Privacy for Clients from Employees

SusanC10

Asking on behalf of a friend not on Boards.

My friend used a Law Firm over the past year or so for a private matter. Within her own family only her Mother knows about it. She also confided in 2 close friends (I am one ).

She delibetately chose a Firm in a City Location about 50 miles away from the town where she and most of her family live for Privacy reasons.

Now it turns out that her much younger First Cousin is going to be training with that Firm starting in the next month or so. They do not have the same Surname. This Cousin or her Parents/Siblings know nothing about this issue but my friend is really upset that her Cousin could access her File and find out about this very private matter.

Would it be ok to email/phone the Solicitor who is dealing with this issue, telling her of the relationship and asking not to disclose this info to the Cousin/Employee ?

What is best way of handling this ?
The issue is sensitive.

Thanks in advance.

lifeandtimes

SusanC10 wrote: »

Asking on behalf of a friend not on Boards.

My friend used a Law Firm over the past year or so for a private matter. Within her own family only her Mother knows about it. She also confided in 2 close friends (I am one ).

She delibetately chose a Firm in a City Location about 50 miles away from the town where she and most of her family live for Privacy reasons.

Now it turns out that her much younger First Cousin is going to be training with that Firm starting in the next month or so. They do not have the same Surname. This Cousin or her Parents/Siblings know nothing about this issue but my friend is really upset that her Cousin could access her File and find out about this very private matter.

Would it be ok to email/phone the Solicitor who is dealing with this issue, telling her of the relationship and asking not to disclose this info to the Cousin/Employee ?

What is best way of handling this ?
The issue is sensitive.

Thanks in advance.

Depending on the cousins line of work they may have a right to view this information in relation to their job. However any discussion about this sensitive data with someone who ismt meant to know would be a breach of data and the cousin and company would be in serious trouble.

You can't ask the company not to show thos person the information if they are required to know it.

If the cousin isn't supposed to know they won't be told or have access to it and if they do they'll be in trouble too.

So the outcomes are

1. cousin is supposed to know info and will know info and if they like their job they'll follow the rules and not disclose it

2. They aren't supposed to know and won't find out and if they do they're breaking the rules and will be found out.

Best to leave it as it is

Victor

If this is a large firm, it is quite possible that the cousin would never find out about the file.

I think the best route would be for the OP to contact the person they were dealing with and mention that the cousin is going to be working for the firm and that they would be grateful if the cousin didn't find out about her dealings with the firm

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I'm not sure I agree with lifeandtimes. It is quite possible that the cousin could be innocently assigned the file for whatever reason (even something as simple as billing or photocopying) and not suspect anything until they open the file.

The OP doesn't want the cousin anywhere near the file. Even the cousin being aware the file exists could potentially cause trouble for the OP - because the cousin will know. Imagine the firm only deals with a narrow field of work - even without reading the file, the cousin could imply what it contains.

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I once found the home phone number and address of a solicitor I do work with when looking for someone else that I had no suspicion was related.

Similarly, I once had an accountant friend phone me about a technical matter in general terms ('typically, how big is X?'). Little did I know until three years later when I realised we had a mutual client. It is quite possible that he was reading a budget I produced and he was verifying that it was accurate.

Peregrinus

The OP's friend should definitely contact the firm and talk to them about her concerns.

If nothing else, it's not at all unlikely that the cousin could find out that the OP's friend is a client of the firm - spots her name on a client list or index, for instance, when looking for something else.

It's a sensitive issue. The law firm will not accept that a client can dictate the internal management/organisation of the firm - who can and cannot deal with or know of particular matters, etc. At the same time, they will be sensitive to the client's concerns and will want to allay them. At the very least, they can give her a better feel for how likely it is that the cousin will learn of her connection with the firm, the substance of her transaction, etc, etc.

Dependign on the level of assurance that the client wants, she may in the end decide to change firms; that offers the highest degree of assurance that the cousin will not come to know of this. A chat with her current firm will help her to think about whether she wants or needs to go so far as that.

lifeandtimes

Data protection dictates that all employees handle information regarding customers accounts in the strictest confidence.

There may be a disclosure where family can't work on other familys business but depends on the company.

As stated the customer cant dictate what a company does with their employee.

It may be a case that the cousin never sees the file but if they do we have to assume the cousin will follow the rules and not discuss it unless in a business setting when required as they would have been trained to do and agreed ti do to get the job. Anything otherwise will land the cousin in trouble and they'll hardly want to lose their job by chatting about ops friend.

Also I assume that cousin is in this line of work for a reason and know's the ins and outs of data protection.

On a separate note op could ask for their data to be destroyed but I can't say for sure if this is allowed maybe someone else can verify

Peregrinus

The situation is most awkward if the client's concern is not that First Cousin will find out and talk, but simply that First Cousin will find out at all. She may have good reason (or, at any rate, she may have reasons which seem good to her) for not wanting family members to know her business even if they don't talk about it to others.

Law firms do have protocols for establishing "Chinese walls" for cases where different members of the firm are advising different clients in a situation where the clients' interests may overlap/conflict. (You can act for both clients in this situation if, among other things, you have the explicit consent of both.) Arrangements will be put in place to ensure that information does not "leak" from one team to the other. However those arrangements are themselves fairly visible, and they involve people on each team being fully aware that the other team is acting for the other party. So they are not a good model for an arrangement under which First Cousin well never find out even that the firm is acting for the OP's friend.

But if Client is happy for First Cousin to know that the firm is acting for Client, provided First Cousin knows nothing else, then, yeah, some modified version of the standard Chinese wall arrangements will probably meet the needs of the case.

Note that these arrangements do rather depend on everyone involved complying with rules and displaying integrity; if you want to cheat and go digging for information by using someone else's login, or their unattended terminal, for instance, you can probably do that. So if First Cousin is the kind of person who would try and cheat their way around the Chinese wall protections, they can probably do that (though it would cost them their job, if detected).

Mr. Incognito

This happens all the time.

That's why we do conflict checks.

If someone has a conflict then they will be kept off the file.

Similarly if she doesnt want a family member to know contact the solicitor that was handling the file and they can ensure that they dont have access to it.

If the matter is closed it can be archived and shredded

SusanC10

Thanks for all the replies.

She is going to ring the Solicitor and explain that her First Cousin is starting work there soon and give her name and ask that her File not be made available to the Cousin. See how she gets on. She doesn't mind hugely her Cousin knowing that she is a Client of the Firm but she does mind if the details were known to her.

Thanks again.