Effective date: 28 July 2026
McEwan Legal is a specialist legal recruitment and search business working with lawyers, law firms and legal businesses, principally in the London legal market. This notice explains how we use personal information in that work and through this website.
Ian Douglass is the controller of the personal information described in this notice.
Email: ijd@mcewanlegal.com
Postal address: Level 17, Dashwood House, 69 Old Broad Street, London EC2M 1QS, United Kingdom
We process information about lawyers and candidates, contacts at law firms and legal businesses, referees, introducers and people who contact or use our website.
The information may include:
Partner, team and senior-level information
For partner, team and senior-level recruitment, we may process confidential business plans, forecasts, practice and revenue information, books of business and information about client relationships. This may include named client contacts where relevant. We use and disclose this information only where reasonably necessary for the recruitment process, on a need-to-know basis and, where appropriate, in anonymised, aggregated or banded form. Corporate commercial information that is not personal information is nevertheless treated as confidential.
Sources
We obtain information directly from you; from candidates, clients, referees, introducers and professional contacts; and from publicly available professional sources, including firm websites, the Solicitors Regulation Authority register, legal directories, professional publications and LinkedIn. If we obtain your information elsewhere, we will normally provide this notice at first contact and within one month, unless an exception applies.
We use information to:
Candidate confidentiality and control
We will not send an identifiable CV or profile, detailed business case or identifiable client list to a prospective firm without the lawyer’s knowledge and agreement, unless already instructed to do so. A lawyer may exclude any organisation or person.
Legitimate interests. We rely mainly on legitimate interests to operate a specialist recruitment and search business, undertake targeted searches, identify and discuss relevant opportunities, manage introductions and assignments, maintain professional relationships and protect the business. We consider your reasonable expectations, the information involved and the likely impact on you. Safeguards include targeted contact, confidentiality, data minimisation, candidate control over introductions and the right to object.
Contract. We use information where necessary to perform a contract or take steps requested before entering into one, including acting on a recruitment instruction or administering terms of business.
Legal obligation. We use information where necessary to meet legal, tax, accounting, regulatory or court requirements.
Consent. We rely on consent only where it is appropriate and genuinely optional. You may withdraw consent at any time.
Sensitive information
We do not normally need special category information, such as health, disability, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. If you choose to provide relevant sensitive information, we will use it only where we have both a lawful basis and an additional legal condition, normally explicit consent. We do not normally seek criminal-conviction information.
Where necessary, we may share information with selected law firms and legal businesses; candidates; referees or verification providers; and service providers supporting email, secure file storage, communications, website hosting, IT security, accounting and administration. We may also share information with professional advisers, insurers, accountants, auditors, banks, regulators, tax authorities, courts or law-enforcement bodies where reasonably necessary or required by law.
We share only what is reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose. We do not sell personal information.
International processing
Some technology providers or recipients may process information outside the United Kingdom. Where UK law treats this as a restricted transfer, we use an approved transfer mechanism and any additional safeguards reasonably required. You may contact us for further information.
Retention
We normally retain candidate and professional-contact information for up to three years after the last meaningful contact or recruitment activity, followed by review. Assignment, introduction, placement, contractual, invoicing and payment records are normally retained for six years after the relevant matter or transaction ends. Unconverted enquiries and website or security logs are normally retained for no longer than 12 months. We may retain information longer where required by law, necessary for a dispute or agreed as part of an active long-term relationship.
If you ask us not to contact you, we may retain the minimum information needed to respect that request.
Security
We use reasonable technical and organisational measures appropriate to the nature of the information, including access controls, protected systems and careful handling of confidential candidate and business information.
You are not generally required to provide personal information, but we may be unable to assist with an enquiry, introduction or recruitment process without relevant information.
Depending on the circumstances, you may ask us to provide access to your information; correct it; erase it; restrict its use; transfer certain information; or consider an objection. You may withdraw consent where we rely on it. You have a particular right to object where we rely on legitimate interests and an absolute right to object to direct marketing.
To exercise a right, change your contact preferences, correct your profile or ask us not to approach a particular firm, email ijd@mcewanlegal.com. These rights are not all absolute. We may verify your identity and normally respond within one month.
Our work involves professional judgement about experience, seniority, practice fit and potential opportunities. We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing where the decision would have a legal or similarly significant effect. This website does not use automated candidate accounts or automated shortlisting.
The website may use technologies that are strictly necessary for secure and correct operation. If we use optional analytics or other non-essential cookies or similar technologies, we will provide clear information and obtain consent where required before they are used.
Please contact us first if you have a concern so that we can try to resolve it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
ICO complaints: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
We may update this notice to reflect changes in our work, systems or the law. The current version will be published on this website with its effective date.