Privacy Policy | BA Legal

BA Legal (Berardone Adamson Legal Pty Ltd, ACN 682 407 656) is committed to protecting your privacy and to handling your personal information in accordance with the *Privacy Act 1988* (Cth) (Privacy Act) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, how we collect, hold, use and disclose it, and how you can access it, correct it or make a complaint.

In this policy, "we", "us", "our" and "the firm" mean Berardone Adamson Legal Pty Ltd, and "personal information" has the meaning given in the Privacy Act — broadly, information or an opinion about an identified individual, or an individual who is reasonably identifiable.

Privacy, confidentiality and legal professional privilege

As a law firm, we owe duties to our clients that are stricter than the Privacy Act. The Privacy Act and the APPs set a baseline for how we handle personal information. Sitting above that baseline are two further obligations that we treat as paramount:

Our duty of confidentiality. Under the Australian Solicitors' Conduct Rules (which apply to us in Queensland), in particular Rule 9, we must not disclose information that is confidential to a client and that we acquired during the engagement, except where the client consents, where we are permitted or compelled by law, or where the Rules otherwise allow.
Legal professional privilege (client legal privilege). Confidential communications between a client and the firm made for the dominant purpose of giving legal advice, or for use in actual or anticipated litigation, are protected from compelled disclosure. This privilege belongs to the client, not to the firm.

Where the Privacy Act would permit us to use or disclose information in a way that our duty of confidentiality or the law of privilege would not, we apply the stricter standard. We do not waive privilege, or disclose confidential client information, through our day-to-day information handling. This policy is read subject to those professional obligations.

What this policy covers

This policy applies to personal information we collect through our website, by email and telephone, and in the course of providing legal services. It does not change or limit the confidentiality and privilege protections described above, your rights under your engagement (costs) agreement with us, or any obligations we owe under the *Legal Profession Act 2007* (Qld) and related legislation.

The personal information we collect

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

Identity and contact details — name, postal and email address, telephone number, and the organisation or company you represent.
Engagement and matter information — the type of matter or dispute, the parties involved, instructions, documents and correspondence relevant to your matter.
Verification information — information we collect to verify your identity, carry out conflict-of-interest checks and (where relevant) confirm your authority to instruct us or the source of funds.
Financial and billing information — billing contact details and information needed to render and process accounts and, where applicable, to comply with trust-account obligations.
Information about other people — because we act in disputes, we often collect personal information about people other than our client (for example opposing parties, witnesses, referees and experts) where it is reasonably necessary for, or directly related to, a matter we are handling.

If you contact us through the enquiry form on our website, we collect the name, email address, phone number, company and matter type you provide, together with the content of your message.

Sensitive information

Some information we handle is "sensitive information" under the Privacy Act — for example health or medical information, information about a person's criminal record, or information that reveals a person's financial circumstances or the allegations in a dispute. We collect sensitive information only where it is reasonably necessary for our functions and either you have consented, or the collection is required or authorised by law or is otherwise permitted under the APPs (including where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal or equitable claim). We treat sensitive information with the higher level of protection the law requires.

How we collect personal information

Wherever practical we collect personal information directly from you — when you contact us, when you instruct us, and as your matter progresses. We also collect personal information from other sources where it is reasonably necessary or where direct collection is not practicable, including from your other advisers, from opposing parties and their lawyers, from witnesses and experts, and from public registers, court records and other publicly available sources.

If we receive personal information about you that we did not solicit, we deal with it in accordance with the APPs.

Why we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information

We collect, hold, use and disclose personal information for purposes connected with providing legal services and running our practice, including to:

provide legal advice and representation and conduct litigation and dispute resolution;
communicate with you and with others involved in a matter;
verify identity, run conflict checks and meet our professional and regulatory obligations;
prepare and issue accounts and manage payments and (where relevant) trust money;
maintain our files and records and meet our record-keeping, insurance and limitation-period obligations; and
respond to enquiries made through our website.

We use and disclose personal information for the purpose for which it was collected, for a related purpose you would reasonably expect, where you have consented, or where the use or disclosure is required or authorised by law or by a court or tribunal — always subject to our duties of confidentiality and privilege.

Who we disclose personal information to

In the course of acting on a matter, and consistently with our duty of confidentiality, we may disclose personal information to:

barristers and counsel we brief on a matter;
expert witnesses, consultants and advisers (for example accountants, valuers and technical experts);
mediators, arbitrators, costs assessors and process servers;
other parties to a dispute and their lawyers, where disclosure is part of conducting the matter (for example in correspondence, negotiation, mediation, disclosure/discovery or filing);
our service providers, including our information-technology, email, document-management and secure-hosting providers, who are bound to protect the information; and
regulators, law-enforcement bodies, courts and tribunals, where required or authorised by law.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not disclose it for any purpose unrelated to your matter or our practice.

Disclosure to courts, tribunals and other parties

Litigation and dispute resolution by their nature involve disclosing information to courts, tribunals and other parties. Where we act for you, we disclose information as reasonably necessary to advance your matter and in accordance with your instructions and our professional obligations. You should be aware that information filed in, or read or referred to in, open court or a public tribunal may become part of the public record and may lose the confidentiality and privilege protections it previously had. We will advise you about this where it is relevant to your matter.

Overseas disclosure and where your information is stored

We use reputable cloud-based services to operate our practice, and some of these store data, or are operated, outside Australia:

our email and document systems run on Microsoft 365; and
notifications generated by our website enquiry form are delivered through a transactional email provider (Resend), which is based in the United States.

This means some personal information may be stored on, or accessible from, servers located overseas, including in the United States and other countries in which our service providers operate. Before disclosing personal information to an overseas recipient we take steps that are reasonable in the circumstances to ensure the recipient handles it consistently with the APPs, and we choose providers that offer appropriate security and contractual protections. We manage the storage and transmission of confidential and privileged legal information accordingly.

Our website, the contact form and cookies

Our website is a simple, static and server-rendered site. The only personal information it actively collects from you is the information you choose to submit through our enquiry form (name, email, phone, company, matter type and your message), which is sent to info@balegal.com.au and stored so we can respond.

Our website uses essential cookies only. We do not use analytics cookies, advertising or marketing cookies, or third-party tracking or profiling cookies, and we do not run third-party analytics or advertising tools on the site. Essential cookies are limited to what is needed for the site to function and be secure. Our web infrastructure provider may automatically log standard technical information (such as IP address and browser type) for security and reliability; we do not use this to identify or track individual visitors.

Please do not include confidential or sensitive details of your matter in the enquiry form. Sending an enquiry does not create a lawyer–client relationship — that begins only when we have completed our checks and agreed to act for you in writing.

Direct marketing

We may occasionally send you information about our services or legal developments we think may be relevant, where the law allows and where you would reasonably expect to hear from us. Any electronic marketing we send will identify us as the sender and include a simple way to opt out, consistent with the APPs and the *Spam Act 2003* (Cth). If you ask us to stop sending marketing communications, we will action your request promptly. We do not provide your personal information to others for their own marketing.

How we keep your information secure

We take reasonable steps, including technical and organisational measures, to protect personal information from misuse, interference and loss, and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. These steps include access controls, secure cloud hosting, encryption in transit, staff confidentiality obligations and physical security of our premises. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information at a standard appropriate to the confidential and often privileged nature of the information a law firm holds.

Data breaches

We maintain procedures to identify, contain and assess suspected data breaches. If a breach involving personal information we hold is likely to result in serious harm to affected individuals, we will notify those individuals and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) in accordance with the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme under the Privacy Act.

How long we keep your information

We keep personal information for as long as it is needed for the purposes described in this policy and to meet our professional, regulatory and legal obligations. As a law firm, we are generally required to retain client files and related records for a substantial period after a matter ends — to meet record-keeping and (where relevant) trust-account obligations, to address possible future claims within applicable limitation periods, and to satisfy our insurer's requirements. For this reason we cannot always delete a file or its contents on request. When information is no longer required and we are no longer obliged to keep it, we take reasonable steps to destroy or de-identify it securely.

Accessing and correcting your information

You can ask us for access to the personal information we hold about you, and ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading. To make a request, contact us using the details below. We will respond within a reasonable period and generally without charge.

In some cases we may decline a request as permitted by the Privacy Act — for example where giving access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others, where the information is subject to legal professional privilege or is confidential to another client or a third party, or where access or correction is otherwise restricted by law. If we decline, we will explain why and how you can respond, and if we decline to correct information you may ask us to associate a statement noting your view.

Making a complaint

If you think we have breached the APPs or mishandled your personal information, please tell us first so we can try to resolve it. Contact us using the details below, with enough detail for us to look into your concern. We will acknowledge your complaint and respond within a reasonable time, and in any event within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, or we do not respond within 30 days, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner:

Website: oaic.gov.au
Phone: 1300 363 992

Anonymity and pseudonymity

Where it is lawful and practicable, you may deal with us anonymously or using a pseudonym — for example when making a general enquiry. In most cases, however, we will need to know who you are in order to verify your identity, run conflict checks and provide legal services.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in the law or our practices. The current version is always available on our website at /privacy, and the "last updated" date shows when it last changed. Our website Terms of Use also apply to your use of this site.

How to contact us

For any privacy question, request or complaint, please contact us:

BA Legal (Berardone Adamson Legal Pty Ltd, ACN 682 407 656)
Unit 32, 4 Harmony Street, Pimpama QLD 4209
Email: info@balegal.com.au

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*Liability limited by a scheme approved under Professional Standards Legislation.*