1. Purpose of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to the collection, use, disclosure and handling of personal information by Burke & Associates Lawyers Pty Ltd and its associated entities (collectively “Burke Lawyers”, “we” or “us”), including personal information collected via our www.burkelawyers.com.au website (“Website”).

Burke Lawyers is committed to protecting the privacy of individuals in accordance with the Australian Privacy Principles (“APPs”) set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the “Act”). We will only collect, use or disclose personal information in accordance with the Act and this Privacy Policy.

Your use of the Website is also subject to the Burke Lawyers Website Terms of Use.

2. What is personal information?

Personal information is information or opinion about an identified or reasonably identifiable individual, whether true or not and whether in a recorded form or otherwise.

Sensitive information is a type of personal information which is subject to special provisions requiring a higher level of protection than other personal information. Sensitive information is any personal information about your racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or associations, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership or associations, sexual orientations or practices, criminal record and / or health or genetic information.

3. What personal information do we collect and hold?

We collect and hold personal information that is reasonably necessary for us to carry out our business and / or you have consented to our collection of that personal information and / or we are required or authorised by law to collect that information. The type of personal information that we collect about you will depend on the nature of your dealings with us.

We may collect and hold personal information about you that includes, but is not limited to, your name, date and place of birth, contact details, Internet Protocol (IP) address, occupation and education/work history, employer, legal and industry areas of interest, passport details, and information relating to your dealings with Burke Lawyers and our clients. If you are a client, potential client, referral partner or potential referral partner, this may include information about you, your and / or your client’s organisation and role, information about other employees and management of your and / or your client’s organisation, and other information about your and / or your client’s legal matters.

We may also collect sensitive information about you if reasonably necessary for us to perform our functions and if you have consented, or we are required or authorised by law.

If we are not able to collect personal information about you, we may not be able to provide you with products, services and assistance to the extent that providing you with such products, services or assistance requires us to collect, use or disclose personal information.

We also collect and hold information about our current, former and prospective employees as part of their application and onboarding processes, and during the course of their employment relationship with us. This may include information about the individual’s employment history, right to work in Australia, health and disabilities, racial or ethnic origin, criminal history, tax file number, superannuation details, bank details and other sensitive information. Under the Act, personal information about a current or former employee may be held, used or disclosed in any way that is directly connected to the employment relationship.

4. How do we collect personal information?

We may collect personal information about you in your use of our Website and in your dealings with us including when you:

• provide personal information to us;
• make an enquiry with us, or communicate or otherwise deal with us in-person, in writing, by telephone or online (including by email, social media or our Website), whether on behalf of yourself, your organisation, your client, your prospective client or another individual or organisation;
• apply for a position of employment with us;
• use our services or Website (including via cookies); and / or
• otherwise interact with us in the course of our business.

With your consent, we may also collect personal information about you from another Burke Lawyers group entity, from publicly available sources of information, or, in some cases, from third-parties including recruitment agencies, previous employers, government departments and third-party service providers which provide criminal, bankruptcy and other checks.

5. Why do we collect personal information?

We collect, hold and use personal information for the purposes of carrying out our business, providing and improving our services (including our Website), complying with our legal obligations and such secondary purposes permitted by the Act.

We may collect, hold and use your personal information for the following purposes (each a “Permitted Purpose”) and such secondary purposes permitted by the Act:

• to verify your identity or the identify of persons authorised to trade on behalf of our clients, customers, suppliers and / or service providers;
• to provide legal services, advice or other things you may have requested (or that a referral partner or potential referral partner may have requested on your behalf), including online or legal technology services or solutions as instructed or requested by you or your organisation;
• to manage and administer your or your organisation's business relationship with Burke Lawyers, including processing payments, accounting, auditing, billing and collection, support services;
• to comply with our legal obligations, including, but not limited to, record keeping obligations, compliance screening and conflict check obligations and anti-money laundering obligations, which may include undertaking automated checks of your identity and contact details against applicable sanctioned-party lists, contacting you to confirm your identity in the case of a potential match and / or recording such interactions with you for compliance purposes;
• to analyse and improve our services and communications to you, including obtaining feedback;
• to secure and manage access to our premises, IT and communication systems, online platforms, websites and other systems, and to prevent and detect security threats, fraud or other criminal or malicious activities;
• for insurance purposes;
• for monitoring and assessing compliance with our policies and standards;
• to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and requests anywhere in the world, including reporting to and / or being audited by national and international regulatory bodies;
• to comply with court orders and exercises and/or defend our legal rights;
• to communicate with you about the latest legal developments, announcements, and other information about Burke Lawyers services, products and technologies (including client briefings, newsletters and other information) as well as Burke Lawyers events and projects;
• to contact you to engage in surveys, marketing campaigns, market analysis, sweepstakes, contests or other promotional activities or events;
• to assess your application (or an application submitted on your behalf by a recruitment agency) for employment with us;
• to invite you to apply for future employment positions of interest with us (unless you notify us that you do not wish this to occur); and / or
• for any purpose related and/or ancillary to any of the above or any other purpose for which your personal data was provided to us.

Where you have consented to receiving marketing-related communications, that consent will remain current until you advise us otherwise. You can opt out from receiving further marketing-related communications at any time by contacting our Privacy Officer (described below) or using the unsubscribe facility included in our electronic messages.

6. How do we use and disclose personal information?

We may use or disclose your personal information for a Permitted Purpose and / or such related secondary purposes where you would reasonably expect us to use or disclose your personal information for that secondary purpose. We will request your permission before using or disclosing your personal information for any purpose that is not outlined in this Privacy Policy or that you have not already consented to.

For a Permitted Purpose and / or related secondary purpose, we may disclose your personal information to third-parties, including:

• our related bodies corporate, including other Burke Lawyers group entities which comprise Burke Lawyers’ directors and shareholders from time to time;
• financial institutions and superannuation funds for payment processing;
• barristers, external lawyers, experts, referral partners, potential referral partners or other relevant third-parties in relation to your matter;
• our advisors, consultants and insurers;
• government agencies;
• referees whose details are provided to us by job applicants; and / or
• our contracted service providers that we use to conduct our business, including, without limitation:
  • printers and mail houses;
  • document production services;
  • business and litigation support providers;
  • communication and information technology providers;
  • legal outsourcing providers (in Australia and overseas);
  • legal technology services providers;
  • data hosting/storage and archive service providers;
  • function and event organisers;
  • marketing and communications agencies;
  • research and statistical analysis providers;
  • billing services;
  • HR information management system; and
  • payroll providers.

We may disclose your personal information to third-party service providers who are located outside Australia and / or who store or process personal information on servers or databases located outside Australia. Such countries will depend on the circumstances and may not be included on the European Commission’s list of adequate data protection. In the course of our ordinary business operations, we may disclose personal information to third-parties located in and / or that store or process personal information on servers or databases located in countries including, but not limited to, the United States of America, India, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Canada, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica and Argentina.

When you provide your personal information to us, you consent to the disclosure of your information outside of Australia and acknowledge that we are not required to ensure that overseas recipients handle that personal information in compliance with the APPs.

7. Storage and security of your personal information

We use industry-standard security measures and other reasonable steps to safeguard the personal information we hold against misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, destruction, modification and disclosure, and to comply with our privacy obligations.

We may store personal information in hard copy or in digital format stored within Australia on infrastructure owned or managed either by us or by reputable third-party service providers, such as cloud storage vendors. We may disclose your personal information to third-parties, as described in Section 6 of this Privacy Policy, who may store or transfer such personal information outside of Australia. The storage or transfer of your personal information by these third-parties will be subject to confidentiality provisions as we deem appropriate. We take reasonable steps to ensure that such third-parties comply with the Act and any other applicable privacy and data legislation.

We retain personal information only for the period necessary to achieve the purposes for which it was collected (including any secondary purposes permitted under the APPs), or for a longer period consented to by you or if required to meet our legal or regulatory obligations. We take reasonable steps to de-identify and / or destroy personal information that we no longer require.

Notwithstanding the reasonable steps taken to keep personal information secure, security cannot be guaranteed, and data breaches may occur. Should we become aware of any breach to our security systems that is likely to place your personal information at risk, we will notify you and any authority as required to comply with our privacy obligations. If you suspect any misuse or unauthorised access to your personal information, please let us know immediately.

Except to the extent liability cannot be excluded due to the operation of statute, we are not liable for any claim (including in negligence) arising out of a third-party’s use of your personal information where we were authorised to provide that third-party that personal information under this Privacy Policy.

8. Your rights to access, correction and erasure of personal information

You may request access to, correction of, or erasure of the personal information that we hold about you by contacting our Privacy Officer (detailed below). There are some circumstances in which we may not be able or required to provide access to or erase all or part of your personal information. Where this is the case, we will tell you why.

There is no charge for requesting access to your personal information; however, we may require you to meet our reasonable costs to provide you with access (such as photocopying costs or costs for time spent on collating large amounts of material). We may also need to verify your identity when you request your personal information.

We will respond to your requests for access to, correction of, or erasure of personal information in a reasonable time and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we hold about you remains accurate, up to date, complete, relevant and not misleading.

9. Notifiable Data Breaches Scheme

In the event of any loss, or unauthorised access or disclosure of your personal information that is likely to result in serious harm to you, Burke Lawyers will investigate and notify you and the Australian Information Commissioner as soon as practicable, in accordance with the Act.

10. Complaints

If you have a complaint about the way in which we have handled any privacy issue (including your request for access, correction or erasure of your personal information), or if you believe that we have not complied with this Privacy Policy or the Act, please contact our Privacy Officer (detailed below) with your name, email address and / or telephone number and a clear description of your complaint.

Our Privacy Officer will assess your complaint to determine whether a breach has occurred and what further investigations or actions may be necessary (if any). We will keep you informed of the outcome and any subsequent internal review.

We aim to resolve complaints promptly and efficiently, aiming to respond within 30 days. We request that you cooperate with us during this process and provide us with relevant information we may require.

If you remain unsatisfied with our response and / or the way in which we have handled a privacy issue, you may approach an independent adviser and / or contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (“OAIC”) (www.oaic.gov.au) for guidance on alternative courses of action that may be available, including lodging a complaint with the OAIC.

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

The date of this Privacy Policy is set out below. We may change this Privacy Policy at our discretion. By continuing to use the Website or otherwise continuing to deal with us you accept this Privacy Policy as amended from time to time.

12. Contact us

If you have any queries about this Privacy Policy, the personal information about you that we hold, or the way we handle that personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer on +61 3 9822 8588 or at supportteam@burkelawyers.com.au.

Unless notified otherwise, our Privacy Officer is Meghan Warren of Burke Lawyers.

Date of last review:  5 December 2025