Welcome to our trust or legal centre. We strive to provide legal services you can trust. Getting legal and compliance right is an important part of that. We believe that plain and understandable terms, policies or legal notices help to ensure a common understanding and are the foundation of a mutually beneficial relationship. People seldom read them, but they are important. In order to build trust, we want our policies on certain important issues to be clear.

Our relationship with you

Built on trust

These legal notices describe (and apply to) the relationship between you and us. We have drafted them with care to relate specifically to the services we provide.

These documents together with the relevant written estimate, quote, proposal, engagement letter, form or invoice make up the written agreement or contract between us. These legal notices apply to any instruction you give us as our client and to the services we provide to you. When you accept our quotes or estimates you agree to our terms. The wording is as follows – “Our terms will apply to our services and are (i) accessible (so that they may be read, stored and retrieved) at https://www.michalsons.com/trust-centre or (ii) available on request from us. By accepting this estimate, you agree to our terms”. In addition to this, when you register for a programme you agree to our terms and privacy policy at the bottom of the page.

We may add to or change these legal notices in a written estimate, quote, proposal, engagement letter or invoice, even if it does not mention these legal notices. Any change must be in writing and signed by us (or posted on our website) to be effective. You accept the latest version of these legal notices by instructing us or receiving services from us.

What’s important to us

Empowerment

We strongly believe in empowerment, transformation, diversity, equity and inclusion. As the song Umuntu says – it is not because we must but because we want to. We are certified as BEE level 7. You can request a copy of our BEE certificate.

We're ethical

We pride ourselves on being happy, healthy, ethical members of the profession. We abide by both our Michalsons code and the Legal Practice Council Code of Conduct developed by our governing body. Honesty and integrity are non-negotiable.

Our corporate information

Find out more about Michalsons Giles Inc on our contact us page. We have a distributed model with an office at F5 Westlake Square, 1 Westlake Drive, Westlake, Cape Town, 7945 and our What three words are ///combative.capacities.leopards.

Privacy and data protection at Michalsons is important

As a law firm focusing on privacy and data protection, we take our obligations under data protection laws (like the GDPR and POPIA) seriously and continually strive to meet our regulatory obligations. We strive to process personal data lawfully under applicable principles and conditions. We process some personal data about our clients as a controller (responsible party) when we provide legal services to them. Our privacy policy sets out how we process your personal information. We process very little personal data regards our clients’ data subjects on behalf of our clients. We are, therefore, mostly a controller and are not often a processor (or operator) for our clients. For this reason, we don’t usually conclude a data processing agreement (DPA) with our clients but we are happy to do so if we will be processing personal data for a specific client. If you want to sign a DPA, please ask us, and we’ll prepare one for you to sign. The GDPR does not require us to have a data protection officer (DPO). Under POPIA, John Giles is our Information Officer (IO).

We will not disclose your confidential information

We know how important confidentiality and privilege are to you, so we won’t disclose your confidential information. As a law firm focusing on information or data law, we take this issue seriously. We are happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with you even though our professional obligations already require us to keep your information confidential. If you want to sign an NDA, please ask us, and we’ll prepare one for you to sign.

We secure the information we process

We take adequate and appropriate measures to secure all the information we process. Some of the information we process is confidential or commercially sensitive. We take this issue seriously as a law firm focussing on cybersecurity law. Our security policy sets out how we safeguard our website and your information.

Access to information ensures accountability and transparency

We also respect that the law (like PAIA) requires us to give certain people access to information in certain circumstances. You can read our Access to Information or PAIA manual, which helps people know how to access the information we hold. People can request access to the information we hold by emailing us. John Giles is also our Information Officer for PAIA.

We're anti-bribery and corruption

We recognise that all organisations have a responsibility to be ethical in their business practices and not engage in any activities that harm society. We have an Anti Bribery and Corruption Policy setting out our policy on this important issue.

How we work with you

We strive to figure out precisely what you want (including timeframes) before we submit a proposal or commence with a piece of work. It is essential that we understand what you need or require and by when. Find out more about how we work with you.

Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) at Michalsons

Good governance is key

We are not obliged to comply with the King Code but we do strive to apply it to the extent that it applies to us and disclose how we have applied it.

Managing both your and our risk

We continually strive to manage both our risks and the risks of our clients. For example, we have both public liability and professional indemnity insurance.

We take compliance seriously

We are committed to complying with all laws, rules, codes and standards that apply to Michalsons. We take our responsibility to comply seriously through our Morris CMS.

Need Legal Notices or a Centre?

Michalsons can help

If you need some for your website or service, please don’t copy ours. Contact us and we’ll help you put a privacy policy or terms and conditions in place that are suitable for your requirements, including if you are an online store or online marketplace. We also provide free website terms.