Privacy Policy

LexBridge Legal (NZBN 9429053651297) is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how you can access, correct or complain about it. It applies both to this website and to the legal services we provide.

We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 2020. We are also bound by the duty of confidentiality owed by lawyers to their clients under the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006 and the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Lawyers: Conduct and Client Care) Rules 2008. Where that duty is stricter than the Privacy Act, the stricter duty applies.

1. Who we are

LexBridge Legal, Level 5, 507 Lake Road, Takapuna, Auckland 0622, New Zealand. NZBN 9429053651297.

Privacy enquiries should go to [name and title of the person responsible for privacy], at info@lexbridge.co.nz or 09 215 9798.

2. What we collect

2.1 Information you give us

• When you use the enquiry form on this website: your first and last name, email address, phone number, the area of law your enquiry concerns, and whatever you choose to tell us about your situation.
• When you instruct us: identity and address verification documents, and the information needed to act on your matter — which may include immigration history, family circumstances, financial and property details, employment records, and information about your health or any criminal history where that is relevant to a visa application or court proceeding.
• Correspondence, file notes, and records of meetings and phone calls.

Some of this is sensitive information. We collect it only where it is necessary for the work you have asked us to do, or where the law requires us to.

2.2 Information collected automatically through this website

This website sets no cookies and loads no third-party fonts, scripts, analytics or advertising. We do not track you across other websites.

Our hosting and content delivery provider, Cloudflare, keeps standard server logs — IP address, browser type, the pages requested and the time of the request — which are used for security, abuse prevention and performance. We do not use those logs to identify individual visitors.

[If web analytics, a chat widget, a booking tool or advertising pixels are added later, this section and the cookie position must be updated.]

2.3 Information we collect from other people

In the course of acting for you we may receive information about you from Immigration New Zealand and other government agencies, other parties and their lawyers, banks and lenders, real estate agents, valuers, medical practitioners, Land Information New Zealand, the courts, and publicly available registers.

3. Why we collect it

• To respond to your enquiry and to decide whether we are able to act for you.
• To provide legal services and conduct your matter.
• To verify your identity and meet our obligations under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009.
• To check for conflicts of interest.
• To invoice you and keep accounting and trust account records.
• To meet our legal, regulatory and professional obligations, including inspections by the New Zealand Law Society.

Giving us your information is voluntary, but if you do not provide what we ask for we may be unable to act for you, or unable to act effectively.

4. Who we disclose it to

We may disclose your personal information to:

• Immigration New Zealand, the Immigration and Protection Tribunal, courts, and other government agencies and tribunals, as your matter requires.
• Other parties to your matter and their lawyers, where disclosure is necessary to carry out your instructions.
• Banks, lenders, insurers, real estate agents and Land Information New Zealand, in property and finance matters.
• Barristers, experts, translators, process servers and agents we engage on your behalf.
• Our professional indemnity insurers and their advisers, our auditors, and New Zealand Law Society inspectors, who are themselves bound by confidentiality.
• Our information technology, email and document management providers, under contractual confidentiality obligations.
• Any person, where you have authorised it, or where disclosure is required or permitted by law.

We are required by the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 to report certain transactions and suspicious activity to the New Zealand Police Financial Intelligence Unit. Where we make such a report, the law may prohibit us from telling you that we have done so.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not disclose it for anyone's marketing purposes.

5. Sending information overseas

Much of our work has a cross-border dimension. We may need to disclose your personal information to people outside New Zealand — overseas lawyers and agents, foreign government agencies and embassies, or family members abroad — in order to carry out your instructions. Where we do, we comply with information privacy principle 12 of the Privacy Act 2020, which limits disclosure to foreign persons unless comparable safeguards apply or you have authorised the disclosure.

[Confirm where the firm's email, document management and backup data is physically stored — e.g. Microsoft 365 in Australia — and name it here.] Our website is delivered through Cloudflare's global network, which may serve pages from servers outside New Zealand.

6. Storing, protecting and destroying it

Your information is held in [name of practice management system] and, where hard copies exist, at our Takapuna office. We take reasonable technical and organisational steps to protect it against loss, misuse and unauthorised access or disclosure, including access controls and encrypted storage.

We keep client files for at least [7] years after a matter is closed, and trust account records for at least six years as required by the Lawyers and Conveyancers Act (Trust Account) Regulations 2008. After that, files may be securely destroyed without further notice to you. If you would like your original documents returned, please ask us.

7. Accessing and correcting your information

You have the right to ask for the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct it if it is wrong. Write to info@lexbridge.co.nz or to our Takapuna address. We may need to verify your identity before we respond.

We will respond within 20 working days, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires. There are limited grounds on which we may withhold information — for example where it is subject to legal professional privilege, or where releasing it would involve disclosing someone else's personal information. If we withhold anything, we will tell you why. If we decline to correct information, you may ask us to attach a statement of the correction you sought.

8. Privacy complaints

If you are concerned about how we have handled your personal information, please tell us first — info@lexbridge.co.nz or 09 215 9798. We will acknowledge your complaint and investigate it.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner:

A complaint about the legal services we have provided is different, and is dealt with under our complaints procedure.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The version published on this page is the version that applies, and the date it was last updated appears at the top.