Privacy Policy | Eventus Lawyers

1. About this policy

Eventus Lawyers Pty Ltd (ABN 88 167 146 965) trading as Eventus Lawyers (formerly SLF Lawyers) (Eventus, we, us, our) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).

As legal practitioners, we are also bound by strict duties of confidentiality to our clients. Those duties, and legal professional privilege, apply in addition to this policy.

2. The personal information we collect

The kinds of personal information we collect depend on how you deal with us. It may include:

your name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth and occupation
identification documents and verification information, including information we are required to collect under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws
information about your legal matter, including information about other parties, witnesses and your financial, business and personal affairs
billing, payment and trust account information
information you provide when you apply for a job with us, including your CV, references and qualifications
information about how you use our website (see section 9)

In the course of acting for clients, we may also collect sensitive information, such as health information, financial information, business and personal records, medical records, criminal records or information about family circumstances. We only collect sensitive information with your consent, or where it is required or authorised by law or necessary to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

We may collect personal information about people who are not our clients, such as opposing parties, witnesses, experts and referrers, where it is relevant to a matter we are acting on.

3. How we collect personal information

Where practicable, we collect personal information directly from you, for example when you contact us, complete an enquiry form, meet with us, or provide documents. We may also collect it from third parties, including:

other parties to a matter and their lawyers
courts, tribunals and regulators
public registers and searches, including ASIC, land titles, PPSR, bankruptcy and court records
identity verification service providers
your accountant, financial adviser, insolvency practitioner or other professional advisers
referrers and barristers

You may deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym for general enquiries. However, we cannot act for you without identifying you.

4. Why we collect, use and disclose personal information

We collect, use and disclose personal information to:

provide legal services and advice
conduct conflict of interest checks
verify identity and meet our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) and other laws
manage our client relationships, billing and trust accounts
communicate with you, including sending legal updates and event invitations where you have agreed to receive them
recruit staff
meet our professional, insurance, regulatory and legal obligations
operate, maintain and improve our website and services

If you do not provide the information we request, we may be unable to act for you or respond to your enquiry.

5. Anti-money laundering obligations

Eventus is a reporting entity under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (Cth) for certain services. For those services, we must collect and verify information about our clients, their beneficial owners and, in some cases, the source of funds or wealth. We must keep this information for at least seven years.

We may be required to report certain matters to AUSTRAC. The law prohibits us from telling you about some of those reports, so in limited circumstances we may not be able to tell you how your information has been used or disclosed.

6. Who we disclose personal information to

We may disclose personal information to:

courts, tribunals and regulators
other parties to a matter and their lawyers, as necessary to conduct the matter
barristers, experts, mediators, process servers, investigators and other service providers engaged on your matter
our IT, cloud storage, practice management and identity verification providers
our professional indemnity insurers and auditors
AUSTRAC, law enforcement and other government agencies where required or authorised by law
anyone else you authorise us to disclose it to

We do not sell personal information.

7. Overseas disclosure

Some of our service providers, including cloud storage and software providers, may store or process personal information outside Australia, including in the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Where a matter has an international aspect, we may also disclose information to lawyers, agents or other parties in the relevant country. We take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle personal information consistently with the APPs.

8. How we hold and protect personal information

We hold personal information in electronic and hard copy form, including in secure cloud-based systems. We take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include access controls, multi-factor authentication, encryption, staff confidentiality obligations and secure document destruction.

We retain client files for the periods required by law and our professional obligations, generally at least seven years after a matter ends. After that we securely destroy or de-identify information we no longer need.

If a data breach is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify affected individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

9. Our website, cookies and analytics

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to make it work, remember your preferences and help us understand how visitors use it. We use Google Analytics to collect information such as your IP address, browser type, pages visited and time spent on the site. This information is generally collected in a form that does not identify you.

You can set your browser to refuse cookies, although some parts of the website may not then work properly. Information you submit through our enquiry forms is sent to us by email and handled under this policy.

Our website may link to third-party websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices.

10. Direct marketing

We may send you legal updates, newsletters and event invitations where you have consented or would reasonably expect to receive them. Every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time by contacting us.

11. Accessing and correcting your personal information

You may ask to access the personal information we hold about you, or to correct it if it is inaccurate, out of date or incomplete. We will respond within a reasonable time, usually 30 days. We may refuse access where the law permits, for example where access would breach legal professional privilege, a duty of confidentiality owed to another person, or our AML/CTF obligations. If we refuse, we will tell you why in writing, unless that would itself be unlawful.

12. Complaints

If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer using the details below. We will acknowledge your complaint within 5 business days and aim to resolve it within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at www.oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.

13. Contact us

Privacy Officer

Eventus Lawyers Pty Ltd
Level 11, 140 William Street,
Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

Email: mpatterson@eventus.com.au

Phone: 03 9600 2450

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The current version will always be published on our website.