Subject Access Request (SAR) submitted to law firm

RocketRandall

Hello All,

I worked at a  law firm (Law firm A), was made redundant last year.  I submitted a SAR to (law firm A) for my employee/HR file, which should be sparse apart from the initial onboarding documents.

The SAR was requested 39 days ago, or 9 days overdue.

I chased (law firm A) by email when 31 days passed.  A few days later, my Solicitor and I received a letter from another law firm (law firm C) representing (law firm A).  They requested more time, apologised as there were 'absences' at both firms.

I chased (law firm A) today for an update and (law firm C) responded to my email informing me that all correspondence to (law firm A) is now going through them (law firm C).

My questions are:

1. Is it normal and standard practise for law firms to instruct another law firm to 'correspond' in relation to a SAR?

2. Am I within my legal rights to chase (law firm A) directly as the SAR was submitted to (law firm A) by me.  They were my former employer and hold my data.   (law firm C) did not employ me nor held my data?

I have not filed a claim nor am I in litigation or legal proceedings with (law firm A).

Thank you for your advice!

Hoenir

Has Firm A been absorbed by Firm B. The fact you were redundant suggests  Firm A was in financial distress of some kind. 

Grumpy_chap

RocketRandall said:

Hello All,

I worked at a  law firm (Law firm A), was made redundant last year.  I submitted a SAR to (law firm A) for my employee/HR file, which should be sparse apart from the initial onboarding documents.

The SAR was requested 39 days ago, or 9 days overdue.

I chased (law firm A) by email when 31 days passed.  A few days later, my Solicitor and I received a letter from another law firm (law firm b) representing (law firm A).  They requested more time, apologised as there were 'absences' at both firms.

I chased (law firm A) today for an update and (law firm responded to my email informing me that all correspondence to (law firm A) is now going through them(law firm .

My questions are:

1. Is it normal and standard practise for law firms to instruct another law firm to 'correspond' in relation to a SAR?

2. Am I within my legal rights to chase (law firm A) directly as the SAR was submitted to (law firm A) by me.  They were my former employer and hold my data.   (law firm did not employ me nor held my data?

I have not filed a claim nor am I in litigation or legal proceedings with (law firm A).

Thank you for your advice!

Maybe Law Firm A are being cautious and engaging Law Firm B so that the interests of Law Firm A are protected and can be represented in the event of litigation or legal proceedings being initiated.
Law Firm A may consider even the simple fact of your raising the SAR as an indication that some legal action could be coming along the track.

Did you have a Settlement Agreement connected with the redundancy?

RocketRandall

There was no settlement agreement. 

This Post and thread sets out the initial redundancy, new employment and immediate termination.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6501016/bad-negative-employment-reference-from-previous-employer-leading-to-termination-of-current-employer#latest

RocketRandall

@Hoener, (Firm A) has instructed (Firm C) to handle and correspond to my SAR to (Firm A), my former employer who hold my data.   

RocketRandall

Apologies, I changed Law Firm B to C as it was displaying happy face emoji

Dakta

Interesting that if all communication has to go through them (including I presume issuance of this information) that the original company is effectively forcing you to pass your data through a third party in order to excercise your legal right of access.

I wouldn't be surprised if they got a legal company involved for ADVICE on how to handle the matter, but it sounds very fussy and overly involved for the simple act of requesting your information that you're entitled to.

Me being obstinate me is I'd probably be awkward, remind the company I previously worked for that I was communicating with them for data I legally have rights to access to, iterate they can contact who they want for their own knowledge on how to handle it, but my request is to them only and would they please fulfill it or explain why they were not. I would not get involved with the other law company (but this isn't legla advice) it's just simply none of their business as far as I'm concerned in the context of simply excercising a perfectly lawful data access request. So I'd just focus on the first company and simply identify if they are going to process the request or not.

In the past the ICO have been very helpful to me - I would suggest contacting them perhaps and getting their take on it. 

Marcon

RocketRandall said:

There was no settlement agreement. 

This Post and thread sets out the initial redundancy, new employment and immediate termination.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6501016/bad-negative-employment-reference-from-previous-employer-leading-to-termination-of-current-employer#latest

In that post you said you'd taken advice from an employment lawyer, and that's probably the sensible thing to do now.

RocketRandall

I will be submitting a complaint to the ICO as I have had to constantly chase firm A for a response and provided constant delays and fobbed off with lame excuses.