Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions of Engagement

1. Conflicts

We will not act for any other client on any matter on which we are acting for you unless we have your express agreement that we may do so, or where we are involved in transactional work for you expressly on a non-exclusive basis.

The interests of another client of the firm and your own may conflict in any number of circumstances. When this arises we will, to the extent that we are legally able to do so, consult with you as to the appropriate course of action.

If you are aware of any reason why we should not act for you then it is your responsibility to tell us.In particular you must inform us of the names of all persons who may be involved in or connected to your matter so that we may carry out a conflict of interest search.

2. Bank Account Details

In the event that we require your bank account details to transfer funds therein during the course of this transaction, it is your responsibility to provide the firm with your correct account details.We recommend that clients provide an original hard copy statement to the firm at the start of the transaction.Alternatively, you can provide your BIC and IBAN in full in writing once signed by you in our presence. We will not accept any bank account details received by email.

If your bank account details change during the course of this transaction, the new account details will only be accepted by you either providing an original hard copy bank statement or handwritten details of your BIC and IBAN, signed by you in our presence.

If during the course of your transaction, you receive any type of notification of a change in the firm’s bank details (especially by email) this must be treated as a fraudulent request and you should check with us directlyby phone (not email) before transferring any monies.

3.Other Matters

As you may already be aware, certain statutory provisions on the prevention of money laundering are extended to include additional designate bodies. Specific requirements are imposed on solicitors in the conduct of most types of legal matters.

As a result of these legal requirements we are obliged to have procedures for the proper identification of new clients.The identification procedures will require you to provide us with sight of certain identification documents (e.g. Certificates of Incorporation of a Company, original passport, original driving licence and/or utility bills).We are required to obtain copies of these documents to satisfy the provisions of the Act.This procedure is necessary to meet our legal obligations and all information supplied will be treated confidentially.If you require any further details on our procedures under the legislation, please do not hesitate to contact us.

While acting for you, we shall gather information and documents which relate to your business and affairs.We shall keep the information and documents confidential, except where disclosure is required by law or regulation or in other exceptional circumstances.As you will appreciate, in the same way we must respect the confidence in information and documents which we hold for our other clients.We cannot, without their express written permission, disclose any of that material to you.

Unless we hear from you to the contrary, we may use internet standard email, internet messaging and text messaging to communicate with you and others in relation to any matter. This carries certain risks. We do not accept responsibility for any loss that you suffer as a result of our use of these methods of communication.Unless you indicate otherwise, we will deem your instructions in this matter to constitute an appropriate consent for the maintenance and processing of your personal data under the Provisions of the Data Protection Act 1988, the Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2003 and the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you communicate your instructions via email, we will communicate our acceptance of these instructions with a confirmatory email back to you. Instructions will not be deemed to be accepted by us unless you receive a confirmatory email, telephone call or letter from us. The same procedure applies to changes in instructions communicated by you to us.

As part of our continuing objective to improve the quality of our services for the benefit of our clients we may arrange certification by an independent Risk Management/Practice Management Accreditation Body.The accreditation body may need to inspect some of our files from time to time to ensure that we are adhering to our quality procedures.We therefore request your consent to the inspection of your files by such an accreditation body.In making your decision you should know firstly, that refusal to give consent will not affect the conduct of the matter or the quality of our service; secondly, your consent can be withdrawn at any time; and thirdly, that the assessors themselves will have given an undertaking of confidentiality to us.You can indicate whether or not you give your consent at the foot of this document

It is our normal practice to destroy our correspondence files, draft documents and other papers that are more than 7 ½ years old if a litigation file and 13 ½ years if any other type of file.Original signed documents and deeds are not destroyed and can be stored in our strong room if you wish for as long as you would like.In the absence of contrary instructions, we will assume that you are content with this arrangement.

It may be necessary during the course of a matter to instruct one or more experts outside the firm, such as accountants, consultants or specialist counsel.We will discuss this with you at the appropriate time, including who might be suitable and the costs likely to be involved. You will be their client and you will be responsible for paying their costs and expenses.

We always aim to give our clients the highest level of service.If there is anything you are not happy about, we would rather you let us know straight away.We have a complaints policy, available on request, and a complaints procedure that means all complaints are reported to and reviewed by Brian McMullin who is our principal.If there are any causes for concern or problems then please contact Mr McMullin.

Our advice will relate to the law and procedure which operate in Ireland (Republic of Ireland) only.

We will not be liable to you for any amount in excess of our proper share ofjoint and several liabilities which we are not entitled to recover from any other advisers by reason of your agreement to limit their liability.

In any case where it is intended that legal proceedings should be issued against the Firm (or any person or entity for which the Firm is or is alleged to be responsible), the Firm may at its election require the relevant dispute, difference or claim to be referred to mediation or arbitration by notice in writing to that effect. If, the claimant issues any legal proceedings, the Firm may still elect for mediation or arbitration by notice to that effect given to the claimant and to the claimants’ lawyers named in the proceedings (if any) within 21 days of service of the proceedings on the Firm, in which event the claimant will take no further steps in the proceedings other than to procure the dismissal or stay of the proceedings.

Where the Firm has given notice that it has elected for the dispute, difference or claim to be referred to Arbitration, it will be referred to and resolved by a single arbitrator in accordance with the Arbitration Act 2010 such arbitrator to be appointed by agreement within 14 days of the parties or, failing agreement within 14 days as may be nominated on the request of either party by the president of the time being of the Law Society of Ireland.The laws of Ireland shall apply. The seat of the arbitration shall be Ireland.

4. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

Our liability (and that of our present and any former partners, principals and employees) to you arising out of, or in connection with, our engagement (whether for breach of contract or breach of statutory duty, negligence, or otherwise) will be limited to the higher of (i) the minimum amount of the professional indemnity insurance cover from time to time required to be maintained by us under applicable law: or (ii) €1,500,000. Nothing in this letter shall limit our liability to you in respect of fraud or fraudulent concealment or to the extent that under any applicable law liability may not be limited.

Privacy Notice

1. Who we are:

We are Brian J. McMullin Solicitors. You can contact us at this address by post or by email at bsn@brianjmcmullin.com.

Our data protection co-ordinator is Brian McMullin.

2. Why we process your data, the lawful basis for processing your data and who we share it with

A. For our clients, we process data:

• in order to provide you with legal advice
• to assist you with legal claims or legal proceedings
• to assist you with your legal rights

The legal basis for the processing of this data is processing necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party.

Where we process special categories of data relating to you, e.g. health data that we may process in connection with a legal claim where we are acting on your behalf, our legal basis for processing will be that the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

There may also be limited circumstances where our legal basis for processing is your consent (where we have sought it and you have provided it to us), in which case you can withdraw your consent at any time.

We may also send you emails through our email service provider. They may only process this data for the purpose of providing us with their services, and no other purpose.

We may also share certain parts of this data with your barrister, doctor or expert witness and with the counterpart solicitor.

We will retain this data based on the Law Society of Ireland guidelines on Data Retention which varies by case type. A copy of our retention policy is available should you require it

B. For our potential, current and past clients, we process data:

• in order to market the services of our firm
• to provide you with legal updates and newsletters to which you have subscribed

The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in the administration and operation of our legal services as well as our legitimate interest in marketing and promoting our firm’s legal services. We always include an unsubscribe button in our communications, so you can opt out of receiving such communications at any time.

We share information such as your name and email address with our newsletter services provider who sends out our newsletters. This provider is not permitted to use this data other than on our behalf.

We will retain this data for one year after your matter has been closed.
3. Information received from third parties and the source of that data

We may obtain personal data from publicly available sources, such as law directories to obtain information from third parties.
4. Transfers of data outside the European Economic Area (EEA)

We do not transfer data relating to your matter outside the EEA.
5. Your rights relating to personal data

• You have the following rights under the GDPR, in certain circumstances and subject to certain exemptions, in relation to your personal data:

• right to access the data – you have the right to request a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, together with other information about our processing of that personal data.

• right to rectification- you have the right to request that any inaccurate data that is held about you is corrected, or if we have incomplete information you may request that we update the information such that it is complete.

• right to erasure – you have the right to request us to delete personal data that we hold about you. This is sometimes referred to as the right to be forgotten.

• right to restriction of processing or to object to processing – you have the right to request that we no longer process your personal data for particular purposes, or to object to our processing of your personal data for particular purposes.

• right to data portability – you have the right to request us to provide you, or a third party, with a copy of your personal data in a structured, commonly used machine-readable format.

In order to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us at the contact details at the start of this privacy notice.

If we are processing personal data based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing which took place prior to its withdrawal.

If you are unhappy with how we process personal data, we ask you to contact us so that we can rectify the situation.

You may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The Irish supervisory authority is the Data Protection Commission.

6. Requirement to process personal data
If you do not provide us with your information for the purposes described above, we cannot provide you with legal advice or represent you in legal proceedings or send you our newsletter.

7. Automated decision-making and profiling
We do not use any personal data for the purpose of automated decision-making or profiling.