Privacy policy

What the contact form collects

The contact form on this site asks for the following, and all of it is required so that we can identify you and run a conflict check before anyone calls you back.

• Your full name
• Your phone number
• Your email address
• Whether you would rather be contacted by phone or email
• The kind of matter it is
• Your suburb
• How soon you need advice
• A short summary of what is happening, in your own words

One thing the form records that you do not type

Along with your answers we store a scrambled, one-way version of the internet address your enquiry came from. It cannot be turned back into an address, and we use it for one thing only, which is stopping the form being used to send us hundreds of automated submissions.

Why we ask for it

We use it to contact you, to run a conflict check, and to work out whether we are able to act. A conflict check means looking at whether we have previously acted for, or currently act for, anyone else involved in your matter. We cannot give you advice before that is done.

We do not use anything you send through this form for marketing, and we do not sell or rent it to anyone.

We email you back automatically

When you send the form, our system emails you straight away to confirm it arrived. It is automatic, it comes from our own domain, and it carries no advice about your situation.

We mention it here because in family law an unexpected email is not always a small thing. If someone else has access to your inbox, telephone us instead. The number is on the contact page.

Please do not send documents

The contact form is not a secure document channel and it does not accept attachments by design. Do not send court documents, evidence or anything else sensitive through it. Once we are acting for you we will tell you how to send material securely.

What this website loads

So that you can see what is and is not happening when you visit:

• Fonts are served from this website rather than from a third party, so visiting does not tell a font provider that you were here.
• There is no embedded map, video player or chat widget. The directions link on our contact page goes to Google Maps, but only if you choose to click it.
• We use Google Analytics, loaded through Google Tag Manager. That is the only third-party code on the site, and the next section explains exactly what it does.
• Pictures inside an article are served through Cloudflare, which is a content delivery network. It has to see the request in order to send the image back.

Cookies and analytics

We use Google Analytics to see how many people visit, which pages they read, and roughly what part of the world they are in. We use it to work out whether the site is doing its job. We do not use it to identify you.

It sets cookies in your browser so that it can tell one visit apart from another. Google uses your IP address to estimate the general area you are in, and states that it does not store it.

Nothing you type into the contact form is sent to Google. Not your name, not your phone number, not your email address, and not the summary of your situation. There is no way for us to connect an analytics record to an enquiry, and we have no interest in being able to.

You can stop it. Browsers can be set to refuse cookies, and Google publishes an opt-out browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Blocking analytics does not affect the contact form, which works either way.

Where the information goes, including outside Australia

An enquiry is stored so that we can act on it, and the details are sent to us by email. Some of that happens outside Australia, and you are entitled to know where before you decide to use the form.

• Enquiries are stored in a database hosted in Tokyo, Japan.
• This website runs on a server in Singapore.
• The email that tells us an enquiry has arrived is sent through a provider in Ireland.
• Our own mailboxes run on Microsoft 365.

If you would rather your information stayed in Australia

Our hosting platform has no Australian region, which is the reason for the locations above. We would rather tell you that plainly than bury it.

If it matters to you, and in family law it reasonably might, telephone us instead of using the form. The number is on the contact page. A phone call leaves no enquiry record on an overseas server.

How long we keep it

If your enquiry does not become a matter, we keep enough of it to run conflict checks in future. We cannot check whether we have already acted against someone if we have no record that they ever contacted us. The rest, including the summary of your situation, is deleted once there is no longer a reason to hold it.

Where we do go on to act for you, your file is kept for the period our professional obligations require. That period is set by the rules that govern Victorian legal practices, not by us, and it is longer than most people expect.

Getting access to your information, or correcting it

You can ask us what personal information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is wrong. Contact either of us using the details on the contact page.

We will ask you to confirm who you are before we hand anything over. In family law that is not a formality: the person asking for someone’s contact details is sometimes the last person who should have them.

If we cannot give you what you have asked for, we will tell you why in writing.

Complaints

If you think we have mishandled your personal information, tell us first, using the contact details on the contact page. Put it in writing if you can, because it helps us work out exactly what went wrong.

If you are not satisfied with how we deal with it, you can take a privacy complaint to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at oaic.gov.au.

A complaint about our conduct as lawyers, rather than about privacy, goes to the Victorian Legal Services Board and Commissioner at lsbc.vic.gov.au.

The Privacy Act

Some small businesses are not covered by the Privacy Act 1988. Rather than rely on that, we handle personal information collected through this website in line with the Australian Privacy Principles. If you believe we have not, the section above tells you what you can do about it.

Contact

If you have a question about this policy, contact the firm using the details on the contact page.