments on our Privacy Policy, please contact us via www.garthcoates.com or you can contact us by emailing our Data Compliance Manager, Mr Marc Carmel, at [email protected]. We also welcome your views about our website and our Privacy Policy.
Website chat assistant
Our website has a chat assistant, Jane. Jane is an artificial intelligence (AI) system, not a person and not a lawyer, and gives general information only. If you use the chat, we collect the details you enter before the chat starts (your name, telephone number, WhatsApp number if you give one, email address if you give one, and the country you live in) and the messages you write. We use them to answer your questions in general terms and to pass your enquiry to our team, who may contact you about it.
The replies are produced by an AI service provided by Anthropic, which processes the messages on our behalf, under contract, to write each reply, and which may process them outside the UK. A copy of your details and the conversation is emailed to our office. Please do not send documents or more personal information through the chat than your enquiry needs.
We keep chat records for 12 months, unless your enquiry leads to us acting for you, when they are kept with your file.
Newsletter
If you subscribe to our newsletter on our website, we collect your name, the country you live in and your email address, and we record when you agreed to receive our emails. We use them only to send you the news reports and guides we publish, at most one email a day. We ask you to confirm your email address first, by clicking the link we send you; until you do, we send nothing else, and we delete unconfirmed sign-ups after a week.
We send the newsletter on the basis of your consent. You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in every email, or by writing to us. The emails are sent for us by Brevo (Sendinblue SAS, based in France), which processes your name and email address on our behalf, under contract, only to deliver them. To keep automated sign-ups out, the sign-up form is checked by Cloudflare Turnstile, which looks at technical information from your browser to tell people from automated programs; Cloudflare may process it outside the UK.
We keep your details while you are subscribed. If you unsubscribe, we keep only your email address and the date, so that we do not email you again by mistake.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files that websites place on your computer or phone. This website always sets the cookies it needs to work: one that keeps our consultation form and chat working while you use them, one that protects our forms against misuse, and one that remembers your cookie choice. It does not use advertising cookies or Google Analytics.
We count visits to the website, and see which pages are read, with Matomo, a statistics service run for the firm on its own server. We use it only to understand how the website is used, so that we can improve it; it is not used to identify you, and the information is not shared with advertisers. Matomo uses its own cookies to recognise returning visitors. The law allows cookies used only for statistics like these without asking for consent first, as long as we tell you about them and you can switch them off; the personal data involved (such as your device's internet address) is used on the basis of our legitimate interest in running and improving our website.
When you first visit, a notice explains this and lets you switch statistics off. You can change your choice at any time with the “Cookie settings” link at the foot of every page. The map on our contact page comes from Google and loads only if you click “Show the map”; Google may then set its own cookies. Full details are in our cookie policy.
Updated November 2026.
