Data protection for legal practitioners

Practising law includes processing some personal information that you must protect. All legal practitioners hold some information that identifies someone. They process personal information about their employees (like bank details), clients (like contact details), and other people relating to clients (like medical records) and their work. There are multiple laws that control how legal practitioners can process this information and it is important that you comply with them.

Managing and securing information is fundamental to lawfully processing personal information. Clients care about security, confidentiality, privacy and privilege. Legal practitioners must get these important issues right in order to provide legal services their clients can trust.

One of the duties of legal practitioners is to uphold the law, which includes complying with data protection laws.

The law is part of every aspect of life and therefore there are many areas that legal practitioners focus on. Think, property, wills and estates, family, divorce, dispute resolution, litigation, road accidents, medical, consumer protection, tax and labour. All involve lots of personal information. Legal practitioners specialise in specific focus areas to gain the deep knowledge and expertise they need to provide professional legal services to their clients. They can’t be a master of all.

Added to this, many legal practitioners are not passionate about IT and data – they are technophobic. They are passionate about language. So, complying with data protection law is something foreign and difficult. They are also often very busy people who have very little time to spare working on their legal practice (as opposed to their client’s matters).

That is the purpose of this lens – to help legal practitioners comply with these laws in their legal practice in a practical and effective way. It won’t make you a data protection lawyer or an expert in the field – but simply empower you to make sure you deal with this important aspect of practising law.

What laws apply to your processing?

Both legal practice laws, rules and codes (like the Legal Practice Act and the Code of Conduct for all legal practitioners) and data protection laws (like the GDPR and POPIA).

Will joining this lens help my organisation comply?

Yes. That’s the short answer. We understand that you may be working with limited resources and budgets. We want to help you in the most efficient and cost-effective way. Our data protection for legal practitioners lens will help you. This lens combined with our practical core programme takes you through the key actions legal practitioners must take to comply.

Sole legal practitioners and possibly small law firms in which a few legal practitioners are practising together. This lens is for the person in a small firm who is responsible for ensuring that the firm complies. You will want to join the data protection for small business programme and then use this lens. Legal practices come in different forms.

• Attorneys or solicitors – they often process personal information as part of doing their work.
• Advocates or barristers – they possibly process less personal information but still some.
• Conveyancers – they process lots of personal information and the risks are huge.
• Notaries – they also process personal information – think of an ANC.
• Practice managers – if you are lucky enough to have one.

This lens is not for legal practitioners who help their clients comply with data protection laws.

This lens will not help you become a data protection lawyer.

This lens is also not for corporate counsel – they are better off working through our training for information officers.

It is also not for people who work in legal practices (like associates, secretaries, assistants and receptionists) – they need different awareness training.

You’ll achieve the following results as a consequence of participating in our data protection for legal practitioners lens:

• Lawfully process personal information in your practice.
• Raise your awareness by knowing about the data protection laws that apply to legal practice.
• Protect personal data quickly by finding out what data protection quick wins you can score.

• We are legal practitioners ourselves and have experience in guiding the profession on these issues.
• We believe in using the law as a tool to prevent harm from coming to people.
• We have significant practical experience dealing with data protection law.
• We cover only those areas of data protection law that are most relevant to you, saving you time and money.
• We provide insight and simplify the issues, empowering you to work through the obligations yourself.

You can work through this lens at your own pace and go as fast or slow as you like. Depending on the data protection processes you already have in place, it could take you a few weeks or a few months to work through this lens.

A lens is a complimentary programme that you get access to by joining the data protection programme. It contextualises data protection for a particular audience, such as community schemes, non-profits, or schools.

These lenses serve as an additional guide as you work through the core programme.

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