Skip to content Skip to main navigation Skip to page navigation
User's Login

Terms & Conditions

www.bidlegal.co.uk is a website ("the Site") operated by BIDLEGAL LIMITED ("us", "our" or "we").

The following constitutes a legal agreement between any user of the Site ("you") and us with respect to our website service, the terms of which are set out below. You must be at least 18 years of age to agree to and enter into this Agreement on your own behalf and to register for use of this Site. By ticking the box indicating your acceptance of this Agreement, you represent that (i) you have read, understood and agree to be bound by this Agreement and (ii) you are at least 18 years old, and (where relevant) iii) you have authority to act on behalf of the business entity that you represent. Each registration is for a single user only. We do not permit you to share your user name and password with any other person nor with multiple users on a network. If you do not agree to (or cannot comply with) any of these terms and conditions, do not tick the acceptance box and do not attempt to access the Site.

Definitions:

Lawyers: An individual lawyer or firm of lawyers who have registered with the Site and who are willing to provide legal advice or legal services to Customers who have also registered with the Site.

Customers: Individuals or entities who have registered with the Site with a view to obtaining legal advice from the Lawyers.

Tender: The summary of a Customer's need for legal advice or legal services.

Bid: The response from the Lawyers to a Tender, containing details of the Lawyers' proposed charges and amounting to confirmation that the Lawyers can advise on the matters summarised in the Tender.

1. Accessing Our Site

Access to our Site is permitted on a temporary basis, and we reserve the right to withdraw or amend the service we provide on our Site without notice (see below). We will not be liable if for any reason our Site is unavailable at any time or for any period.

From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of our Site, or our entire Site, to users who have registered with us.

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, and 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 opinion you have failed to comply with any of the provisions of these terms.

2. Terms & Conditions For Use Of The Site

  1. Our website service permits you to create Tenders containing details of the matters on which you need legal advice. The Tender will consist of standard terms or phrases picked by you from a drop-down list plus a summary of your legal needs in your own words.
  2. After submitting a Tender, you will receive an email from us acknowledging that we have received your Tender. Tenders are confidential but we reserve the right to review all Tenders and to block any Tenders containing swear words or other material we consider to be offensive. If we block your Tender we will email you to let you know.
  3. Your Tender will be forwarded to the Lawyers for their consideration. We will not pass on to the Lawyers at this stage your name or address or any other identifying details. We will provide the Lawyers solely with a brief description of nature of the Customer who has completed the Tender (e.g. individual or type of entity) and the general geographical area where the Customer is based.
  4. The Lawyers will choose whether to Bid for your legal work. Lawyers are under no obligation to submit a Bid. We will forward to you by email all Bids relating to your Tender. We will not at this stage provide you with the name or address details of the Lawyers who have submitted a Bid but we will provide you with a brief description of the size of law firm and general geographical location.
  5. The Lawyers may require further information from you before being able to submit a Bid. In this instance, we will forward to you by email the queries we receive, without identifying the Lawyer who sent the query. We will only forward your reply by email to the Lawyer who made the query and not to any other Lawyer.
  6. You may choose any of the Bids you receive. You are under order no obligation to accept any of the Bids you receive. We would strongly recommend that you do not accept more than one Bid.
  7. Once you have accepted a Bid, we will provide your name and contact details to the Lawyer who made the successful Bid. We will also supply you with the name and contact details of the Lawyer whose Bid you have accepted. We will have no further involvement between you and the Lawyer.
  8. You will need to contact the Lawyer whose Bid you have accepted, or wait for that Lawyer to contact you. Although the site uses the terms "Tender" and "Bid", there is no binding contract between you and the Lawyer at the point you accept their Bid. At any time up until you and the Lawyer enter into a legally binding contract, neither you or the Lawyer are under any obligation and either you or the Lawyer may decide not to proceed further.
  9. We cannot accept any responsibility for the advice given to you by the Lawyer whose Bid you accepted, nor do we accept responsibility for any part of the process by which you become a client of that Lawyer, nor for any fees you owe the Lawyer.

3. Costs

  1. The Site is free to all Customers. We will not charge you any fee or commission.
  2. We charge a small administration fee when a Lawyer first registers with us. Our registration fees are:
    £100 Sole practitioner
    £250 Firm with less than 10 partners
    £500 Firm with 10-50 partners
    £750 Firm with more than 50 partners
    For these purposes, we do not distinguish between different types of partner (equity, fixed share, salaried etc).
  3. In addition, we charge an annual fee. Our annual fees currently are:
    £250 Sole practitioner
    £500 Firm with less than 10 partners
    £750 Firm with 10-50 partners
    £1,000 Firm with more than 50 partners
  4. We reserve the right to increase the first registration fee and the annual fee at any time without prior notice.
  5. We do not charge the annual fee until the Lawyer's first successful Bid, that is the first time the Lawyer has a Bid accepted by a Customer. At this point we will then send an invoice to the Lawyer for our annual fee.
  6. At the end of each year, the Lawyers can decide whether to re-register with the Site. If a Lawyer does wish to re-register, we will immediately send an invoice for the next year's annual fee.
  7. If a Lawyer chooses not to re-register, the Lawyer must let us know at least 5 working days prior to the anniversary date of their first registration. Re-registration will be automatic unless we have received the requisite notice that the Lawyer does not wish to re-register.
  8. A Lawyer who has chosen not to re-register may decide to rejoin later by giving us at least 5 working days' notice. We reserve the right to charge the initial registration fee again if we need to add a Lawyer's details back onto the system. We will only do this if a Lawyer has allowed their membership to lapse for 2 or more complete years. We reserve the right to change the period after which we will charge the initial registration fee again.
  9. All our fees are subject to VAT. We are VAT registered and will provide a VAT invoice.

4. Privacy Policy

Any personal information that is provided to us by you will be held and used by us for the purposes of allowing you to use our Services. We may also use your personal information to communicate with you, to personalise our Services and to keep records. If you accept any Bid we may also pass your personal information to the relevant Lawyer(s).

We will not pass your personal information to anyone else unless either you request or consent to it or we are required to do so by law. We will only hold any personal information for as long as necessary.

Using our Services involves using the Internet. Although we will always try to protect your personal information any personal information you send, and our communications with you, via the Internet cannot be guaranteed completely secure. By using our Services you accept that risk.

If you want to know what personal information we are holding about you, please contact us at info@bidlegal.co.uk, or you can write to us at Bidlegal Limited, 2nd Floor, 145-147 St John St, London, EC1V 4PY. If the law allows us to, we may make a charge for providing the information.

5. Our Right To Vary These Terms And Conditions

We have the right to revise and amend these terms and conditions from time to time, for example, to reflect changes in market conditions affecting our business, changes in technology, changes in payment methods, changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements and changes in our system's capabilities.

You will be subject to the policies and terms and conditions in force at the time that you submit your Tender, unless any change to those policies or these terms and conditions is required to be made by law or governmental authority (in which case it will apply to all Tenders previously placed by you).

6. Your Agreements

You Agree that:

  • it is your responsibility to provide accurate personal information ("Personal Data") and to update your Personal Data as necessary to keep it accurate. You undertake that all the details you provide to us for the purpose of introducing you to Lawyers by means of the Bid system set out above are correct;
  • it is your responsibility to ensure that your email address is current otherwise certain functions of the Site will not be available to you. We will only use your Personal Data in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and our Privacy Policy, set out above;
  • it is your responsibility to maintain the confidentiality and security of your Personal Data especially your user name and password. You will not allow others to use your user name or password and you will notify us immediately of any unauthorised use of your user name and/or password. We shall not be responsible for any losses arising out of the unauthorised use of your user name and/or password and you agree to indemnify and hold harmless us, and/or the Lawyers as applicable, for any improper, unauthorised or illegal uses of the same;
  • whilst we will utilise anti-virus protections, it is your obligation to ensure that any use you make of the Site is free of any virus, Trojan horse, worm or any other items of a destructive nature. You will not hold us responsible for any damages that result from you accessing the Site (including any software or systems you use to access the Site).

7. System Requirements

The computer, Internet access and system operated by you and your ability to use the same may affect your ability to use the Site. You acknowledge and agree that any system requirements necessary to use the Site are your responsibility.

8. Misuse Of The Site

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Site or parts of it if in our sole discretion we believe you are in breach of any provision of this Agreement. If your access has been suspended or terminated you will not be permitted to re-register or to re-access the Site without our prior consent.

9. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, losses, demands, causes of action and judgments (including solicitors' or attorneys' fees and court costs) arising from or concerning any breach by you of this Agreement and/or these terms and conditions for your use of the Site and you agree to reimburse us and/or them on demand for any losses, costs or expenses we or they incur as a result thereof.

10. Assignment

You may not assign this Agreement. We may assign our rights under this Agreement in whole or in part.

11. General

We may require you to change your password or any other information which permits you access to the Site.

We will not be liable for errors or omissions on the Site nor for loss or damage suffered by you as a result of any unavailability of the Site or by any use by you or reliance placed on the Site or its contents including any damage caused to your computer or otherwise howsoever, or any direct, indirect or consequential loss or loss of data.

We shall not be liable to you for the failure of any equipment, data processing system or transmission link and will not be liable to you as a result of any down-time which may occur upon the Site.

The Site is provided "as is" and you acknowledge that despite our reasonable endeavours the Site may contain bugs, errors and other problems (including, but not by way of limitation) infection by viruses (despite anti-virus protections which may be incorporated) or anything else which may cause contamination or destruction of any sort that may cause system failures. Notwithstanding, we will use all reasonable endeavours to correct any errors and omissions as quickly as practicable after being notified by e-mail to admin@bidlegal.co.uk.

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently the Site (or any part thereof) without notice to you and without any liability to you or to any third party.

Any links to third party websites on the Site are provided solely for your convenience. If you use these links, you leave the Site. We have not reviewed all of these third party websites and do not control and are not responsible for these websites or their content or availability. We therefore do not endorse or make any representations about them, or any material found there, or any results that may be obtained from using them. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to the Site, you do so entirely at your own risk.

We welcome 'hot links' to the Site, but not 'deep linking' by which we mean that you may not include a link to our Site, or display the contents of our Site, surrounded or framed or otherwise surrounded by content not originating from us without our consent. If you would like to licence our content, please contact us at admin@bidlegal.co.uk. Any unauthorized framing of or linking to the Site will be investigated, and appropriate legal action will be taken, including without limitation, civil, criminal, and injunctive redress and may result in the termination of this Agreement or other remedies as set out in this Agreement.

It is the responsibility of advertisers and sponsors on this Site to ensure that any content submitted by them for inclusion on the Site complies with applicable laws and regulations and we shall not be responsible for or liable to any extent for any error or inaccuracy which may appear in such content.

12. Intellectual Property Rights

All intellectual property content on the Site including, without limitation trademarks, button icons, logos, graphics, images and digital downloads is owned by us and is protected by International Copyright laws and your use of them is governed by this Agreement, certain end-user licence agreements, and applicable law.

You will infringe our rights if you copy or reproduce any part of the Site save for:

  1. a temporary copy of any part of the Site which is automatically made or retained by your browser as you browse the Site; or
  2. you printing out any pages from the Site as a record of any Bid you have submitted; or
  3. you printing out a copy of the Terms and Conditions which we would request you to do; or
  4. your own personal use provided that: (a) no documents or related graphics on the Website are modified in any way; (b) no graphics on the Website are used separately from the corresponding text; and (c) the Company's copyright and trade mark notices and this permission notice appear in all copies.
  5. Other than for the above four exceptions you must not copy the intellectual property in question for any purpose unless you have been given explicit permission in writing by the rights owners.

For the purposes of this Clause "copy" and "copying" shall include non-literal copying as well as the copying of the structure and form of the Site and any elements within it.

13. Disclaimers

You understand and agree that your use of the Site is at your own sole risk. The Site is provided "as is" and without warranty by us and, to the maximum extent allowed by applicable law, we expressly disclaim all warranties, express or implied including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose and any warranty of non-infringement. We do not warrant, guarantee, or make any representations regarding the use or the results of the use of the Site with respect to performance, accuracy, reliability, security capability or otherwise. You will not hold us responsible for any damages that result from you accessing (including any software or systems you use to access) the website service or using the Site including, but not limited to, infection by virus, damage to any computer, software or systems or portable devices you use to access the same. No oral or written information or advice given by any person shall create a warranty or a representation from us or any of Our Providers.

We make no warranty that any particular device or software you use will be compatible with this Site. It is your sole responsibility to ensure that your system(s) will function correctly with this Site.

Under no circumstances shall we be liable for any unauthorised use of the Site.

Under no circumstances shall we be liable to you for any consequential, incidental or special damages arising out of your use of or inability to use the Site, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. To the extent that in a particular circumstance any disclaimer or limitation on damages or liability set forth in this Agreement is prohibited by any law which is applicable, then, instead of the provisions hereof in such particular circumstance, we shall be entitled to the maximum disclaimers and/or limitations on damages and liability available at law or in equity by such applicable law and in no event shall such damages or liability exceed ten pounds (£10).

14. Third Party Rights

This Agreement is only for the benefit of you and us and no other person can claim a benefit from this agreement by virtue of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 which Act shall not apply to this Agreement.

15. Law And Legal Notices

This Agreement and any other terms or documents referred to herein represent your entire agreement with us with respect to your use of this Site. If any part of this Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion shall be construed in a manner consistent with the applicable law to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intentions of the parties, and the remaining portions shall remain in full force and effect. English Law governs this Agreement and your use of the Site, and you expressly agree that the English courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any claim or dispute between us or relating in any way to your account or your use of this Site.

16. Acknowledgements

You acknowledge that we may change the terms of this Agreement by posting a new Agreement on the Site. You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to check the Site regularly to ascertain if changes have been made and your continued use of the Site after such a change will constitute your acceptance of the change.

By clicking the accept button you acknowledge that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement and by our Privacy Policy, in connection with the site www.bidlegal.co.uk

Bidlegal Limited is a company incorporated in England under Company Number 6612144 Registered office: 14 Green Lane, Farnham, Surrey, GU9 8PU. Our VAT number is 934 5097 11.

Bidlegal is regulated by the Ministry of Justice in respect of claims management activities. Bidlegal's registration is recorded on the website www.claimsregulation.gov.uk.