The basics

1. What's in these terms?

These terms tell you the rules for using our website lawhive.co.uk (our site).

2. Who we are and how to contact us?

Our site is operated by Scale FS Ltd t/a LawHive (we or us). We are registered in England and Wales under company number 11896624 and have our registered office at 43 Runnymede, London, England, SW19 2PG.

To contact us, please contact customer services using the chat function on our site or by emailing us.

Use of the website

3. By using our site you accept these terms

By using our site, you confirm that you accept these terms of use and that you agree to comply with them.

If you do not agree to these terms, you must not use our site.

We recommend that you print a copy of these terms for future reference.

4. There are other terms that may apply to you

These terms of use refer to the following additional terms, which also apply to your use of our site:

Our Privacy Policy, which sets out the terms on which we process any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us. By using our site, you consent to such processing and you warrant that all data provided by you is accurate.

Client Solicitor Terms of Engagement, which sets out the terms on which you agree to engage any LawHive lawyer, should you choose to do so.

5. We may make changes to these terms

We amend these terms from time to time. Every time you wish to use our site, please check these terms to ensure you understand the terms that apply at that time.

6. We may make changes to our site

We may update and change our site from time to time to reflect changes to our products, our users' needs and our business priorities. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any major changes.

We may suspend or withdraw our site.

We do not guarantee that our site, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend or withdraw or restrict the availability of all or any part of our site for business and operational reasons. We will try to give you reasonable notice of any suspension or withdrawal.

You are also responsible for ensuring that all persons who access our site through your internet connection are aware of these terms of use and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them.

Your responsibilities

7. You must keep your account details safe

If you choose, or you are provided with, a user identification code, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential. You must not disclose it to any third party.

We have the right to disable any user identification code or password, whether chosen by you or allocated by us, at any time, if in our reasonable opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms of use.

If you know or suspect that anyone other than you knows your username or password, you must promptly notify us using the customer chat function on our site.

8. How you may use material on our site

We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in our site, and in the material published on it. Those works are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved.

You may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from our site for your personal use and you may draw the attention of others within your organisation to content posted on our site.

You must not modify the paper or digital copies of any materials you have printed off or downloaded in any way, and you must not use any illustrations, photographs, video or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text.

Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on our site must always be acknowledged. You must not use any part of the content on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors.

If you print off, copy or download any part of our site in breach of these terms of use, your right to use our site will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made.

9. Do not rely on information on this site

lawhive is not a law firm and DOES NOT provide any legal advice. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site or any conversation with one of our employees.

lawhive uses a network of licensed lawyers (lawhive lawyers) to provide legal work directly to clients. Any lawyer engaged via lawhive is engaged directly by you, in accordance with the terms of engagement found here.

Our site is a general service that provides legal information over the Internet. We are not a law firm and our employees are not acting as your solicitor. The information contained on our site is general legal information and should not be construed as legal advice to be applied to any specific factual situation. If you are unsure whether your particular situation requires that a document be changed, you should consult a solicitor. Use of our site DOES NOT create or constitute a solicitor-client relationship between lawhive or any employee of or other person associated with lawhive and a user of our site. As the law differs in each legal jurisdiction and may be interpreted or applied differently depending on your location or situation, the information on our site is not a substitute for the advice of a solicitor.

Although we make reasonable efforts to update the information on our site, we make no representations, warranties or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on our site is accurate, complete or up to date.

10. We are not responsible for websites we link to

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or information you may obtain from them.

We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources.

11. User-generated content is not approved by us

This website may include information and materials uploaded by other users of the site, including to bulletin boards and chat rooms. This information and these materials have not been verified or approved by us. The views expressed by other users on our site do not represent our views or values.

If you wish to complain about information and materials uploaded by other users please contact us using the customer chat function.

12. Our responsibility for loss or damage suffered by you

Whether you are a consumer or a business user:

We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors and for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation.

If you are a business user:

• we exclude all implied conditions, warranties, representations or other terms that may apply to our site or any content on it;

• we will not be liable to you for any loss or damage, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with:

  • use of, or inability to use, our site; or
  • use of or reliance on any content displayed on our site.

• in particular, we will not be liable for:

  • loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
  • business interruption;
  • loss of anticipated savings;
  • loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation; or
  • any indirect or consequential loss or damage.

If you are a consumer user:

• please note that we only provide our site for domestic and private use. You agree not to use our site for any commercial or business purposes, and we have no liability to you for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity; and
• if defective digital content that we have supplied, damages a device or digital content belonging to you and this is caused by our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation. However, we will not be liable for damage that you could have avoided by following our advice to apply an update offered to you free of charge or for damage that was caused by you failing to correctly follow installation instructions or to have in place the minimum system requirements advised by us.

13. Uploading content to our site

Whenever you make use of a feature that allows you to upload content to our site, you must comply with the content standards set out in these terms.

You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and you will be liable to us and indemnify us for any breach of that warranty. This means you will be responsible for any loss or damage we suffer as a result of your breach of warranty.

Any content you upload to our site will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary.

We are not responsible for viruses and you must not introduce them.

We do not guarantee that our site will be secure or free from bugs or viruses.

You are responsible for configuring your information technology, computer programmes and platform to access our site. You should use your own virus protection software.

You must not misuse our site by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to our site, the server on which our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to our site. You must not attack our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and we will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, your right to use our site will cease immediately.

14. Rules about linking to our site

You may link to our home page, provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it.

You must not establish a link in such a way as to suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists.

You must not establish a link to our site in any website that is not owned by you.

Our site must not be framed on any other site, nor may you create a link to any part of our site other than the home page.

We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

The website in which you are linking must comply in all respects with the content standards set out in these terms.

If you wish to link to or make any use of content on our site other than that set out above, please contact us using the customer chat function on the website.

15. Authorisation you grant us

By signing up to our service and submitting your information via our site, you explicitly authorise us to act on your behalf regarding the matter submitted to us through our site. This includes referring you to a lawhive lawyer to carry out work for you and securely passing along the details of your case.

lawhive lawyers practising in the UK as England and Wales solicitors are individually regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Note that this regulation does not extend to lawhive itself. For more information please see www.sra.org.uk. lawhive lawyers practising in the UK other than as England and Wales solicitors are individually regulated by the relevant professional body in their place of admission. For more detail on any aspect of this, please contact us.

lawhive lawyers pay lawhive a platform fee in return for the referral of work and the use of the lawhive technology platform. All lawhive lawyers strcitly comply with Paragraphs 5.1-5.3 of the SRA Code of Conduct pertaining to ‘Referrals, introductions and separate businesses. (https://www.sra.org.uk/solicitors/standards-regulations/code-conduct-solicitors/#rule-5)

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (the independent regulatory body of the Law Society of England and Wales) permits solicitors to make agreements with their introducing sources for referral work. Such agreements must comply with 5.1-5.3 of the SRA Code of Conduct which contains strict rules to safeguard your interests as the customer. lawhive and the lawhive lawyers have entered into a formal referral agreement.

Legal bits and pieces

16. Which country's laws apply to any disputes?

If you are a consumer, please note that these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction except that if you are a resident of Northern Ireland you may also bring proceedings in Northern Ireland, and if you are resident of Scotland, you may also bring proceedings in Scotland.

If you are a business, these terms of use, their subject matter and their formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by English law. We both agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

17. Our trademarks are registered

lawhive is a trademark of Scale FS Ltd. You are not permitted to use it without our approval.