Legal Disclaimer

1. Regulatory and publicity information

This website is a communication published by Blackwood & Slaughter, Legal Counsel & Advocates, of 1 Mayfair Place, Mayfair, London W1J 8AJ, United Kingdom.

The whole of this website is a publicity communication. It is intended to be accurate, not misleading, and clearly identifiable as a communication from the firm. It is not a solicitation in any jurisdiction where such a communication would be prohibited, nor is it directed to any person in any jurisdiction where its publication or availability would be contrary to law or regulation. If the law of your jurisdiction restricts communications of this kind, please disregard this website.

2. No legal advice

Everything published on this website is general information. None of it is legal advice, and none of it is offered or intended as legal advice on any matter, whether yours or anyone else’s.

Legal advice requires a lawyer who has been given the complete facts, who has considered the law of the relevant jurisdiction as it stands today, who has identified the questions the client has not thought to ask, and who has accepted professional responsibility for the answer. A web page does none of that. The general descriptions here cannot take account of the particular facts, the applicable limitation periods, the procedural posture, or the commercial considerations that determine what should actually be done in any real matter.

You should not act, or refrain from acting, in reliance on anything published on this site. Consult a solicitor or other qualified lawyer in the relevant jurisdiction about your specific circumstances before taking any step.

3. No solicitor and client relationship

Your use of this website does not create a solicitor and client relationship between you and Blackwood & Slaughter or any of its lawyers. Nor does any of the following, alone or in combination:

• reading, downloading or relying on any part of this website;
• completing and submitting the enquiry form;
• sending an email to any address published on this site;
• speaking to a member of the firm about a possible instruction; or
• receiving a reply, an acknowledgement or a request for further information from us.

A solicitor and client relationship with this firm is formed only when we have completed a conflicts check, have decided to accept the matter, and have confirmed the engagement in a written engagement letter signed on behalf of the firm. Until all of those steps are complete, we are not your lawyers, we owe you no duty of care, we are not monitoring any deadline in your matter, and we are not acting to protect your interests. Do not assume otherwise because you have written to us.

4. Do not send confidential information

Please do not send us confidential, privileged, proprietary or time-sensitive information until we have confirmed an engagement in writing.

Information transmitted to the firm before an engagement exists:

• may not attract legal professional privilege and may not be treated as confidential;
• may not be protected from disclosure to a third party, a court or a regulator;
• may be reviewed by firm personnel conducting a conflicts check; and
• will not prevent us from representing another party whose interests are adverse to yours, including in the same matter, and including a party who has already instructed us.

Your first communication should be a short, general and non-confidential outline sufficient for us to identify the parties and run a conflicts check. If a matter is too sensitive even for that, write to counsel@blackwoodandslaughter.com saying only that you wish to speak, and we will arrange an appropriate channel before anything is committed to writing.

5. Prior results and no guarantee of outcome

Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. Every case turns on its own facts, its own evidence, its own procedural history, the law as it stands when the case is decided, the court or tribunal before which it is heard, the judge who hears it, and the conduct of the opposing party. None of those factors is transferable from one case to another, and a judgment in one matter is not a forecast of the judgment in another.

Nothing on this website is a guarantee, a warranty, a promise or a prediction about the result of any matter, and no lawyer at this firm is authorised to give one. Any statement about the firm’s approach, philosophy, experience or standard of preparation describes how we work; it says nothing about what your case is worth or how it will end. Descriptions of our practice areas are descriptions of the work we do, not representations about outcomes achieved or achievable.

6. Testimonials and endorsements

Any testimonial, endorsement, client comment, quotation, ranking, award or listing that appears on this site, whether now or in future, is included for information only and is subject to the following qualifications.

• A testimonial reflects the experience and opinion of one client in one matter. It is not a guarantee, warranty or prediction of the outcome of any other matter.
• No testimonial should be understood as a promise that the firm can or will obtain a similar result for you.
• Rankings, awards and directory listings are conferred by third parties applying their own methodologies and criteria, which the firm does not control and does not endorse. No aspect of any such recognition has been approved by any court or by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
• Testimonials appear only where the client has consented to publication.

7. Jurisdiction and rights of practice

The lawyers of Blackwood & Slaughter are admitted as solicitors of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and advise on the law of England and Wales. The individual biographies identify any further qualification, and any higher rights of audience, held by the lawyer concerned. Not every lawyer at the firm holds every such qualification.

Subject to those rights of audience, we conduct litigation and appear in the High Court, including the King’s Bench Division, the Chancery Division and the Commercial Court, in the County Court, in the Court of Appeal, in the UK Supreme Court and in the relevant tribunals, and we instruct counsel at the Bar where a matter calls for it.

Where a matter is governed by the law of another jurisdiction, or falls to be heard by the courts of another jurisdiction, we instruct local counsel qualified in that jurisdiction and work alongside them. We do not hold ourselves out as qualified to advise on foreign law. Where a matter falls outside the work this firm is able to take on, we will say so and, where we can, refer you to someone properly qualified.

Nothing on this website is an offer or an attempt to practise the law of any jurisdiction, or to solicit instructions to do so, where the responsible lawyer is not qualified or otherwise authorised to act.

8. Lawyer responsible for this website

The lawyer responsible for the content of this website is Alaric R. Blackwood, Founding Partner, Blackwood & Slaughter, 1 Mayfair Place, Mayfair, London W1J 8AJ, United Kingdom. Enquiries about the content of this site may be directed to him at counsel@blackwoodandslaughter.com.

9. Accuracy and currency of content

We prepare the material on this site with care, but we do not warrant that it is accurate, complete or current, and we accept no responsibility for any error or omission in it.

The law changes: statutes are amended, regulations are issued and withdrawn, courts decide cases that alter the position, and enforcement postures shift, sometimes quickly and sometimes without much notice. Commentary that was correct when it was written may be wrong by the time you read it. Publication dates on our notes indicate when a piece was written, not that it has since been reviewed. We are under no obligation to update any part of this site, and content may be changed or removed at any time without notice.

10. Third-party content and links

This site may reference or link to material published by third parties. Such references are provided for convenience and do not constitute an endorsement, adoption or verification of the material, or any association with the person publishing it. We do not control third-party content and accept no responsibility for its accuracy, legality, availability or privacy practices. You access it at your own risk.

11. Time limits: act promptly

Legal rights are subject to strict time limits. In England and Wales the Limitation Act 1980 fixes the period within which most claims must be brought, and shorter or different periods are imposed by other statutes, by contractual notice provisions, by the rules of the court or tribunal concerned, and by the deadlines for appealing a judgment or an order. Those periods vary by cause of action and by the identity of the defendant; some are very short, and some begin to run before the injured party is aware that anything has gone wrong. Some may be extended or disapplied, but only in limited circumstances and only by the court.

A claim lost to a limitation period is generally lost for good, however strong it would otherwise have been. Because we are not your lawyers unless and until an engagement letter is in place, we are not tracking any deadline in your matter and we will not warn you if one is approaching. If you think you may have a claim, or that one may be brought against you, seek advice from a qualified lawyer immediately. Delay is the most common way in which a good case is lost.

12. Client confidentiality

The firm does not identify its clients, its engagements or the matters it has handled on this website. That is a function of the duty of confidentiality we owe to every client, and it applies whether or not the matter is a matter of public record.

13. Terms of use and privacy

This disclaimer forms part of, and should be read together with, our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. Those documents contain, among other things, the disclaimers of warranty, the limitation of liability and the governing law provisions that apply to your use of this website.

14. Contact

• Email: counsel@blackwoodandslaughter.com
• Post: Blackwood & Slaughter, 1 Mayfair Place, Mayfair, London W1J 8AJ, United Kingdom