Privacy Policy
A&O Shearman values your privacy and cares about the way in which your personal information is treated.
This Privacy Policy describes A&O Shearman’s privacy practices in relation to the Alumni Network website or such other address as may apply from time to time. The Alumni Network is a website where current and former partners, employees and other alumni of A&O Shearman have access to member benefits, such as alumni news, events, programs and other information about the A&O Shearman global community. In addition to our Privacy Policy, your use of the Alumni Network website is subject to the Alumni Network’s Terms of Use.
This Privacy Policy describes:
1. what personal information we collect about you
2. how we obtain your personal information
3. where you can find information about how we use cookies and analytics
4. how and on what basis we use your personal information
5. communications we may send you
6. how we use personal information to organize and host meetings, events and seminars
7. how long we keep your personal information
8. who we share your personal information with
9. how we protect your personal information
10. which countries we transfer your personal information to
11. your rights regarding your personal information
12. who are the data controllers
13. changes to our Privacy Policy
14. who to contact with questions or concerns
A&O Shearman refers to Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP, its subsidiaries and the other partnerships, corporations, undertakings and entities which are authorized to practice using a name which includes ‘Allen Overy Shearman Sterling’ or ‘A&O Shearman’. See the section entitled ‘Who are the data controllers’ below for more information on the entities that control and process personal data in A&O Shearman.
1. What personal information do we collect about you?
In this Privacy Policy where we use the term personal information, we use this term to describe information that is about you and which identifies you. We collect personal information from you during the course of your use of the Alumni Network website and member benefits, as described in this Privacy Policy.
The personal information that we process includes:
• Basic information about you, such as your name (including name prefix or title), the company you work for, and your title or position
• Contact information, such as your postal address, email address and phone number(s)
• Career and biographical information, such as your start and (if applicable) end dates, position held, department and office at A&O Shearman, Allen & Overy or Shearman & Sterling, other employment and education information, as well as information about your outside interests and activities
• Technical information to the extent that it constitutes personal information, including your IP address and other online identifiers, and information about your access to and use of the Alumni Network (such as your access dates/times, what areas of the website you have visited and the materials that you have viewed or downloaded)
• Information you provide to us for the purposes of attending meetings and events, including access and dietary requirements
• Information you provide to us to participate in our programs (such as if you participate in the A&O Shearman Mentoring Program) and information you provide to us to publish in our materials (such as if you provide a photo for the Alumni Yearbook)
• Any other information relating to you (or other individuals) which you may provide to us, or which is otherwise provided to us or generated by us in the course of providing the Alumni Network website
If you apply for a career opportunity with us, we will also collect the following information:
• Employment and education information, such as education/academic history, CV, place of study, subject of study, years of study, records of qualifications and/or training, results, extracurricular and club activities, language skills, personal statements, answers to questions relevant for the role you have applied for, and referees
• Information on immigration status and work authorization
• Health-related information, as permitted or required by applicable law, for instance where we need to know this information to make adjustments to our recruitment processes
• Diversity information, as permitted by applicable law, including in relation to disabilities, ethnicity, sexuality, religion and social background
The diversity information collected and processed in your jurisdiction will depend on applicable local laws. Except where the diversity information is required to comply with a legal obligation of A&O Shearman, which will be made clear at the point of collection, it will only be collected and processed with your prior consent. For more information on diversity information collected in your jurisdiction, please see the section entitled ‘who to contact with questions or concerns’ below.
Before providing us with personal information about another individual you must (unless otherwise agreed) have the appropriate and necessary permissions to share such personal information with us for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and any other applicable privacy notices.
If we do not collect, or you do not provide, your personal information to us, we may not be able to provide our Alumni Network website or member benefits. You will not be able to apply for a career opportunity with us if you do not provide us with your personal information.
2. How we obtain your personal information
• We collect information from you or about you as part of your registration or activation of an account on the Alumni Network website
• We collect information from you in the course of your use of the Alumni Network website
• We collect information from you when you participate in the Alumni Network member benefits
• We collect information about you while monitoring the Alumni Network website and email communications sent to and from A&O Shearman
• We collect information from you when you apply for a career opportunity with us
• We gather information about you when you provide information to us, or interact with us directly, for instance engaging with our staff or registering to attend one of our events
We may collect or receive information about you from third party sources. For example, we may use publicly available sources to keep the contact details we hold for you accurate and up to date or we may collect information about you from a referee if you apply for a career opportunity with us.
3. How we use analytics and cookies
We use cookies on the Alumni Network website. To learn more about the cookies we use and how to disable them, please view our cookie policy.
Please also see the section entitled ‘Communications we may send you’ below.
4. How we use your personal information and on what basis we use your personal information
A&O Shearman collects and processes personal information about you in a number of ways, including through your use of our website and in the provision of services by us. We have set out below the principal purposes and the legal basis (as set out in data protection law) that we rely on to justify this use of your personal information.
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Purpose |
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Legal Basis |
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To provide the Alumni Network website and member benefits to you and to other members |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) and, depending on the circumstances, to perform a contract between you and us |
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To create, verify and administer your account |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) and, depending on the circumstances, to perform a contract between you and us |
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To audit and monitor the use of the Alumni Network website and member benefits |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits, as well as to improve and ensure the security of the website) We may request your consent in circumstances where a legal justification over and above legitimate interests is required by applicable law (i.e., in relation to our use of certain cookies) |
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To provide you with Alumni Network communications, such as alumni news, information and news about A&O Shearman, and invitations to events |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) We may request your consent in circumstances where a legal justification over and above legitimate interests is required by applicable law |
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For recruitment purposes if you apply for a career opportunity with us (including to process and assess your application and consider your suitability for a career opportunity) |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., to assess and consider your application for a career with us) and, depending on the circumstances, to take steps prior to entering into an employment contract between you and us We may request your consent in circumstances where a legal justification over and above legitimate interests is required by applicable law, such as where required to process diversity information |
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To notify you about changes to the Alumni Network website and member benefits |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) |
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To improve the Alumni Network website and member benefits |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) |
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To provide information about our users and related usage information to third parties providing support for the Alumni Network website and member benefits |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits) |
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To manage and administer our relationship with you and our clients |
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For our legitimate business purposes (i.e., the provision of the Alumni Network website and member benefits, and ensuring strong relationships with our clients) |
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To fulfill our legal, regulatory and risk management obligations, including establishing, exercising or defending legal claims |
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For our legitimate business purposes and for compliance with legal obligations to which we are subject |
5. Communications we may send you
From time to time, we, or third parties acting on our behalf, will send you information about A&O Shearman and the Alumni Network, including newsletters, invitations to events and opportunities. If you do not wish to receive this information, or if you are already receiving this information from us or third parties acting on our behalf and you no longer wish to do so, please email us at thealumniteam@aoshearman.com. You may also manage your communication preferences through your Alumni Network settings.
To ensure that we provide content that is of interest, we use technology in our marketing emails and on the Alumni Network website that logs whether you click on the links in our emails and, if you follow a link to the Alumni Network website, the time and date you access the website and how long you spend on it. If you would prefer that we don’t record this information, please don’t click on the links.
6. Meetings, events and seminars
We will collect and process personal information about you in relation to your attendance at our offices or at an event or seminar organized by A&O Shearman or its business partners. We may share your information with IT and other service providers or business partners involved in organizing or hosting the relevant event.
Where you provide us with information about your dietary or access requirements in connection with your attendance at our offices or at an event or seminar, we will only use that information in order to cater for your needs and to meet any other legal or regulatory obligations we may have.
7. How long we keep your personal information
Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our global data retention policy, which categorizes all of the information held by A&O Shearman and specifies the appropriate retention period for each category of data. Those periods are based on the requirements of applicable data protection laws and the purpose for which the information is collected and used, taking into account legal and regulatory requirements to retain the information for a minimum period, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and A&O Shearman’s business purposes.
8. Who we share your personal information with
We are an international law firm and any information that you provide to us may be shared with and processed by any entity in the worldwide network of A&O Shearman and our associated firms. You can see a list of our offices by clicking here.
The Alumni Network website is powered by PeoplePath. Our recruitment system, Kenexa, is powered by our service provider Infinite Talent. Infinite Talent’s servers will process personal data on behalf of A&O Shearman in the course of providing software and support for our recruitment system.
We also share your personal information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with contractual arrangements in place with them, including:
• Our professional advisers and auditors
• IT and other service providers to A&O Shearman
• Third parties involved in hosting or organizing events
Where necessary, or for the reasons set out in this policy, personal information may also be shared with regulatory authorities, courts, tribunals, government agencies and law enforcement agencies. While it is unlikely, we may be required to disclose your information to comply with legal or regulatory requirements. We will use reasonable endeavors to notify you before we do this, unless we are legally restricted from doing so.
If in the future we re-organize or transfer all or part of our business, we may need to transfer your information to new A&O Shearman entities or to third parties through which the business of A&O Shearman will be carried out.
A&O Shearman may use social media sites such as Instagram and LinkedIn. If you use these services, you should review their Privacy Policies for more information on how they deal with your personal information.
We do not sell or rent personal information or otherwise share it with a third party in return for monetary compensation, except with your prior permission.
9. How we protect your personal information
We use a variety of technical and organizational measures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction consistent with applicable data protection laws.
A&O Shearman’s document management and email systems are certified to the internationally recognized ISO/IEC 27001 security standard. This is an independently verified certification that information security is managed in line with international best practice.
When we engage a third-party service provider to collect or otherwise process personal information on our behalf, the third party is selected carefully and will be required to have appropriate security measures in place.
If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any personal information you might have sent to us has been compromised), please immediately notify us (see section below entitled ‘Who to contact with questions or concerns’).
10. Which countries we transfer your personal information to
In order to provide our services we may need to transfer your personal information to locations outside the jurisdiction in which you provide it or where you are viewing this website for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. This may entail a transfer of your information from a location within the European Economic Area (the “EEA”) to outside the EEA, or from outside the EEA to a location within the EEA. Please see ‘Who we share your personal information with’ for more detail on how the information may be shared with A&O Shearman offices and third-party service providers.
The level of information protection in countries outside the EEA may be less than that offered within the EEA. Where this is the case, we will implement appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information remains protected and secure in accordance with applicable data protection laws. EU standard contractual clauses (as contemplated by Article 46(2) of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation) are in place between all A&O Shearman entities that share and process personal data. Where our third-party service providers process personal data outside the EEA in the course of providing services to us, our written agreement with them will include appropriate measures, usually standard contractual clauses.
Please contact us using the details at the end of this Privacy Policy if you would like to see a copy of the safeguards applied to the export of your personal information.
Please also note that the Alumni Network has members in jurisdictions across the globe. The personal information in your profile will be visible to other members of the Alumni Network regardless of their location.
11. Your rights regarding your personal information
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and other applicable data protection laws provide certain rights for data subjects.
You are entitled to request a copy of the information we hold about you and information about how we process it. You may also have a right in accordance with applicable data protection law to have your personal information rectified or deleted, to restrict or suspend our processing of that information, to object to our processing of your information and, in some circumstances, to request receipt or transmission to another organization, in a machine-readable form, of personal information relating to you that you have provided to us. Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint in relation to A&O Shearman’s processing of your personal information with a local supervisory authority.
If you object to the processing of your personal information, or if you have provided your consent to processing and you later choose to withdraw it, we will respect that choice in accordance with our legal obligations.
Your objection (or withdrawal of any previously given consent) could mean that we are unable to perform the actions necessary to achieve the purposes set out above (see section above entitled ‘How we use your personal information’) or that you may not be able to make use of the Alumni Network website or member benefits. Please note that even after you have chosen to withdraw your consent we may be able to continue to process your personal information to the extent required or otherwise permitted by law, in particular in connection with exercising and defending our legal rights or meeting our legal and regulatory obligations.
We must ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Therefore, please advise us of any changes to your information by emailing us at thealumniteam@aoshearman.com or calling us on +44 20 3088 1841/2479. You may also update your information on your Alumni Network profile by logging into the Alumni Network website and updating your profile.
Please note that when you first register or activate your account on the Alumni Network, we may use information that we already hold about you (such as your name, your last position and department held at A&O Shearman, Allen & Overy or Shearman & Sterling) to pre-populate some fields on your Alumni Network profile. You are entitled to remove or amend this information from your Alumni Network profile at any time by contacting us using the contact information above.
If you wish to cease to participate in the Alumni Network in its entirety, email us at thealumniteam@aoshearman.com.
12. Who are the data controllers
There are a number of entities through which A&O Shearman provides legal and other services. The identity of the relevant data controller will depend on the location where legal or other services are provided. Please click here for details of which A&O Shearman entity will be the data controller in each country and, where necessary having regard to local applicable data protection or privacy laws, a country-specific privacy notice.
In certain circumstances, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling LLP, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling US LLP or another A&O Shearman entity may also be a controller of your personal information, for example certain personal information processed using, or accessible via, global systems.
13. Changes to our Privacy Policy
Any changes we make to this Privacy Policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. The updated Privacy Policy will take effect as soon as it has been updated or otherwise communicated to you.
This Privacy Policy was last updated in May 2024.
14. Who to contact with questions or concerns
Account Questions: If you have questions about the Alumni Network website or member benefits or need additional assistance setting up an account or technical support with your account, please contact the A&O Shearman Alumni Network team at thealumniteam@aoshearman.com, or on +44 20 3088 1841/2479.
Privacy Questions/Complaints: If you need further information or have any questions or complaints about our Privacy Policy or practices, please contact:
Chief Privacy Officer
A&O Shearman
68 Donegall Quay
Belfast
Northern Ireland
BT1 3NL
Email: DataPrivacy@aoshearman.com