These Terms and Conditions cover all our McKenzie Friends listed on www.mckenziefrienduk.net, www.lawyersdirectaccess.co.uk, www.bluelightmckenziefriends.co.uk and all other websites owned and controlled by us. References to www.mckenziefrienduk.net also includes all our associated websites, businesses and pages.

The McKenzie Friend UK Network is a Limited Company which covers all its associated sites and activities.

You understand and accept that:

1. www.mckenziefrienduk.net and all associated sites operate as a client transfer agency to McKenzie Friends listed on our sites. Training is also conducted by the McKenzie Friend UK Network and it is also a source of information and guidance. Nothing constitutes legal advice.

2. Listed McKenzie Friends operate entirely independently to our Network under their own terms and conditions. They are not employed by us and their service advertised and delivered is entirely independent of ourselves.

3. There is no fee payable by you for using our referral service. Our service is free to you. You pay your McKenzie Friend directly for their independent service.

4. The McKenzie Friend will offer a free and independent telephone consultation. If you accept their service, you understand that you are entering into an entirely independent and private arrangement with that McKenzie Friend and that they remain solely responsible for their independent service provided and that there is no liability on us for any advice, case management, fees or work provided by your McKenzie Friend.

• We are not liable to you in respect of any personal or business losses arising out of advice or proceedings associated with your case.

• We are not liable to you with respect of any personal or business losses, including (without limitation), loss of or damage to profits, income, revenue, use, production, anticipated savings, business, contracts, commercial opportunities of goodwill.

• We are not liable to you in respect of any loss or corruption of any data, database or software.

• We are not liable to you in respect of any special, indirect or consequential loss or damage.

• We are not responsible for any duty of care to you in the service provided by your McKenzie Friend and you absolve us to all claims of a duty of care.

5. On contacting www.mckenziefrienduk.net you give us permission to pass your details to McKenzie Friends listed on our site. You understand that McKenzie Friends listed on our site will contact you for a free consultation. It is a matter for you as to whether you then accept the service of that independent McKenzie Friend under their Terms and Conditions.

6. If you contact us requesting a specific named McKenzie Friend, and that McKenzie Friend is not available, or does not respond in a timely manner to your contact request (at our discretion), you give us absolute permission to pass your details to alternative McKenzie Friends listed.

7. Whether a McKenzie Friend has professional liability / indemnity insurance or operates as a professional or layperson, is solely a matter between yourself and your McKenzie Friend.

8. You understand that you can read the profile of McKenzie Friends listed on our sites and that McKenzie Friends are in the majority, not legally qualified and hold no qualifications professional or academic in law. It is your responsibility to establish the information that you are satisfied with in terms of experience or any qualifications and skills when deciding on appointing a McKenzie Friend.

9. Nothing prevents you from seeking qualified and professional legal advice at anytime.

10. We will not intervene in any disputes between yourself and your McKenzie Friend.

11. Some of our listed McKenzie Friends use our platform to set up client accounts where they can document their work done and where you, as the client, can log into your account and view your account and the work done for you. If such an account is set up, you accept that the McKenzie Friend UK network is not responsible or liable for the content of your client account pages. These are maintained independently by your McKenzie Friend. Any issues in relation to the account contents needs to be discussed with your McKenzie Friend.

12. You give permission for your McKenzie Friend to approach us or other McKenzie Friends listed on the site to seek advice on any aspect of your case. You give permission that information and documents may be shared to assist in seeking such advice. You accept that any advice given is purely an informal third party independent opinion and no liability can be held against that advice. At anytime you can seek professional advice from a lawyer.

13. Calls to www.mckenziefrienduk.net may be recorded for training and quality control purposes.

14. Clients may submit feedback on their McKenzie Friends. Feedback may only be submitted once and cannot be changed. In the event that the feedback is adverse, prior to publication, the McKenzie Friend will have an opportunity to dispute it. At that, point we will conduct a review of work done and the nature of the feedback with respect to the terms and conditions. Feedback that is based on not accepting a court decision will not be considered as valid. If the feedback is judged to be balanced and appropriate, then it will be published and the McKenzie Friend invited to publish a reply. In the instance when the feedback is not appropriate or is unbalanced, it will not be published and the matter closed.

15. As visitors to our websites, you may use our online guides. You accept that nothing published is intended or inferred as legal advice. We are not liable for any use by you of any published information. All guides are advisory only to be used at your own risk.

16. On using the website and supplying contact details, you give us permission to contact you by any contact means provided by you with business offers, and to check your progress with your McKenzie Friend for feedback and quality control purposes.

This privacy policy explains how the McKenzie Friend UK Network and all associated owned sites may collect and use and retain the information you provide us.

To submit information to us, you have agreed with the terms of this policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not give us your information.

2. How we receive information

There are ten methods in which we receive your information.

a)    Through the personal information that you send us via our website forms.

b)    Through phone calls to our office line or mobile phone(s).

c)    Through face to face meetings.

d)     Through Social Media.

e)    Through client referrals. We may obtain information from third parties if you gave them permission to share it with us. By those either on our client referral scheme or informally by others i.e. friends and family.

f)     Via e-mail.

g)    From Cooperative Bank / Paypal payments you make to us.

h)    From our other owned or affiliated websites.

i)     Feedback forms.

j)     Training and Divorce Coaching.

You have the right to request that your information not be used at any point. To do so, please contact us at admin@mckenziefrienduk.net.

2. The information we collect
The personal information collected may include, but is not limited to:

• name
• email address
• postal address (including postcode)
• phone number
• bank or credit card details
• Family Details
• Lifestyle and Social circumstances
• Goods and Services
• Financial Details
• Education, training and employment details
• Physical or mental health details
• Racial or ethnic origin
• Political opinions
• Religious, philosophical or other beliefs
• Trade Union Membership
• Sex Life or Sexual Orientation
• Genetic Data
• Biometric data for identifying a natural data
• Medical data
• Blood / alcohol / analysis data
• Criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentencing
• Multi media and online public forums
• Any other data relevant to the legal case or provided in good faith but not relevant

Clients receiving support from our service are asked to provide us Feedback comments on our service and the service of our McKenzie Friends. The information is published but anonymized using only your first name and initial of surname and location. We will edit or remove any information that is in relation to specific and identifiable matters in your case.

We do not knowingly collect information from children (under 18s).

We do not collect information from any other third party without consent.

4. How we use this information

We will use and store your personal information to administer our website and service. Examples include:

• providing information and advise you requested.
• booking an appointment for client support.
• keeping a record of the support a client has received.
• To pass your details to a suitable independent McKenzie Friend that a) either you have personally requested, or if no specific McKenzie Friend is named, to one or more McKenzie Friends on our affiliate scheme who we believe are available and best suited to supporting your case.
• Affiliate McKenzie Friends operate independently to us. We are a commercial enterprise that passes your information to affiliate McKenzie Friends and we receive a fee from the work that McKenzie Friend conducts for each referred client.

We may share your information without consent to professional services if we feel that it is proportionate and required where a crime has been committed, that there is a likely risk of significant harm to yourself, any other person or property, to detect and prevent crime.

5. How we protect personal information

The safety and security of your personal information is important to us and we try to implement the safeguards needed to protect it, ensure it is accurate, and keep it up to date such as:

• Information is stored and received on a computer hard drive and backed up on a hard drive.
• Printed papers are held for the duration of a court case and then securely disposed of after 12 months after the conclusion of a case.
• E-mails are received and sent by Google mail or other alternative professional E-mail providers.
• Phone message are held by our independent telephone service provider. Phone messages are deleted once accessed.
• Regular anti-virus scanning of hardware devices.
• Recycling hardware through certified vendors to ensure secure deletion of any information on hardware being disposed of.
• Banking information is secured by Paypal and Cooperative Banking as independent seervice providers.

Unfortunately no matter what safety measure are implemented, information sent via the internet can never be guaranteed to be fully secure. Even though we do our best to ensure your personal information is safe, we cannot guarantee that the information you provide online or via email is fully secure. Information you send via internet or post is therefore sent at your own risk.

6. Will we disclose the information we collect to outside parties?

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties outside of our Terms and Conditions unless we have your permission or are required to do so by law or for regulatory reasons.

7. Retention of your information

We aim to hold your information for only as long as necessary for the relevant activity. We aim to delete all electronic records and destroy paper records after 12 months of your case concluding. An exception is if you wish to hold open your account in the expectation that you may need post court support or if a return to court is likely.

If you opt-out of communications, we normally keep the minimal amount of personal information needed to ensure your request is carried out (e.g. name, email, and address). If you ask us to completely remove all of your information, we will do our best to carry out your request, but may not be able to if we were unable to keep the information required to track your request.

If your personal details change, please help us to keep your information up to date by notifying us at admin@mckenziefrienduk.net.

8. Your rights

For any personal information of yours that we hold, you have the right to request:

• That we verify, correct, restrict use of, and/or erase your information. To do so, email admin@mckenziefrienduk.net. Please note, any information you shared via social media channels may remain after we carry out your requests on your information in our systems.

• A copy of the information we hold about you by emailing us at admin@mckenziefrienduk.net

You also have the following rights under GDPR regulation, more information on these can be found on the ICO’s (Information Commissioner’s Office) guidance:

• The right to be informed
• The right of access
• The right to rectification
• The right to erasure
• The right to restrict processing
• The right to data portability
• The right to object
• Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.

We may require proof of identity prior to fulfilling your request, and we will respect your requests unless we are unable to do so for legal reasons (e.g. inability to delete donation information for auditing reasons). If we are legally unable to carry out your requests, we will notify you along with the reason(s) why. For more details regarding exceptions to your rights, please view the ICO’s guidance.

Complaints regarding our processing of your personal data can be made to the ICO, however we would appreciate the opportunity to address any issues you have with the way we process your data and can be contacted at admin@mckenziefrienduk.net. If you are still unhappy after we have had the chance to discuss your complaint, you have the right to contact the ICO at any time.

9. Privacy policy changes

We are constantly reviewing how we process and protect data. Therefore, changes to our policy may occur at any time, and we reserve the right to amend our Privacy Policy. If we do so, we will post notice of the changes on our website. Please revisit this policy page each time you consider giving personal information.

Feedback is invited under 3 categories:

a)   Case support

b)   Personal Mentoring

c)   Response and Accessibility

Permission is given to publish feedback, albeit with details removed that would identify the client and any children.

Feedback is accepted under the following considerations:

a)   That it does not give intrusive details of the case.

b)   That it is balanced and proportionate i.e. Not a rant against the system or based on not liking the outcome. Outcomes in family court are not necessarily based on what a client wishes, but instead based on needs and fairness with the interests of any child being paramount.

c)   That it is not disproportionately negatively based on rejecting or not liking the advice or direction being suggested by the McKenzie Friend. We often have to tell people what they may need to know, not on what they want to hear, that does not make the advice wrong or inappropriate.  

d)   That it is well considered. For example, a blanket ticking of every box as ‘very unsatisfied’ without thought and as a protest is not reasonably considered feedback.

e)   That the conduct of the client has been appropriate during the service. Where the client has been aggressive, unreasonably difficult or at times abusive, then any feedback is unlikely to be balanced.

f)    The client only gets one opportunity to leave feedback whether accepted or rejected. If accepted, it cannot be changed after submission. If rejected due to non-compliance, further attempts at feedback will not be accepted.