Legal Services Office

Client confidentiality

Subject to considerations of public interest, legal professional privilege protects the confidentiality of communications between the University's in-house lawyers and University staff, provided that the purpose of the communication is the giving or receiving of legal advice about University business and the relevant member of staff can properly be regarded as a client of the Legal Services Office.

In order to ensure that communications are privileged, it is best practice to obtain the agreement of your Head of Department, Departmental Administrator or equivalent before contacting the Legal Services Office, but we appreciate that this is not always practicable, particularly when problems arise unexpectedly.

Any communications received from the Legal Services Office should be forwarded within the University only on a strictly need-to-know basis.

Such communications should never be passed to any person outside the University (whether in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or otherwise) without first checking with the Legal Services Office.