Website terms and conditions

1. In these terms and conditions:

"the Society" means The Law Society of Scotland, Atria One, 144 Morrison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EX and "we", "us" and "our" shall refer to the Society;

"Solicitors' area" means the section of the website reserved for use by enrolled Scottish solicitors and LSS staff, and set aside for the secure dissemination of information relating to professional legal practice;

"Special area" means any of the Solicitors' area or the students' area or any other sections of the website reserved by the Society for use by particular categories of user;

"Students' area" means the section of the website reserved for use by students studying for the Society's examinations, and trainee Scottish solicitors and set aside for the secure dissemination of information relating to the teaching, examination and training processes for prospective Scottish solicitors;

"Website information" means any data, images, text or other material displayed on the website; and

"you" means any person who has viewed, downloaded, used or otherwise accessed the website and/or website Information and includes (but is not limited to) any person who has been granted access to a special area, and "your" shall refer to you.

2. The website is operated and maintained by the Society.

The Society may be contacted at:

The Law Society of Scotland
Atria One,
144 Morrison Street,
Edinburgh
EH3 8EX

Telephone: +44 (0) 131 226 7411
Textphone: +44 (0) 131 476 8359
Fax: (Gp 2 & 3) +44 (0) 131 225 2934
Email: lawscot@lawscot.org.uk

Our VAT number is GB300700822

3. These are the terms and conditions for the use of the website. By viewing, downloading, using or otherwise accessing any part of the website and/or website information, you are deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions in full without modification or amendment. These terms and conditions will form a legally binding contract between you and us. If you do not accept these terms and conditions in full without modification or amendment, you must leave the website immediately and you may not make use of any of the website Information or services we provide through it.

4. We reserve the discretion to amend these terms and conditions from time to time, in each case with effect from the date on which the amendment is posted on the website. You should check the website from time to time to review the then-current terms and conditions. If you continue to use the website, you will be deemed to have accepted the changes to the terms and conditions. Some of these terms and conditions may be augmented by expressly designated legal notices or terms posted by us on the website.

5. You agree that we shall at all times have the discretion to decide whether or not to grant you access to the website or any special area. We reserve the right from time to time to alter or limit the categories of website information which you may access and view using the website or any special area. You agree that we may in our discretion alter, modify, add to or delete any website Information from time to time, without having to give you prior notice.

6. Nothing contained on the website or in any special area is intended to constitute specific legal advice or other advice on which reliance should be placed. The website and special areas are for general guidance only, and we shall not be held liable for any action taken (or any failure to act) in reliance upon the contents of the website or any special area. You should always seek specific advice on any individual matter, from a suitably qualified solicitor. To identify a suitably qualified solicitor, please use the search facility on the website.

7. The advice and guidance contained or referred to in the website (including but not limited to the answers to the frequently asked questions in the solicitors' area) are generic, and may not apply in every case. The precise circumstances of individual cases may differ, as may the correct course of action to take in such circumstances. Accordingly, if you intend in any way to rely upon that advice or guidance, we strongly recommend that you write to the Society setting out those circumstances in full and seeking specific advice applicable to those specific circumstances.

8. The Society reserves the right in its discretion to rely on the provisions of the Solicitors (Scotland) Act 1980 Schedule I paragraph 11A (as inserted by the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1990 Schedule 8 paragraph 29(16)), which states:- "Exemption from liability for damages: 11a. Neither the Society nor any of its officers or servants shall be liable in damages for anything done or omitted in the discharge or purported discharge of its functions unless the act or omission is shown to have been in bad faith."

The views expressed in the Journal of the Law Society of Scotland are those of invited contributors and not necessarily those of the Law Society of Scotland. Where we share an article written by another party we do not ordinarily include links to external websites. This policy came into effect in December 2022 and therefore some older articles may still have website links. Where this is the case, The Law Society of Scotland is not endorsing any content on that website link.

The Law Society of Scotland does not endorse any goods or services advertised, nor any claims or representations made in any advertisement, in the Journal and accepts no liability to any person for loss or damage suffered as a consequence of their responding to, or placing reliance upon any claim or representation made in, any advertisement appearing in the Journal.

9. You warrant to us that when using the website or otherwise you will not:-

• copy, alter or delete any of its content except to the extent permitted by these terms and conditions
• introduce any computer viruses, macro viruses, trojan horses, logic bombs, worms or anything else designed to interfere with, interrupt or disrupt the normal operating procedures of a computer or to surreptitiously intercept, access without authority or expropriate any system, data or personal information; or
• attack the website via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack; or
• attempt to copy, modify, download or access any special area (or website information held in any special area) unless you are properly authorised by us to do so; or
• disclose to any other person any confidential or proprietary information obtained from the website unless required to do so by law or with our prior consent; or
• cause the website to be interrupted, damaged, rendered less efficient or such that the effectiveness or functionality of the website is in any way impaired.

10. You agree that we shall be entitled to make all reasonable enquiries to verify your identity prior to accepting your application to access any special area. If we are not happy with the information you provide, or if you do not provide all the information we ask for, we reserve the right not to grant you access to that special area.

11. If we accept your application to access a special area, we shall send you a user name and password or other appropriate security advice for use to access that special area. You agree to keep your user name and password or other appropriate security advice secret and not to disclose or give it to any other person unless with our express prior consent. You agree to indemnify us for any loss, injury, damage costs or expenses arising directly or indirectly from any disclosure by you or unauthorised use of your user name and password or other appropriate security advice.

12. The website information, images, graphics, text, software, applets and scripts owned by us and operating the website are either owned by the Society, or used by us with the permission of their respective owners or as permitted by law. Where practicable, we acknowledge the owners of all trade marks which are referred to in the website. Reference to a trade mark owned by a third party does not constitute any claim by us to own that trade mark or that we have rights in it.

13. You may view, print and download our website Information in a web browser for your own personal use only. Copying website information into a computer cache or storage device for private on or off-line browsing purposes is also permitted. You may not publish, make a copy of, incorporate into any other website, or electronic information storage or retrieval system or reproduce the website information or any part of it for any purpose other than your own personal use without prior written consent, which may be granted at our discretion. Where we do not own the copyright or other intellectual property rights in the website Information, you must approach the owner(s) for such consent. Nothing in these terms and conditions or on the website constitutes a licence to use or copy the website Information except as expressly provided for in these terms and conditions.

14. You may not use any material, electronic method or any type of process which collects, disseminates, removes or scrapes information or material from the website for commercial purposes including without limitation screen aggregators, robots, spiders and scrapers or any other automated means. If you breach any of the terms in these terms and conditions, your permission to use the website automatically terminates and you must immediately destroy any downloaded or printed extracts from the website.

15. Any rights not expressly granted in these terms and conditions are reserved to the Society.

16. In the event you obtain access to details of another user of the website, you may only use such information in accordance with all prevailing data protection and privacy laws. Such information must not be used for spam or unsolicited commercial communications.

17. You are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from the website any material:

· that is threatening, defamatory, obscene, indecent, seditious, offensive, pornographic, abusive, liable to incite racial or religious hatred, discriminatory, menacing, scandalous, inflammatory, blasphemous, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy or which may cause annoyance or inconvenience; or

• for which you have not obtained all necessary licences and/or approvals; or
• which constitutes or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise be contrary to the law of or infringe the rights of any third party, in the UK or any other country in the world; or
• which is technically harmful or causes the website to be technically interrupted or rendered less efficient or such that the effectiveness or functionality of the website is in any way impaired (including, without limitation, computer viruses, logic bombs, trojan horses, worms, harmful components, corrupted data or other malicious software or harmful data, robots, spiders, scrapers or other automated means to access the website without the Society's express written permission).

18. Please see our privacy policy for full details of the information we collect from you as part of your use of the website. By accepting these terms and conditions, you also agree to accept the terms of our privacy policy.

20. If you would like to link to this website, you may only do so if you first obtain our express permission. Please e-mail the Society stating the URL details to which you wish to link and the URL of the page on which you will be displaying the link. We may in our discretion refuse consent, or grant consent subject to conditions. These conditions may include (but need not be limited to) the following:

• you do not remove, distort or otherwise alter the size or appearance of the Society's logo or name;
• you do not create a frame or any other browser or border environment around the website;
• you do not in any way imply that the Society is endorsing any products or services other than its own;
• you do not misrepresent your relationship with the Society nor present any other false information about the Society, its officers, office-bearers or members;
• you do not otherwise use any of the Society's trade marks displayed on the website without express written permission from the Society;
• you do not otherwise use any trade marks not owned by the Society displayed on the website without express written permission from the proprietor of those trade marks;
• you do not link from a website that is not owned by you; and
• your website does not contain content that is distasteful, offensive or controversial, infringes any intellectual property rights or other rights of any other person or that does not comply with condition 16 above and all other applicable laws and regulations.

21. We expressly reserve the right to revoke at any time any permission granted to link to the website, and to take any consequent action we deem appropriate. You agree to indemnify us for any loss, injury, damage, costs or expenses arising directly or indirectly from your failure to adhere strictly to the terms of any permission granted to link to the website.

22. The website Information is provided "as is" and we make no representation, endorsement or warranty as to its accuracy, completeness or fitness for any particular purpose. We will not be liable for any action taken (or not taken) in reliance upon the website Information and such action is taken entirely at your own risk. We reserve the right to make changes to the website Information to correct any errors or omissions (or for other reasons at our discretion) without notice and without liability to you.

23. Opinions expressed within the website Information are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent our opinions. In the unlikely event that you find any inaccurate information on our website or have any complaint about what we have published please e-mail the Society. We will investigate on receipt and take such action which we, in our sole discretion, determine as being appropriate having regard to all the circumstances.

24. We have no control over the Internet, which is a global public network of computers and the method by which you access the website. As a consequence we take no responsibility for service interruption or the transmission of viruses or other malicious computer code through the website.

25. We require to carry out routine maintenance on our servers and equipment. While we seek to keep disruption to a minimum, we do not guarantee that any part of the website will be available for access at any particular time or times. Access to the website may be suspended temporarily and without notice in the case of system failure, maintenance or repair or for reasons beyond the Society's control.

26. Nothing in this agreement shall limit or exclude our liability for fraudulent misrepresentation, or for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence or the negligence of our agents or employees. Subject to the foregoing, we will not be liable for any economic losses (including, without limitation, loss of revenues, profits, contracts, business or anticipated savings), any loss of goodwill or reputation, or any special, indirect or consequential damages (however arising, including negligence) arising out of or in connection with your use of our website or your use of the client area. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of incidental or consequential damages, so the above exclusion may not apply to you. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability to you in contract, delict or negligence (other than negligence by us which gives rise to personal injury or death.)

27. We also exclude liability of any sort (including liability for negligence) for the acts or omissions of providers of telecommunications services through which you might access the website or for faults in or failures of their networks and equipment.

28. By using the website and/or website information, you undertake to fully indemnify us (and keep us fully indemnified) in respect of all liabilities, losses, costs, damages, expenses or other claims suffered or incurred by us which arise from your use of the website and/or website information, or arising from your breach of any of these terms and conditions.

29. If we fail to exercise or delay in exercising any right or remedy provided under these terms and conditions or by law, that will not constitute a waiver of our rights or remedy nor shall it prevent us from exercising that right or remedy in whole or in part in the future.

30. Unless specifically provided otherwise, rights arising under these terms and conditions are cumulative and do not exclude rights provided by law.

31. These terms and conditions and the documents referred to in it are between and for the benefit of you and us (and our successors and assignees) and are not intended to benefit or be enforceable by anyone else.

32. If any provision of these terms and conditions (or part of a paragraph or provision) is found by any court or administrative body of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal, the other provisions shall remain in force.

33. If any invalid, unenforceable or illegal provisions would be valid, enforceable or legal if some part of them or it were deleted, the provision shall apply with whatever modification is necessary to give effect to the original intention of these terms and conditions.

34. References to any statute or statutory provision in these terms and conditions shall, unless the context otherwise requires, be construed as a reference to that statute or statutory provision as from time to time amended, consolidated, modified, extended, re-enacted or replaced.

35. In these terms and conditions, references to one gender include the other genders, and to the singular include the plural and vice versa.

36. Headings will not affect the interpretation of these terms and conditions.

37. These terms and conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with Scots law. Disputes arising in connection with these terms and conditions shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Scottish courts.

38. Contracts for the supply of goods or services formed through the website or as a result of visits to the website made by you are governed by specific terms and conditions of supply.

39. Online payments are made using WorldPay which is part of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

40. All sensitive card account details are transmitted direct to WorldPay, not to us. The Society does not store any card account details, payments or correspondence.