GDPR / PRIVACY POLICY
Virtus Legal Search Limited (Company Number 16455259) (“Virtus Legal Search”) is a legal search firm that headhunts potential employees for legal roles. Whilst undertaking and providing this service to candidates and employers/potential employers (collectively “you” or “your”), it is necessary for Virtus Legal Search to process personal information. Virtus Legal Search is committed to protecting and respecting the privacy of our candidates, clients and other users of our website and business and to this effect, we will ensure that the information you pass to Virtus Legal Search is only used for the purposes set out in our policy, in accordance with data protection legislation.
Information we collect and how we use it
We obtain information about you from public sources, such as law firm websites and LinkedIn, from you directly, or from third parties (including referees and former employers in the case of candidates). We only ask for and process information about you relevant to providing our services. This information includes, but is not limited to, your name, contact details (including personal email address in the case of candidates), your career history and other relevant information from your CV. Where permitted by law, we may also collect information in the case of candidates relating to your health (for example, disability information for reasonable work adjustment purposes), diversity information, including race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation and religion (for equal opportunity monitoring purposes) as well as details of any unspent criminal convictions.
Your information is held securely on our database and is used only for the purposes of performing a contract, complying with a legal obligation or legitimate business interests which may include some or all of the following:
to provide recruitment services to you (whether you are a candidate or client). This may include matching your details with job vacancies; to assist us in finding a position that meets your criteria within a relevant geographic location, and to send your personal information (that may include sensitive personal information, where you have explicitly consented to this) to clients.
to enhance, modify, personalise or otherwise improve our services for the benefit of candidates or clients.
to identify and prevent fraud.
to ensure that we do not contact you if you have requested us not to do so.
We may also send you direct marketing for the purposes of informing you about job opportunities, industry reports and insights, events, promotions and competitions, and other content in accordance with your marketing choices.
Virtus Legal Search protects your personal information by using data storage and security protections, including encryption. We require that our employees and providers of IT services protect your information. We delete any information Virtus Legal Search holds that is no longer relevant to providing its services.
Virtus Legal Search does not share personal data with anyone outside of the company without the explicit consent of the candidate or client, unless we are under a legal obligation to do so. Information will only be shared internally to enable us to provide the appropriate level of service to candidates and clients in pursuance of legitimate business interests.
For the avoidance of doubt, we always obtain explicit consent from a candidate before sending your CV or any other form of application, as appropriate, to a potential employer.
Your rights
In line with applicable data protection legislation, you have the right at any time to ask to see all the information Virtus Legal Search holds on you. You may also ask to have this data deleted from our system at any time although if you do not want us to contact you anymore, we will keep your name together with a note that you do not wish to be contacted.
If, your information was to be lost or accessed by a third party from our systems, Virtus Legal Search will immediately take steps to comply with its legal obligations under applicable data protection legislation which may include reporting the breach to the Information Commissioners Office and informing the individual to whom the information relates.
If you have any queries about this policy or wish to access the information, we hold on you, please contact Nick Smetana on nicksmetana@virtuslegalsearch.com.
If for any reason you are not happy with the way in which Virtus Legal Search has handled your information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office. See www.ico.org.uk.
We may change this privacy policy at any time. If we do so, we will post updates on this site.
Last updated: 02 June 2025